December 9, 2008- by John

Wahoo! It's almost Christmas! On Tuesday December 9 the class stood on the black top, and then Ms. Kepley told us to run around the track two times. Afterwards when everyone finished running we all went inside and started our morning work. For todays morning work we had multiplying with triple digits. Ex. 200x50= 10,000. The secret is looking for the simple fact, such as 5x2.

We didn't have any D.O.L but I don't know why. D.O.L is a tool that helps with spelling, grammar, speech, and etc... Next, the class started on our Saxon Power Up workbook- page thity-nine. Once we finished, our new math lesson was on Word Problems about Multiplication. It was pretty easy, but then we did another lesson on Rounding to the Thousands Place. That was also easy. After we did one more lesson that was about Decimal Place Value, then we got our homework assignment. Our homework assignment for today was pg. 277 through 280, 1 through 30.

When we finished math we went to recess, except for the people that had their cards up. During recess, people played different varieties of sports and other things. When the bell rang everyone went straight to their lines and waited for their teachers to signal them to come inside. It took a while for Mr. Kootman to come get us because he was doing something in the front office. Once recess was over Mr. Kootman let us inside and began to read The Homework Machine by Dan Gutman. The Homework Machine is really only dialog from the characters, but everyone still likes the book. There are many characters in The Homework Machine like Brenton Damagatchi, Judy Douglas, Kelsy Donnelly, Sam Dawkins, and all their parents too.

When we finished reading we started to read our new story of the week called "Sewed Up His Heart" by Lillie Patterson. "Sewed Up His Heart" is about a man named James Cornish who was stabbed in the chest and needs an operation. Then Dr. Dan looks after Cornish over night and Cornishs conditions worsened over night. Dr. Dan had to make a decision fast or Cornish would die in a matter of hours. Finally Dr. Dan made his decision to operate on the chest. When Dr. Dan entered the room he was bathing in perspiration. During the operation he would discuss what he found because he was pioneering an unknown territory.

The final part of the operation was sewing up the pericardium and sewing up the skin as well. Finally the operation was over and Dr. Dan became famous for the first successful heart surgery. In the middle of the story, while Nina was reading, Mr. Kootman interrupted and told us what a pericardium was. The peri- in pericardium means "around" and card- means the heart. For todays Language Arts homework we had to make a drawing of Dr. Dan out of facts from the story.

After Language Arts we went to lunch instead of going to writing. For lunch there was pizza and PB and J, but I brought my lunch and had a burrito, granola bar, mandarin oranges, and apples. For lunch recess everyone played either wall ball, kickball, hangout, or played on the big toy. After lunch recess Mr. Kootman came up to the black top and didn't see Hunter. Mr.Kootman asked what happened and Bryce told Mr. Kootman that Hunter was slammed into the ground and his tooth was out of place. When we got in the classroom we got our science materials and went to Ms. Barone's class. In science we did a lesson on Ecosystems like the Rain Forest, The Desert, and The Coral Reef.

Finally, in Social Studies we did our presentations for our missions and explorers reports. The first person to go today was Destiny and she was doing mission San Luis Rey. Dimitri went right after Destiny and did a great job, and he had great pictures for his poster board. Finally Katelyn went and she did an excellent job on her mission San Luis Rey. The last thing we did was reviewed our homework, cleaned up the room, and went home.

Image Credits:
http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2008-03/36648660.jpg

http://www.eos.ubc.ca/courses/images/course/eosc315.jpg

http://www.wired.com/images/article/full/2007/09/pericardium_580x.jpg