4th Snow Day

I am REALLY starting to miss my classroom.  I was out for three days in Hershey followed by two straight snow days- PLUS I'm out this coming Monday and Thursday to be with my wife who is having surgery.  Thank goodness Mrs. Lepley has been in for me all this week and will be next week, as well.  Students will continue their online lab on simple and complex machines when they return on Monday.
News articles are due on Tuesday.

3rd Snow Day

Wow, can you believe it?  I'm in Hershey the first three days this week, then Mother Nature must have felt that I needed an extra day to recover from chocolate withdrawl so school was cancelled today.  Hopefully the roads will be clear enough tomorrow to return to my class.
No homework was assigned, but news articles will be due on Tuesday, March 2nd.

Online Lab- Simple Machines, Day 4

Today was the students' third and final day without me doing the online lab on simple machines.  Most students seem to have started the second part of the lab involving inclined planes and pulleys.  I will be back in the classroom tomorrow- that is unless Mother Nature has another plan in mind.
No homework was assigned.

Online Lab- Simple Machines, Day 3

Students continue to progress through the online lab about simple and complex machines.  By all accounts they have done incredibly well w/o me.
No homework was assigned.

Online Lab- Simple Machines, Day 2

Today students worked on their online lab about simple and complex machines.  They did this while I was nearly 100 miles south in Hershey, PA for a conference on educational technology.  We incorporated the chat room and discussion forum to help answer many of the students' questions.
No homework was assigned.

Online Lab- Simple Machines, Day 1

Today we began our third online lab using ASPIRE software.  This lab inspects the usefullness of simple and complex machines.  I will be at a conference in Hershey, PA this coming Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.  Mrs. Lepley will be the substitute teacher during that time, and students will be expected to continue to progress through the lab as if I was there.
No news articles are due this next week.
If you need to contact me while I am away, email me at kcremer@mounties.k12.pa.us.

2 Tough Problems

Students got back their quizzes on work and power today.  We reviewed the solutions to the eight problems before moving on to our in-class assignment: page 15-9, # 5 & 6.  I forewarned students that #6 would easily be the toughest problem that they would encounter all year.  With a little encouragement, most students were up to the task.
No homework was assigned.

Inclined Plane Lab

Today in class students worked in groups of three or four to perform the lab on pages 15-13 & 15-14.  They inspeced the difference between the ideal and actual mechanical advantage of using an inclined plane.
No homework was assigned.

Mechanical Advantage & Efficiency

Today in class we listened to the summaries of the 21st week of news articles.  We then discussed section 7-3 & 7-4 notes on work output, work input, mechanical advantage and mechanical efficiency.  Students then worked on problems 1 & 2 on page 15-8 with their partner.  We showed the solution to those problems on the board.
No homework was assigned.

Work & Power Quiz

Sorry, but I forgot to blog it out yesterday.  Students took the work & power quiz yesterday and did EXTREMELY WELL.
News articles are due on Tuesday.

Final review of work & power

Today in class students were assigned pages 15-5 & 15-6, which contained 10 problems that practiced solving for work and power.  We reviewed the solutions for those problems on the board for all to see.
The quiz on this topic will be on Monday, and news articles are due on Tuesday.

That's alot of snow!!!

Following yesterday's cancellation and today's 2-hour delay, it was back to business.....er, science.  Since we only had 31-minute classes, we only had time to review the word problems using work and power.  Students complete pages 15-3 & 15-4 in class and put the solutions to those problems on the board.
No homework was assigned, and the Work & Power quiz will be on Monday.

Stairway to Power

Today we performed the lab on page 15-7.  Students were timed to see how long it took them to walk and then run up a measured flight of steps.  From there they were able to calculate the work that they did and the power that they showed in both walking and running.  We compared their rates against those of their classmates and students from past years.
There was no written homework assigned, but I did encourage students to help older citizens shovel out of tomorrow's pending snowstorm.  If there is no school tomorrow, the quiz will be moved back to Monday, February 15th.

I've got the Power

After reviewing the summaries of our 20th news article week, I introduced the topic of power as it relates to physical science (P=W/t).  Section 7-2 notes were presented and a http://www.brainpop.com/ video was watched, followed by the interactive quiz.  Students were then assigned worksheet 5-2 in class, and the answers were reviewed on the whiteboard.
No homework was assigned.  The work & power quiz will be this Friday.

Time to get to WORK

Work was the theme of the day.  We began Chapter 7 by discussing what work means in the physical science sense of the word.  Work is the product of force times distance, and students determined the amount of work done in several word problems.  This spanned section 7-1 notes and worksheet 15-1, as well as problem #'s 1, 2, 4 & 5 on worksheet 15-3.
News article #20 is due on Monday.  A quiz on this topic will be on Friday, February 12th.

Substitute

Sorry this post is a day late.  Yesterday in class, students had a substitute teacher.  They watched an episode of ABC News' "Stossel in the Classroom" series.  Students wrote down their reaction to the different segments, ranging from alternate energy sources, digital media, etc.
No homework was assigned.

Chapter 6 Notebook Check

Today we reviewed the Chapter 6 test and had our notebook check.  Students watched a Mythbusters episode that inspected the rumor of a penny dropped from the top of the Empire State could really injure someone on the sidewalk below.  The second myth was about reaching terminal velocity while skydiving.  Both of these video segments were great reinforcements for topics that we covered in Chapter 6.
No homework was assigned.

Chapter 6 Test

Today students took the Chapter 6 test on the laptops using Moodle.  Chapter 6 included topics such as balanced and unbalanced forces, friction, Newton's Laws of Motion, projectiles, mass vs weight and gravity.
The notebook check will be tomorrow.

Chapter 6 Test Eve

Twas the day before the chapter 6 test when all through the class, not a creature was stirring except for the 85+ students that forgot to study over the weekend for tomorrow's BIG science test.  Hopefully they will do so tonight.  Today in class we reviewed the summaries of our 19th week of news articles.  Students were then assigned page 6-9, in which they had to calculate the distance traveled of a free-falling object.  Students were also assigned pages 6-12 and 6-13, which is a vocab review for chapter 6.
The only homework is to study for tomorrow's test.  Notebook check will be Wednesday.