Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Aug 30- Sept 3: Scientific Method Review

Unfortunately this week is going to get cut in to by a few assemblies and meetings. On Wednesday 1st period will be reviewing the Utah Behavior Initiative where they'll review the RATTLE rules for school in the various areas in the building. On Friday 1st and 2nd periods will be in the Code of Conduct Assembly where they'll review a lot of things from the handbook which you should have received by this point.

When we're not doing the nitty gritty stuff we'll be reviewing the scientific method. Students will have a short homework assignment to pick out the independent and dependent variables (DUE Sept 1). Most of them will have time to complete it in class.

They will be completing pages 5-7 in their notebooks this week:
 p5 - Scientific Method Notes
 p6 - Variables (with The Office)
 p7 - Chemistry Review Notes

Please remind them that if they don't finish what we do in class, it becomes homework.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

...And we're back...

Aug. 26-27

Welcome to Earth Systems! This is a whirlwind course covering space, rocks, weather, water, life, matter cycles, and a whole bunch more stuff... you're students are going to go home with their heads filled!

I'm Katie Groneman, and I'm very happy to be teaching your student(s) this year - we're going to have a good time.

First a few announcements:
Calvin & Hobbes by Bill Watterson
1. Back to school night is next Wed. (Sept 1) at starting at 5:45pm. Everyone will be meeting in the auditorium to start. Then you will go to each class to meet the teachers. We ask that you please keep to the schedule - it makes life sooooo much easier for us if we only have to say something 7 times instead of many many more if people drop in whenever they want to.
2. Your student will be bringing a letter home that describes what the class is all about.
3. One of the most important things in that letter is the description of the folder that we'll have for class with all of their work in it.
4. Please help your student stay on top of their grades by checking them on Skyward with him/her as often as time permits. If you don't know your Skyward password, call the counseling office (801.412.2455).

Now for the stuff we've been doing... On the first day we played a game with bean bags to model what a system is and how it works. Hopefully they can explain to you what we did and how it shows that systems are complicated.

Over the next few days we'll be talking about procedures for the room (how to turn in homework, how to sign in when they are tardy, etc.) Then we'll jump into sciency things next week.

We are focusing a lot on our Freshmen this year, and hope that they will stand up to the challenges that we're going to pose for them. You might find that this year will be a little harder than last - all in hopes of getting them ready for high school. I look forward to an awesome year!