Happy Vernal Equinox!

Happy Spring Everyone! In Science we learned about equinoxes (last chapter). I mentioned that some people believe that today is the one and only day you can balance an egg. I told the students that really it can be done any day of the year - not just on the Vernal Equinox. Here is a great video showing you how to do it. By the way, I did not take the video, I found it on YouTube - so that is not my messy kitchen!! :) Happy Spring! It is finally here!

Click her for the video and great information about the Vernal Equinox.

Twitterview with Tim and Moby from BrainPOP

On Thursday, during lunch and recess, all of my students were treated to an online interview with Tim and Moby from BrainPOP! If you are not familiar with BrainPOP (your child certainly is) click here to see the BrainPOP movie of the week. About a week before the big interview with Tim, the students wrote down questions they wanted to ask him. Then, during recess and lunch, students came to my room to be a part of the Twitterview. A Twitterview is an interview that takes place on the social network site, Twitter. We found out all kinds of things! We learned that Moby speaks Binary code (and then watched a movie on it), we learned about famous mathematicians, interesting science facts, and even Moby's favorite geometrical shape (it's a decohedron).You can see some of Tim and Moby's answers by clicking on the above link for the BrainPOP movie of the week and scrolling to the live Twitter feed. What a great experience for all of us!

Pennies For Japan

 

Pennies for Japan!

I am so lucky to teach such wonderful students! When I presented the idea of doing something for the people of Japan in light of the recent tragic earthquake and tsunami, my students jumped at the chance!  So pennies for Japan was born! Here is how it works. The boys and girls in my homeroom are collecting pennies from home and working extra chores to earn some change. In class, we are collecting and counting the change. Meanwhile, the students are developing quizzes about Japan. These quizzes will be posted daily on my website. For each visitor to the site who answers the quiz, we will donate $0.02 ($0.05 if you live in another country!). The students have also researched and learned about 4 different charities to donate the money to. When you are done taking the quiz, you get to vote where you would like us to send the pennies to. The charity with the most votes wins! The students will be learning not only new computer skills (like designing an online quiz - including research, embedding html code, Google Docs, and following Google Analytics about the visitors to our site!) and counting numerous coins, but they will be gaining an experience that books cannot teach-the feeling of doing something nice for others. They are learning that doing something small CAN make a big difference!

PLEASE CLICK HERE to go to my website and take our quiz on Japan. Come back daily since a new kid created quiz will be posted each weekday. Please forward this to your friends and family - we have a goal of 5,000 visitors!

Pick of the Week - Lure of the Labyrinth

Lure of the Labyrinth is a online pre-algebra middle-school math game developed in partnership with Maryland Public Television and MIT. In the game, underground monsters come to life as students plunge into a shadowy factory on a mission to rescue a missing pet. Students then progress through three sections, or "wings." Each is related to a different math strand such as proportions (including fractions and ratios), variables and equations, numbers and operations (including geometry, order of operations and modular arithmetic). Each of the three wings includes three puzzles, and each of the puzzles has three levels. The levels progress from easy to hard. And, continuing with the "rule of three," students have to successfully solve each puzzle three times before they can eliminate a room. You will need to sign up, but you don't need to confirm an email to play. Remember your username and password so the next time you play you can pick up where you left off! Try it and let me know how you liked it! :)

Pick of the Week - Scratch

SCRATCH

My daughter just finished a 4 week computer camp at her school. The class was suppose to teach her a form of computer programming well enough that she would be able to design her own computer games after only 4 sessions. I was skeptical. Sure enough though, she came home on the last day with not one but several games she had created. Although the camp used many different resources, the main form of computer language she learned was Scratch. Scratch was developed with the help of people from MIT. It is easy, fun, and students will learn valuable computer programming skills. The best part is that it is a free download. CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD SCRATCH. If your child needs assistance there are loads of helpful videos on YouTube, and instructions and helpful tutorials right on the site. Here is one I found on the Scratch site (Click Here), you must first download Scratch to view it. Let me know if you make any games and I will post them to my web page! Have fun!!

Math Fraction Cookbooks!

Today in my AM and PM math classes, we shared a delicious project! The task of this mini-project was to find a favorite recipe with at least four fractions in it. Then, rewrite the recipe for half the amount of people it serves and then again for  3 times the amount of people the original recipe serves. For an added bonus, if the students made the recipe to serve a third of the people in the original recipe and brought it into class today, they were able to choose a homework pass or 5 points added to their extra credit ticket. Needless to say, we had a lot of fractional food in my room today! :) Everything was delicious and we all had a great time! The students enjoyed the food so much that they were asking for the recipes. Below are links to each cookbook. Enjoy and feel free to leave a comment!

AM Math Fraction Cookbook
PM Math Fraction Cookbook Part 1
Pm Math Fraction Cookbook Part 2

A digital collage by Smilebox

Famous Scientist and Inventors

The boys and girls in my science classes were given the task to research a famous scientist or inventor. Once they researched them, they needed to write a paragraph about them (a hard task to get a lot of facts into a small, concise paragraph) and make a Baseball Style Trading Card of them. Click here to view Homeroom 235's Trading Cards. Click here to view Homeroom 236's Trading Cards. Feel free to leave a comment below about them!