Language of Probability

Thought I would post some helpful information in regards to the language of probability. Please remember to complete questions 1-5 of your homework!

Also, do not forget that you should be continuing to work on both your book talks and "Pear Island" assignment.

Language of Probability

In day to day life there are also many other places where the language of probability is also used.

• The chance of rain today is 75%. 
• A medication has an effectiveness of 90%
• 4 in 5 people agree that a particular brand of toothpaste is more effective than another.
• Most likely the supermarket would have the brand of milk I want to purchase.

A probability continuum is one way to visualise the scale of likelihoods.  

• CERTAIN is when something will definitely occur.  We assign a value of 1, or 100% to the probability of certain.  For example, if I were to roll a standard dice, it is certain that I will roll a number less than 10.   
• IMPOSSIBLE is when something can not occur.  We assign a value of 0, or 0% to the probability of impossible.  For example, if I were draw a card from a standard pack of playing cards, it is impossible that I would pull out a card with a 27 on it!
• Exactly half way along this continuum, we find the value of 1/2, or 50%.  We call this EVEN CHANCE, or EQUALLY LIKELY. For example, if I were toss a fair coin I could get a head or a tail.  Both of these have an even chance of occuring.  
• Anywhere between impossible and even chance (values between 0 and 50%) we call not likely, or unlikely.
• Anywhere between even chance and certain (values between 50% and 100%) we call likely.
• Between impossible or unlikely (0-25%) would be considered very unlikely
• Between 75-99.99% would be probable/very/highly likely

Experimental probability

Example: Travel Survey

92 people were asked how they got to work:

• 35 used a car
• 42 took public transport
• 8 rode a bicycle
• 7 walked

The Relative Frequencies (to 2 decimal places) are:

• Car: 35/92 = 0.38=38% of people responded they got to work by car.
• Public Transport: 42/92 = 0.46=46%
• Bicycle: 8/92 = 0.09=9%
• Walking: 7/92 = 0.08=8%

0.38+0.46+0.09+0.08 = 1.01

(It would be exactly 1 if we had used perfect accuracy),

Earth Day and Reminders

Earth Day

Our school will be participating in Earth Day celebrations and activities tomorrow afternoon. Activities will begin at 1:30 and include an assembly followed by a school cleanup. Please remember to wear green in support of our environmental protection goals.

Other Reminders

Math

Tree diagram worksheet, all odd questions (1, 3, 5, 7, 9)


Science

Grade 7 science questions on energy transfer, 1-3- due on Monday


Language

Book talk presentations begin on Monday for grade 7's and Wednesday for grade 6's. Students are being given a minimum of 50 minutes each day in class to work on their assignments and are also expected to work on their assignments at home. In order to accommodate for the time students are putting into this, I am attempting to minimize homework in other subject areas when possible so that students can focus on the completion of this fun yet challenging task.

Weekend Update

Happy weekend everybody! It was another week full of work and fun. I wanted to remind you all to make sure you complete your math homework (questions 1, 4-7, 11 and 12 of your rate worksheet) and to continue to work on your book talk presentations. You should all be at the point where you are working through your first graphic organizer. This will give you the time you need next week to plan and complete the presentation/creative component of your assignment. As I mentioned, please complete at least one full section of your graphic organizer for Monday.

Next week, we will be working hard to complete our health PSA's and will be working full throttle to complete our assembly skits and presentation. Thank you all for your thoughtfulness and enthusiasm in getting ready to host the character assembly. What we have come up with is meaningful and we should be excited to present our ideas on what fairness is with the school. 

Important Announcements

Cadence- Four Men, Four Microphones

On Wednesday,April 13th, 2016, the musical group Cadence will be coming to our school as part of our school arts' program. Cadence is an  Acapella music group meaning that all sounds they produce are created through voice. They will be here from about 9:00 am to 10:00 am. Here is brief video of what you might see and hear.

Music for Class

As promised, please listen to "Royal Crown March" located at this link. Use it to practice line 3 of the song prior to coming to class on Thursday

http://www.brucepearsonmusic.com/repertoire/collections/firstperf.shtml


Our Biography Book Talk Presentations

At this point in our project students should be close to finishing their biographies. Reading should be getting done both during class time and at home. As I stated prior, all students will get 5 full literacy blocks to work on reading their book and putting together their assignments.

Specifically for their summary, I have explained to students that it is very difficult to summarize a large amount of text at a time (for example, 100 pages) but easier if summarizing is done on a chapter to chapter basis. All students should track important information they find in their books as they read; not after they read. That will help them create a summary (not a recount) of their biography and the person they read about. Chunking their summary will allow for students to not have to re-read as much to identify important points.

Grade 6 students will have Wednesday to next Tuesday to get their assignment completed, while grade 7's will have the rest of this week. The reason for the difference in due date is because grade 6 students are working on EQAO related tasks today (Monday) and tomorrow which will take up most of their literacy time.


