Mr. Hunt - Grade 6

We again switched gym and math to take advantage of the warmer air and dryer field later in the morning. In math, the grade 5's were set to begin questions on adding 3 numbers and were assigned questions on p. 17 #1 in their homework book and p. 39/40 #1, 3-5 in their textbook. Students that finished early were able to play an adding game with a partner that used number cubes. The grade 6's learned about prime and composite numbers for the first time. After their lesson, they worked on questions from the textbook.
For gym, the students practiced passing and shooting in soccer. We also worked on playing defense and putting pressure on the person with the ball.
We took up chapter 4 questions in language before discussing what a good newspaper article contains. They determined that articles have short, attention grabbing headings, the 5 "W's" (plus an "H") and quotes from participants. They then made their own article about a section of the class novel.
We tackled a few topics today during our unit of inquiry. We set up two experiments that we'll look at tomorrow. One involves trying to remove the air from water. The other is an attempt at making crystals on a pipe cleaner by submerging them in a solution of hot water and alum. Our topic for discussion today was why does ice float. More interestingly, how does a several ton cargo boat float. We tried several items to see what did float and what didn't. We managed to rule out several hypotheses with testing. Finally, Karlynn suggested we spread out the weight to help something float. We will continue with this line of thought tomorrow.