A Big Project

Working in the school library to find
research sources.

 You may think that the last six weeks of school will be easy.

You would be wrong!

In our class we have three big projects! We have to prepare our final presentation. We have to read a non-fiction book. We also have to write a 5 to 8 page research paper!

Searching in the "stacks"

On Wednesday, we did library research for our paper. Itancan is researching the history of computer gaming. Elijah is researching the history of crypto-currency. 

We put our sources on index cards that have a color on them. We put our notes on white index cards. We put the number of the source on it too. When we get to writing, we will be able to do citations.

Yay! Found some sources!

Elijah's topic has no books. So, he started to look at the articles on the state library website. He will have to find some good sources on the internet.

Itancan's topic had a few books in our library, so he checked out two to use in the classroom as he takes notes.

Tre's topic is the evolution of dinosaurs into birds. Michael's is the warrior society called Dog Soldiers. Elijah's paper will be about Monero, a type of cryptocurrency. Itancan will write a research paper about computer games.

Ratios and Proportions Card Game

A professional card dealer?

The day before vacation we finished our ratios and proportions videos. We had a choice to do Khan Academy or learn a card game for making equivalent ratios. We picked the card game.






Elijah was really skilled at shuffling the cards. He taught Itancan how to do it. It is harder than it looks!

Setting up the papers.

To play you have to remove the picture cards. Then you deal four cards to each player. You can look at your cards.


You have to try to make two equivalent ratios on your paper. You have to pick a card and discard a card at your turn.

Dealing a round of cards.

This was a challenging game because you sometimes just got rid of the card you needed.

It was important to be patient as each player thought through whether it was an equivalent ratio or not.

Here is a winning round. 
1/4 = 2/8

Or, since it is ratios, you could also say:

1 to 4 and 2 to 8 are equal.
OR
1:4 and 2:8 are equal.

Watch out! Math can actually be FUN!

Surface Area: How much paint do I need to paint a garage?

We did not have a garage. So, we used our tissue box! You have to find the area of each surface. 

We measured L and W (length and width) and put the measurements on a sticky note.

Then we calculated the area (A=LxW) of each surface and wrote that on each sticky note. 

Then we added them all up.

We noticed that the shape of the box (and of the garage) was a rectangular prism so the right and left sides were the same area. The top and bottom were the same. The left and the right were the same.

Nyton used centimeters to calculate. So his answer was in square centimeters.

Hoksina wanted to use the tape measure, so  he had to calculate in inches. His answers were in square inches.

That was tricky because of the fractions!

When you buy paint to paint a real garage, you need to find the total surface area. 

You read the paint can to see how much it covers. It might be in square feet not inches, so it is tricky.

Then you make sure you buy a little more paint because then you can repaint the scratches if someone scrapes the wall with their pickup truck. For this garage, three gallons should do it!

Students Complete Hand-On-Banking Course

 It all started with getting a checkbook and becoming part of the program's "Earn and Learn" project.

By Spring break, Itancan  and Tre had both completed the money management course called "Hands On Banking for Teens." They both earned a certificate!

"Hands on Banking" is a free course from Wells Fargo. There is also a course for Seniors, Military, Adults, Young Adults, and Kids. They are all free. Anyone can take the courses. Go to this on the internet: https://handsonbanking.org 

The Teen level course focused on savings and checking accounts, budgeting, and the basics of investing. We learned about:

• Savings Accounts
• Certificates of Deposit (CDs)
• Money Market Accounts
• the Stock Market and Mutual Funds

We also learned a lot about budgeting. We already knew about needs versus wants. We already could make our own budget for saving for something in the future. The course added some other things like discretionary spending and fixed spending. 

The section about Credit taught us to be sure we are not just paying the "minimum amount" if we use a credit card. We also learned the "72 Rule" for finding out how long it would take to pay back a loan or credit card at a certain rate. It can get expensive! But sometimes you do need a loan or even a mortgage (that is a loan to buy a house) because you have a good job but cannot save it all up beforehand.

We really liked the section about investing, even though you really should not invest in the stock market unless you have a lot of discretionary funds laying around. That is because of the risk. That means you could get more money or you could also lose your money. So you have to cover your needs first.

Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens

We started one of our Q4 projects. We are reading a non-fiction book called "Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens."

It is by Sean Covey. 

It tells about seven things that young adults can learn to do to make their paradigms stronger. 

A paradigm (say "Para-dime") is like how you see and understand the world.

We are doing this book like you do books in college. We have an assignment to read. There is a learning packet to help find the important information. We have to work independently (outside of class) a lot. This is new for us. It is harder than it looks.

Then in class we get to talk about what we read. We have a discussion. We can share our thoughts on it and also ask about things to clarify.

This project is going to help us get ready for adult life because:
1. it is practice for college (the process of reading and discussing) and 
2. because of the stuff we get to learn (the content of the book.)

Quarter 3 Ends with a Self Evaluation

Friday was the end of the third quarter. We have about 8 weeks of school left before summer.

We do a self evaluation each quarter. First we have to think about our own performance in the quarter. We have to think about how we did with our ten Workplace Expectations. We also have to count how many days we were present compared to the total amount of days in the quarter. We make a fraction:

Days Present

____________

Total Days

Then you divide and get a number like .89. That means 89% of the days you were here. That is pretty good. But our range was from 44% to 100%. 

Then we have to write down how our attendance helped or hurt our learning.

We also  have to give ourselves a grade: A, B,C,D,F and tell two things that need to happen to improve our learning.

The best part (but also the hardest part) was to write down three things we worked on this quarter that we feel will be helpful in our adult life. We also had to write down what the most important thing we learned when we did financial (money) math. Here is our list (combining all the classes- there were a bunch that got listed more than one time.)

