Update and Parent/Teacher Conferences

Hello All!
Today we finished up the presentations of the body systems. For the most part, they were pretty good. We still need to work on summarizing the information we gather before we put it in our wiki. The students kept copying and pasting things right from the internet. They are not allowed to do this. We talked about this so much before they got started because it is called plagiarism and will get them into serious trouble. We looked at the tool bar on the wiki and discovered that there is no spell check or grammar check button to hit, so they need to double and triple check their spelling and grammar, too. I think the next time we use the wikis, they will be so much more complete.

After these were completed, we began our look at the last system we need to cover. It is the reproductive system. This is a very touchy subject because some are afraid that it will end up being a sex education class, but let me assure you that it is not. The state of Ohio wants the 6th graders to look at this system as the reason why we continue to have all these different species on the planet. If there were no reproductive systems, then all life on this planet would stop. I am not the "how to" class, but the "why" class. We will go right into genetics from here. I feel that we had a very good class discussion today. I put on the board the things that the kids know. Some things were wrong, so I had the opportunity to make the information correct. My class makes next year's health class much easier.

I need to let all of you know that I will not be at school for conferences. I am having surgery on my arm Thursday and will be out until after Thanksgiving. I will be happy to meet with you after the holiday, if you would like to do so. My prep time is during 2nd period. The time of that period is 8:40-9:25. You can call me after we come back, during that time, and we can set up a day for you to come in. I can, also, talk to you through email. My email address is tphipps@minfordfalcons.net. I check it periodically throughout the day and try to reply that day, but may not get to until my prep the next day. I can do phone conferences, too, during that same 2nd period prep time. I am so sorry for this inconvenience, but I hope you understand. The students have watched me hold and rub my elbow for a long time now, and I have the chance to get it fixed permanently.

I hope everyone has a very wonderful Thanksgiving holiday!!! The students will be working on their big projects during class, while I am gone. They can bring in their backboards and get them all done, work on their reports, or work on their experiments and demonstrations. The computers will be there for them to use. Everything will be completed by Tuesday, November 30. Oral presentations will begin on Wednesday, December 1. Talk to you after the holiday. Try not to eat too much!!!! ha! ha!

Friday, November 12, 2010

Hello, Everyone!! Today was a busy day. We had our Veteran's Day assembly, so I did not get to see 6th or 7th periods. The students worked on their big projects today. These are due on Novembe 30th. We will be having the oral presentations over the body systems projects starting on Monday. I am reallly looking forward to those. Also today, we went over how to do the bibliography for their reports. I put the information on the Smart board, but I wanted to put it on here, too, so that you would have it and the students would have it at home. I am going to get them copies of it next week. Here is what I wrote for them. Pretty much all of their research came from the internet, so I showed them the reference for an interent article. They need to have these parts:

1. Author's name
2. Date of publication
3. Title of article
4. Retrieved month, day, year
5. URL address

I then wrote down an example for them, so they could see what one looked like. The example I gave them was this one:

Dove, R. (1998). Lady freedom among us. Retrieved June 19, 1998 from
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/.

I pointed out to them that they use the authors last name and first initial. The year of publication is put in parenthesis followed by a period. The letter of the first word in the title is the only one that is capitalized. The others are left in lower case. When they need to put the rest of the reference on a second or third line, then those lines are indented 5 spaces. I hope this helps you, if you decide to work on your bibliography this weekend. If you need anything else, please let me know. They will only have a few more days to work on their projects in school. They are allowed to bring backboards to school and work on them there, too. Oral presentations of these projects begin December 1. Have a great weekend, everyone!!!!

Update - November 9, 2010

Hello, Everyone!

We are about to finish up the body system projects. The wikis have been so much fun and I feel the students have learned from them. I am hoping to use them again for future assignments. We took down term #15 yesterday, so our quiz will be tomorrow over terms 11-15. You can see the whole list on the home page. Our big science projects are due on November 30. We have been working every Friday here at school. Anything else will have to be completed at home. Science fair entry forms are due on the 15th of November. That is this coming Monday. Oral presentations of these projects will begin December 1st and continue through the remainder of the week. I think I will allow the students to work on their projects in my room on Monday and Tuesday of Thanksgiving week and the following Monday. That will give them time to work in here with me, in case they have any questions.

Don't forget that students do not have school this Thursday because there is a teacher inservice day. They will get to sleep in, while we work on things to make school a better place for learning. Well, I think that is about all for this posting. I am looking forward to talking with you on our class blog.

Wednesday, November 3

Hello, everyone!

I am sorry that it has been so long since I have been on here. We have been very busy in our classroom and I have not had much time to take care of this blog. I wanted to bring you up to date on what we are doing. The students are putting their research into their class wiki. It took some doing, but I think we have everyone. They seem very excited to be using this new technology tool, instead of the old standard reports or drawing pictures or just printing off pictures. Now, here is some information that could be useful to those students who want to work at home. There is a problem, though. In order to get to the new information, you will have to go to the upper right-hand corner of the page and sign-in. I have created a few new pages, but they are not showing up like the two that are on the home page now. I don't know why, either. You can get to them if you sign-in and go to the Dashboard. I am really sorry about all of this. What I have created is a page with directions on how to put an image in their wiki page and a page with directions on how to put a video clip in their wiki page. There is another page with the directions for the body systems project, too. This is the project that they are putting in their wiki.

As of today, we have taken tests over terms 1-10 and taken down the definitions for 11-13. Tomorrow, the students will get #14, and on Monday, they will get #15, then they will take the quiz over those 5 a few days later. I will put on here when the quiz will be. We are still working on the big projects on Fridays. These projects are due on November 30th. What is not done at school will have to be done at home. Well, I think that is about it for now. If you have any questions about how to get to those new pages, just comment on here or email me. I look forward to talking to you!