monday. october 12, 2015

Parent-teacher conferences have begun for my homeroom class.  While it is time consuming, I have to say that I do enjoy actually talking to parents.  I always have and it is nice to get to know the actual families of my students.  

Tonight is the K-2 curriculum night and tomorrow is for 3-5.  

The next thing we did was to take notes.  There are definitions to be copied down though they themselves will not be on the test that is upcoming.  However, it is important to know them because there will be questions in which they will be used in given situations (scenarios) and the answer will lie in identification.  I will be posting practice questions similar to what can be expected as we get closer to the test.

Here are the notes that the students took.  

Mineral - a solid and non living substance that occurs naturally and has a crystal structure. Minerals are formed by lava cooling. 

Hardness - the ability of a mineral to resist being scratched.  It is the most reliable means of identifying one mineral from another.  A mineral can scratch another mineral of the same number or a mineral of a lower number.​

Color - the color appearance of a mineral

Luster - the ability of a mineral to reflect light

Cleavage - the way a mineral breaks along a plane of weakness

Streak - the powdery line left behind by a mineral after being scraped

Texture - the outer appearance and feel of a mineral

Moh’s Scale of Hardness - a ten point scale used to measure the relative hardness of a mineral by its resistance to scratching

In social studies, we continued with this, the final week of preparation for JA Biztown.  In this case, we either continued with writing personal letters.  Tomorrow, each student will be given a checkbook and individual account number and will be much more clerical oriented (ie. writing his/her name and account number on each check and deposit slip, writing the first check, etc.).