Weekly Update

The ELA (reading/writing) portion of MCAS is over. Yay! The students worked hard all three days. I am proud of the students for doing their personal best and working so hard. We will take the math and science portion of MCAS in May. Until then, we will go back to the important business of learning.

In science/social studies the students worked in groups to complete an engineering design challenge. In social studies we learned that one of the challenges for the pioneers heading west was the spread of disease, and one of the way that disease was spread was through contaminated water.  For this challenge the students had to pretend they were pioneers heading west and their problem was how to filter the water to make it safe to drink. After seeing what materials were available to them the students planned the water filtration system. The next step was to build their water filter. The students' tested their water filter by pouring dirty water through it and seeing how much of the contaminates were removed. After testing their filter once, students made changes and improvements and tested it a second time. When they were done students reflected on the process. It was a great activity and the students loved seeing how well their filter worked.

In math we continued with our unit on multiplying and dividing fractions. Students learned how to divide a whole number a fraction and how to divide a fraction by a whole number. Students were surprised to learn that when you divide a whole number by a fraction the answer is bigger then the number you started with.

Have a great Sunday! It looks like it is going to be a gorgeous day!