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Great Art Resource and A Hilarious Video!

Great Art Resource and A Hilarious Video!

artpadWe have been using this art website in the class this year and I have tried to add it to our blog links on the side. However, for some reason, it is not wanting to show up. The kids have been asking for it almost everyday. So I thought I would put it here so that you had a quick way to get to the site. The site is called Artpad and it is a really nice and simple site that allows you to create artwork with your mouse, add a frame and display it digitally in an art gallery with your choice of artwork hanging around it. Click on the picture to go to the site.

Please, remember that your Science Challenge projects are due tomorrow! Finally, I found this great site a few days ago and thought you would also enjoy it. It was just an ordinary day at the food court in New York when, suddenly, something strange happened . . .

A Quick Post and Colour Day Tomorrow!

A Quick Post and Colour Day Tomorrow!

Just a quick post of some fun things. In the rush of last week, I forgot to mention that tomorrow is School Colours Day – jeans, and red, white or black shirt. If you do not wish to wear those colours, you must wear your uniform. As well, please try to pick a shirt that is mostly red, white or black with as small a logo as possible if there is a logo on your shirt.

I just discovered that today, Storybird.com is now allowing you to embed stories into your blog. So let’s get going!!! I have added the very first storybird I ever did below! Enjoy!

An Animal Alphabet on Storybird

Finally, a fun video from a series that my wife and I enjoy. The Simon the Cat series of videos are always hilarious. Enjoy the rest of your day! I am off to do some singing!!!! Ta ta!

I Eat A Cookie, You Eat A Cookie, We All Eat Cookies!!!!

I Eat A Cookie, You Eat A Cookie, We All Eat Cookies!!!!

Last Friday, the students and I had a blast doing our Oreo Cookie Math projects. First of all, thank you to all of you parents that donated a package of cookies to the class. It was very generous and we ended up with lots and lots of cookies to use which was fantastic.

The project we were doing involved classes around the world. Here is a map showing all the classes involved including ours!

oreomap

There was a lot of math involved with this project. As part of the project students had to estimate how many cookies they thought they could stack. Once the students had finished estimating, the student stacked, with bated breathe, each cookie until it tumbled down. The students were very excited and we had a lot of fun stacking. The students then had to determine which of their stacking attempts was the most successful by using subtraction and greater than/less than statements. We also used pictograms to chart the number of cookies each student stacked. We then found the average of cookies stacked by the class. The average number of cookies stacked by our class was 15. Once we had an average, we submitted our data to the main Oreo Cookie project site. Not only did we have our name put on the map, but our data was added to the over 10,000 other students worldwide who were a part of this project! The students were amazed. We also found out that the average number of cookies stacked worldwide was 18. As a class we stacked over 274 cookies!!!! It was a very fun project. Here are some of the pictures:

I also captured some of the video from the event which you can watch below:

Here is our spelling for the week. Sorry it took so long to get it up. Remember! The spelling test is on Tuesday next week.

M-4

Click on the link to get to the Spelling City page with this weeks spelling words.
SpellingM4

Phew! That was a long post! Finally, we will be doing our memory verse tomorrow so please make sure you know it!!!!!

Hannah’s Little Project For Mr. H

Hannah’s Little Project For Mr. H

At the end of the last school year, one of my students gave me a gift as a thank you. However, it was not just any gift. It was a gift in the form of a project. For those of you, who were with me last year, you will remember the weekly science projects that I assigned as ways to help you to think more creatively or “outside the box”. Well, this students decided to enact some revenge upon me and, with a smile stretching from one side of the face to the other, gave me my gift. The gift also came with a note. The note explained that my homework was to make my own end of the year gift with the supplies within the zip-lock bag. Within the bag were several straw, paper clips, fruity strips of gum, bandaids, toothpicks and a gift certificate from Starbucks. With great dismay, I realized that my summer was not going to easy and that any plans I may of had for a nice relaxing break were going to be replaced by an exceedingly hard and painful summer trying to come up with something that I could make out of those strange and wacky materials.

Well, it was indeed a busy summer but, with much sweat and tears, I was able to eventually create something out of the materials Hannah gave me. I have taken pictures of my creation below and I am extremely proud of it. Here are the results below.

DSCI0053

DSCI0054

Thank you, Hannah, for making me think. Now I need to go and soak my head in some warm water to help reduce the swelling.

What’s That? A New Science Challenge?

What’s That? A New Science Challenge?

Well, all right then! This will be our last Science Challenge this week  . . . and it’s all about music!! No, no, don’t worry your smart, curious, intelligent heads now. You don’t need to be able to read notes or anything. You can put away the old tuba collecting dust in the corner. This one is going to be a whiz-banger of creativity, a flim-sham of activity, a kerplutz of musical genius making. So without further ado (and with sounds of music running through my head!) here is the challenge:

Use any/all of the following materials to create a one man band contraption that you can wear and play. This is a great one to videotape!

belt
string
tape
rubber bands
paper clips
notecards
empty cereal container
a plate
2 spoons
2 objects of your choice
a bowl
a book
straws
a hairbrush
a comb
3 soda cans

As you think about your design for this challenge take a listen to a news article about a real one man band and how he designed his!

Listen to a One Man Band – Interview from NPR

If you need some more inspiration, try this game out!