Math

There is math homework tonight on ratios for both grade 6 and 7 students. Complete question 2-6


There will be a quiz on Thursday of this week. Grade 6's will be quizzed on:

1) multiplying decimals
2) dividing decimals
3) Converting between decimals, fractions and percentages

Grade 7s will be quizzed on:
 1) Converting between decimals, fractions and percentages
2) Multiplying Fractions
3) BEDMAS/Order of Operations with fractions

Vaughn Library Visit

Tomorrow, I will be taking our class to the Vaughn Library just around the corner from our school (A few minutes to walk there). We will be leaving the school at 1:00 pm and will be returning by 2:20 pm at the latest. Our visit to the library coincides with the start of our biography presentation unit. As most of you know, each student was asked to select a person they wish to read a biography on. They will have to explain how the person they are reading about helped to unify people or a helped divide people.

Most students have already informed me of their first choices, but they must keep in mind that there may not be a biography on that person in the library. If there is not a copy of the biography in stock at this specific Vaughn library but there is a copy at a different library location, you can sign out the book and it will be delivered to the library within a few business days.

If you (or your child) is not a library member and they find a library book that is suitable, they have 2 options:

1) You can send your child with a piece of ID including their address and they can sign up for a card tomorrow; or

2) You can have your child write down the biography information and you can go back on the weekend ti sign up for a library card and get the book.


In regards to permission to leave the premise; as long as you gave in the large book of forms with all forms signed, you have given your child permission to go to the library. If you have not signed the forms, please bring in a hand written note (written by and signed by a guardian) saying that you have permission to attend the walk to the library.

If you have an allergy that requires an Epipen, please bring 1 with you and I will bring the one that you have already given to the school.

Thanks parents and thank you for your incredible patience and understanding over the last 2 weeks. I truthfully would have normally sent home a subsequent letter to parents about this, but in dealing with my illness, my wife getting sick and my 6 month old getting sick its been a rough two weeks!

I look forward to the start of this unit and to seeing who everyone decides to read and present about!

Sincerely,
Mr. Kaiman

Update for Easter Weekend

Hi everyone and for those of you who are celebrating, Happy Easter! I am sorry about my lack of postings post break. Unfortunately I was very ill over the break and for the first couple days back, but as my health has returned (or is slowly returning) I will be back to regular posts on here!

As I promised to grade 6 students, here is the link the biography/documentary on the Wright Brothers trials and tribulations that lead to the creation of the first airplane. Please watch the final 20 minutes prior to the next class (Wednesday)

As many of you know, we will be completing a Book Talk/Biography assignment in literacy. Students will be choosing to read a biography of a person of their choice who they feel has either unified people or divided people. Choices for people who have unified are extremely varied so far which is tremendous. Choices range from Mark Zuckerberg (founder of Facebook) to John Lennon (member of The Beatles and political activist) to Martin Luther King Jr.

The easy thing is choosing the person you wish to read about. The difficult thing is finding a biography on your person on interest. Over the weekend, go onto the Vaughn library site and begin to look for biographies that would work for you. Remember that they must be 100 pages on length at a minimum.

There will be a math quiz on fractions (ordering and comparing fractions, adding and subtracting, converting from improper fractions to mixed numbers and vice versa and simplifying for grade 6's and all of these things as well as repeated addition and multiplication for grade 7's.) on Wednesday of next week. Ixl.ca is a great place to find curriculum based practice questions for both grade 6 and grade 7 students. Here are the links for grade 6 and 7 students ( https://ca.ixl.com/math/grade-6   https://ca.ixl.com/math/grade-7).

As today was a inclement weather day there is no new homework. Grade 7 students can continue to organize their science reports/presentations. Continue to look for your biographies and prepare for you math quiz. Most importantly, have a wonderful weekend and I will see you all on Tuesday.

Blog for March 2nd, 2016

Snow Day

As many people were away today, today served as a day to review math concepts and get a head start on working on editorials.

As you hopefully know, we have started our new math unit on fractions, decimals and percentages. We have gone over how to convert improper fractions to mixed numbers and vice versa. There is some homework to be completed tonight which should be brought into school tomorrow for review. Below are two separate videos that demonstrate how to go from mixed numbers to improper fractions and from improper fractions to mixed numbers.

Editorials

I am very proud of our students for choosing editorial topics that really challenge them to learn more about the world around us. Students have chosen topics that range from "Should GMO's be legal?" to "Do pharmaceutical companies have a responsibility to provide drugs to people in developing countries?" to "Should all people have the right to a free university education?" While these are certainly difficult topics to comprehend and argue in a persuasive editorial, the research you do will hopefully open your mind to some of the important things that are going on in our world and make you take an interest in learning more about important current events.


Math Night/Book Fair Reminder

Tomorrow night is our "Math Mania" night and the beginning of our Book Fair. Students will be able to purchase books tomorrow night and on Friday during the school day. If you wish to purchase anything, please bring money with you either tomorrow evening or Friday. I look forward to seeing many of you at our math night!