• Learning about how we are intelligent. Learning about intelligence.
• Mean, Median, Mode, Range
• How to memorize things.
• Social Security Numbers, Date of Birth, and applications.
• Types of jobs and PT, FT, OT
• Checkbooks
• Geometry- polygons, area, volume
• How to do a formula. how to "plug in" numbers
• Multiplication
• Emergency funds
• Bills and utilities
• Budgeting
• What is a felony?
• Immigrants
• Scholarships
• How to pay bills and work with money
• MobyMax Math
• Flashcards
• "CAVIES" and "SIP" (reading strategies)
• How to keep a job
• "Earn and Learn"
• Word Wall
• Saving and spending money

We had to write down "What is one thing you hope we get to do or work on in Q4?" We said:

• More multiplication
• Credit cards and debit cards
• Driving
• Quizlet
• Drive Mr. Fisher's Bobcat tractor
• More MobyMax math
• More checking and savings
• Go outside for class
• Pizza

We also had to tell Sister Patrice "one thing she should think about improving in her teaching." Here are some of our answers:

• Less "putting your foot down" (be less firm with expectations and rules)
• Give us free pizza (instead of having to work for it)
• I wouldn't want you to change anything.
• Be less strict with time if we are late from breaks.
• Nothing really.
• No more "Noise Violations" (from continued talking during instruction)
• Nothing.
• You are already doing a good job as is.
• You’re doing good on teaching and I wouldn’t change your teaching skills.
• You are doing great things in this class- Keep it up.

Notes and More Notes

Itancan taking Cornell Notes from an
article of personal interest.

When we go to college, we will need to take notes.

This week we learned how to take "Cornell Notes."

You have to find details that are important. 

They go on the right. 

Elijah found it helpful to type his
Cornell Notes and put his document
side-by-side on the computer screen.

Then you have to find main ideas for the details. They go on the left.

It is up to you if you want to use a Google Docs template on the computer to type your notes, or you can use paper and a pencil.

Everyone has their own preference, but the format is the same.

Tre elected to use "good ol'fashioned" pencil
and paper to take notes.

After you take down details and write main ideas, you have to write a short summary. This goes at the bottom of the page.

The summary is two or three sentences that answer the question, "In your own words, what did you learn?"

We also saw a couple of videos. Cornell Notes can help you study for a test, too.

Pie Day or Pi Day?

Mabel got pied.

Mr Gunn got pied too.

Pi Day isn't Pie Day but we had fun anyway. We raised money for a charity. We had to vote with our pennies and dimes for a teacher to "pie." 

Sister Patrice came in 5th place. She did not get "pied." Only first place (Mr. Gunn) and second place (Mabel) got "pied." A student got picked to throw the pie. It was in the gym. It was at 3:20. Then we got to go on the buses and go home.

What are our feet like?

First, we gathered the data.

Math is every place. But you have to understand what it means.

We are learning about using numbers.We are learning about:

• mean (average)
• median (middle)
• mode (most popular)
• range (distance between high and low.)

We did a short project. We used math to find out the answers to a question: What do we know about the size of our feet in this classroom?

First, we gathered our data. We measured our feet. We used centimeters.

Then we put it in a data table.

Second, we put our data into a data table. It was on the board.

Third, we reviewed how to find the mean. You add and divide for the mean.

Our data table tells us different things.

 The mean shoe length in our classroom was 28.7 cm. That is average (for us.) Centimeters uses decimals.

For the median we put the data in order. Then we found the middle number. It was 29. The median is 29 cm.

We saw two 29's in our list. That means the mode is also 29 cm. It is a popular shoe size.

Here is our work space.

Then we looked at the range of sizes. The biggest shoe was 30.5 cm. The smallest shoe was 27 cm. 

30.5-27= 3.5 
The range is 3.5 cm.

We had only a few "data points" in our "sample." So we cannot say things like "the average shoe is 28.7 cm." We can just say things like:

1.  The average shoe in our class this week was 28.7 cm.
2. The most common shoe length was 29 cm.
3. There is about 3 and a half cm range of shoe length from the biggest to the smallest.

Pi Day for Laughs

It's 3.14.2018.  That's Pi Day.

Do you get these?

And this one we dedicate to Jack and Gunn (mostly because almost nobody else is going to get it):

Mean?

We had to find the mean.
What does "mean" mean?
No, it does not mean mean as in grumpy!
It means "average."

We did a "Cherrios Challenge."
First, we had to estimate how many Cherrios we could get on a thin stick in 30 seconds. 

Then, we had to do four trials. (A trial means you try it.)

The timer was set for 30 seconds. We had to come up with strategies (a strategy is a plan for action).

We wrote down our data (numbers) in a data table on the board.

Before each trial we could change our estimate.

Our estimates got closer because we looked at our data.

We also did two team trials. We worked in pairs. We did the same thing. 

When we had all our data on the board, we used calculators.

We found the mean first. 

Then we found the median, mode and range.
Here is the rhyme we used:

In Math, "volume" does not mean how loud your music s...

It means how many cubic units fit inside a 3d shape... to fill it up. 

We used cubic centimeters.

There is a formula, too. Use the formula to go faster than putting all those cubes together and then counting!

Area of a rectangular prism =  B x H x L

That is the three D's!

Also, use a calculator so you can be accurate.

Journey to the Center of the Earth

It's a famous science fiction book, written way back in 1864 by author Jules Verne. It was written in French but has been translated into English.

Article about the book.

Copy of the book (English) on Project Gutenberg.


There are also several movies created from the original story.

But, here's the fun part.
It's also a very cool science website.

What would happen to a human who actually did journey to the center of the planet?