Games at Miniclip.com - One Man Band
One Man Band

Build your very own one man band!

Play this free game now!!

To end off, here is a an old favorite from Mary Poppins where Burt becomes a one man band!

Have fun! All projects are due on Monday, June 15th but you can always bring them in early!!!! The earlier you bring them in the less you have to worry about them!!!!!

Also, permission forms for the waterslides are due on Friday! Check the Important Dates area for more info on things coming up!

Getting Ready for the Week!

Getting Ready for the Week!

This is going to be a very exciting week with lots happening. Not only are we going to get busy with our poetry (with only a few weeks left to get our poems done for the book publishing) but also with the Spelling Bee happenign this week and the Planetarium Fieldtrip happening on Weds!

So, to start the week off, I thought I would give you a head start on the Science Challenge for the week. This weeks challenge is all about puppets. Not the sock puppets that you may have created at one time or other (my favorite sock puppet was named Alfredo the Italian Sock! but I don’t have him anymore. He had a disastrous round with the washing machine) but an actual puppet using these guidelines:

Using the following materials, design a puppet that moves in at least two different ways. It may NOT be a hand puppet.

6 straws or pencils
a 12 x 12 square of aluminum foil
6 paper clips
6 inches of tape
paper
string

You may use scissors in construction but not in the solution.

I am looking forward to your results and I have a great project for our next Science Challenge all lined up and ready to go!!! This project will be due Tuesday, May. 19.

I also found another article from the astronaut in space talking about brushing your teeth in space. Read the following article and see whether brushing your teeth in space is something you think you could do easily!

On a Space Shuttle, music is piped up from the Mission Control Center to wake you up. On the Space Station, you set your watch alarm. Or, as is sometimes the case on Earth, you awaken early, all on your own, wondering “What the H…?!”

A typical day in space (is there such a thing?) starts a lot like a day on the ground, except that you are floating. Turn off the alarm. Unzip yourself out of your sleeping bag. Open the doors to the sleep station, haul yourself out.

On the International Space Station, I fell into a routine of cleaning up in the evening before bed, and then wearing a clean T-shirt and underwear for sleep. In the morning, I was already half dressed. I would pull on a pair of Nomex shorts and white cotton gym socks, ready to get going. This was the typical uniform onboard, except for when the cameras were going to be on.

When we had a scheduled video interview, we would wear a polo-type crew shirt or, in the case of a serious event, don a flight suit.

What’s the first thing you do in the morning on Earth? Well, it’s not so different onboard a spacecraft. I will dedicate another entry to the issue of space toilets and leave it alone for now.

How about brushing your teeth? In zero gravity (or more accurately, microgravity, if you’re a stickler for such things), some things are easier, like moving medium or large mass items around, but many things are more difficult. It is unbelievably easy to lose things. Get distracted for a moment, and that toothpaste cap is gone! Even if you are good about anchoring such things behind a rubber bungee, some rookie going by could knock it loose.

So, how do you brush your teeth in space? Long ago, NASA started buying only toothpaste without detachable caps, thus solving the lost cap problem. So, start by filling a drink bag with water and bring it with you to the hygiene area. Tuck it behind a rubber bungee. Remove your hygiene kit from behind its bungee and unzip it. Find your toothbrush inside of your hygiene kit, safely tucked away inside of a fabric pouch with a Velcro top. But first, take out your toothpaste tube, and stick it to the wall, using the Velcro dot on it. Secure your hygiene kit behind a rubber bungee, after partially zipping it up, so that things don’t accidentally float out.

Still have your toothbrush between a couple of your fingers? Hopefully yes. Remove your drink bag, and with one thumb, flip open the straw clamp (which keeps liquid from seeping out of the bag), and gently squeeze out a bead of water onto your toothbrush, watch it get sucked into the bristles. Hold the straw of the drink bag in your teeth, and with one hand, fix the straw clamp in place, and replace the bag behind the bungee.

Almost all of the rest is fairly straightforward. Flip open the cap of the toothpaste tube, squeeze some out on your toothbrush, go to work on your teeth. Ok, you’re done. Now what? Where are you going to spit? There’s no sink. So—into a tissue? Then you’ve got a wet tissue, and what are you going to do with that?? So, I swallowed. Filled my mouth with water and swallowed again. Drew some water onto the toothbrush and sucked the water out. Dried the toothbrush onto a towel and replaced it, and the toothpaste, into the kit.

What’s left? Any idea? Yep, the drink bag. That, I would bring to bed with me, so that I would have something to sip on in the middle of the night, should I wake. Just like back home on Earth, except a bit more complicated. And, brushing your teeth is one of the simpler tasks that you’ll perform in space.

From Gizmodo

Have a great night and we’ll see you tomorrow!!!

Our Solutions for the House Challenge

Our Solutions for the House Challenge

Well, the house challenges are in and, I have to you, I was really impressed not just with the finished product but also with the response. I had many of you come to me and tell me how much fun  this project was and how you enjoyed the time you got to spend with your children working together to do it.

The finished projects were truly amazing, each and every one of them. Every student had a different idea and a completely different solution to the problem which is exactly what I wanted. I wanted the students to think outside the box; to look creatively at a problem and that is exactly what they all did; with your support. Thank you for really coming together on this. Every students got the full marks for the project.

I created an animoto of the product which is displayed below.

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