Week 12 Learning Focus

This is a very short week, as we are off for Thanksgiving Break for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

Everyone have a wonderful holiday break, stay safe, and be sure to find ways to stay busy, whether that be going for walks, participating in our Ray Virtual Turkey Trot, or sinking into a good book, game or puzzle. My family is staying in Chicago this year, skipping our normal trip to Ohio, and will be hoping to spend a lot of time outside if the weather cooperates!

5th Grade Math: We are learning how to add and subtract mixed numbers, including regrouping where you have to borrow from the whole number to increase the numerator of the fraction. There will be Whiteboard assignments during class, Khan Academy assignments due on Tuesday, and Challenge problems assigned for the week.

6th Grade Math: We are building upon our use of ratio tables to solve problems with proportional reasoning. In these problems, we always look to simplify the ratio first, and then to scale it back up by multiplying to find our missing value. There will be Whiteboard assignments during class, Khan Academy assignments due on Tuesday, and Challenge problems assigned for the week.

6th Grade Science: Last week, we completed two experiments that tested how salt water affected the melting rate of ice cubes, both in the cubes and with normal ice cubes melting into salt water. This week, we will be observing one more experiment to better understand how salt water and a melting ice cube resist mixing (and of course, using food coloring in the ice cubes!). These experiments are helping us to better understand the role of fresh water and salt water in the water cycle and as they behave in the polar regions.