"Spring has returned. The earth is like a child that knows poems." ~Rainer Maria Rilke

Tiffany- Spring panel from the four seasons collection

AHHH. . . SPRING!

March 20th, the first official day of Spring, marks the Vernal Equinox.  

It is one of two times each year when days and nights become nearly equal in length all over the world. (Truth be told, if you want true equality, you'll have to move a bit closer to the equator. . . Equador comes to mind.) It marks a time when the sun crosses the plane of the earth's equator.

Vernal Equinox

The word vernal means "of, relating to, or occurring in the spring." The word equinox comes from the Latin aequus, meaning "equal," and nox, meaning "night." During the Vernal Equinox, the earth's axis is tilted neither toward the sun nor away from it.  

            
MYTH OR REALITY?

According to folklore, on the day of the equinox you can stand a raw egg straight up on end. Truth be told, the time of year has nothing to do with it; with a bit of steadfast determination, you can do this any ole' time. Go ahead; take a crack at it! (Ha! Get it?? Crack?)

                                       SKYGAZERS. . .  

Ahhh, to be in Europe!

2013, Southern Ethiopia 

More precisely, in the extreme northwestern parts of Europe and into the high Arctic. The more north and west you go, the better the show's going to be; a celestial extravaganza!   At around 9:41 on the morning of March 20th, the moon will cover the sun, blocking as much as 98% of its light.  So, for those of you in the Faroe Islands (north of the United Kingdom) or in most of the Svarlbard archipelago in the high Arctic, at just about the North Pole, the eclipse will be total. Most of the rest of Europe can expect an impressive deep partial solar eclipse.

This is slated to be a double cosmic delight! Not only will it be the biggest solar eclipse since 1999, the event also coincides with a Supermoon!  The evening before the eclipse, a phenomenon will occur.  The moon, in its elliptical orbit, will be as close to earth as it can possibly be, making it 16% bigger and 30% brighter!
                                                                                                                                                                                                         

Area seeing the total solar eclipse. 

With the moon significantly larger, it will completely cover the sun as it passes by, creating what's known as a "Supermoon eclipse."

Unbelieveable! A Supermoon, Solar Eclipse, and Equinox all happening on the same day!

ASSIGNMENTS FOR THE WEEK OF

MARCH 16--20

SOCIAL STUDIES 

FAREWELL, GIFT OF THE NILE

Pyramids, mummies, tombs, and kings

Thousands of years ago, these things

Were part of life in an area

Upon the sands of Africa.

On the banks of the Nile a valley lay

Narrow, fertile - it gave way

To one of the earliest civilizations in history

"Kemet," Egypt, it came to be

The innundation every spring

Brought nutrient-rich black silt for planting 

Most people lived on the river's shore

In simple mud huts and nothing more

They served their Pharaoh--god and king--

Their link to the afterlife. Everything.

So they cared to preserve his body, you see;

In elaborate tombs they'd rest his mummy

An expensive and time-consuming process it was

To dehydrate and wrap in 20 layers of gauze 

As long as the body existed, thought they

The pharaoh would live and their service repay 

Far less is known of the common man

Who buried their dead in the desert sand

Except for the artistry, craftsmanship

They left behind on this narrow strip

Through hieroglyphs carved into stone

Their ancient story became known

A glorious look into the past

At a civilization unsurpassed

Land of the Nile, it's time to go--

We'll take a test on what we know

And share our newfound expertise

Before we enter Ancient Greece 

xoxo,

Mrs. M.

This week: 

• Wrapping up (Ha! another pun!)
• Test on Wednesday.

SCIENCE

IT'S EVERYWHERE!

THE BASIS FOR THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD

FORMULATING THE QUESTION

DOING A LITTLE RESEARCH

MAKING PREDICTIONS . . .

FORMULATING AN HYPOTHESIS 

CONDUCTING EXPERIMENTS

ANALYZING DATA

REPORTING CONCLUSIONS

In Science this week:

• Monday:  Conduct a cool lab (Postponed from last week. Each student gets their own bag--more data.)

FYI: How to Find Mean, Median, and Mode

• Wednesday/Friday: Review & redo our Science tests. 

ANY QUESTIONS??

LANGUAGE ARTS

1:1 Conferencing on PowerPoints this week in preparation for putting them on our blog. Meanwhile, we have other things to keep us busy.

3 . 1 4 1 5 9 2 6 5 3 5 8 9 7 9 3 2 3 8 4 6 2 . . .   

Happy belated PI day (March 14th)! What a bummer it fell on a Saturday this year. Still, I have a Pi Day challenge for you. We're going to write "Pi Poems," which I will tell you more about in class. I love pie, er, I mean pi.

• Tuesday: Pi Poem 
• Wednesday:  Sentence Structure: Sentence Fragments review, pages 31-32
• Thursday:  Sentence Structure: Complete Sentences, pages 33-34 

• Thursday and Friday: Center Square "Rhyming Slogans" using the mentor text, My Brother Dan's Delicious

All work that is not turned in today is homework, due no later than Monday morning at 8:00.

                  MATH                                                                               There are three types of percent problems that you are going to have to solve: finding the part, the whole, and the percent. Like with most things, there's more than one way to solve these problems, so choose the one you understand the most.  

Monday:  Finding the Whole from a Percent--Pages 211 to 212 and 5.6

• Tuesday:  REVIEW of what we've learned in this chapter. (See below for practice assignments.)

CLASSSROOM PRACTICE/REVIEW VIDEOS

Let's go back to the very beginning. . .

Why not?  

LOTS OF PRACTICE WITH WORD PROBLEMS

FINDING THE PART

FINDING THE TOTAL

FINDING THE PERCENT

Assignment: 

• Fractions into Decimals and Percents
• Change Percents to Fractions and Reduce to Lowest Terms
• A Number is What Percent of a Given Number?
• Finding the Whole Given the Percent and the Part interactive

Wednesday:  Chapter 5 BHT
Thursday: Corrections, TBA
Friday:  TBA (Are we talking BHT.2, here?)

Complete Unit 12

Test on Friday

ARE YOU READING?

INDEPENDENT READING EXPECTATIONS REITERATED 

Like every month, expect to fill out a "Planning Ahead" sheet and finish at least one independent book.  Book projects are due on the last (school) day of the month, and from now on, no class time will be given to complete them.  (They are, after all, your "Independent Book Projects.") I will provide you with the necessary directions for this month's project next week.

READING ASSISGNMENTS

Monday: Extended Science Lab

Tuesday: Extended Social /Studies

Wednesday:  Story selection/ Comprehension.1

Thursday: Story selection/ Comprehension.2

Friday:  Story selection, Comprehension 3

Anybody living in the north country will appreciate

THIS sentiment as ANOTHER snow storm hits 

on the last weekend of winter. "BLEAH!"

Spring stained glass image  sun/moon image  sun image  egg  Blood moon  But wait, there's more  Map of area seeing total eclipse  Egypt banner  Egyptian lamp animated gif Calvin & Hobbes toast cartoon  Calvin & Hobbes Prediction  Calvin & Hobbes Scientific Research  Calvin & Hobbes hypothesis cartoon  Calvin & Hobbs conducting an experiment  Calvin & Hobbes analyzing data  Calvin & Hobbes conclusions  penguin with questions  Focusing on words  Red ribbon  Sentence fragments   BOOK  MOTIVATION poter