math – Page 4 – Beyond The Desk

Tuesday fun? Oh, Yeah! In 3B, It Is!

September 9, 2008 eoin24 Comments 1 comment

It was a great day here in 3B. First of all, we had a surprise from one of the students who went home and found her own oobleck in her backyard. Hers was slightly different though as it was pink! I hope it isn’t spreading across Canada. We could be in trouble if oobleck continues to spread through our backyards!! Anway, she brought us a sample she collected from her backyard and had it safely contained in a tupperware container. I got a shot of it to show everyone. Here it is:

We also had our very first chapel time together which was great fun. It is so wonderful seeing everyone there worshipping God and praising his name. The kids really got into and the singing was wonderful. For math today, we used the digital camera to take some pictures of numbers for the calendar. The students had to use various objects around the room to represent the number they had been given. When they were done, I gave them the digital camera to use. We will then print out the numbers and cut them out to use on our calendar. The students did a fantastic job with the camera. I have created an animoto to show you how the pictures turned out.

For social today, we started talking about our communities and how we can make them a safe and friendly place to live. You can see the results of the brainstorming below:

We used a site called gliffy.com. The students really enjoyed using the site. One part of it allows you create room using pictures of objects. The site is free but requires them to register. Your children might bug you to help them sign up. It’s a great tool to use and fun for the kids. You can have them use it to create their own diagrams on various topics.

If you haven’t already, sign up for our email updates. You can recieve an email whenever the blog has been updated so that you can always keep on top of the interesting stuff happening here in 3B.

Don’t forget that favorite bible verses are due on Friday. Bookorders are due on Monday.

Math and Wordle

September 4, 2008 eoin24 Comments 5 comments

I found this site a few weeks ago, though I haven’t really found a good use for it in class yet. But I thought I would take the ideas that our class came up with in Math today for our discussion on how math is all around us in everything we do and turn it into a wordle.

Wordle is a neat site that allows you to take some text, copy and past it into the editing area and create an image of the words. The more times you use a word the bigger it becomes. It is very much like the keywords I have along the bottom left hand side. They are also sized according to how may there are about that subject.

Wordle, however, just creates a neat “cloud” of words. You can see from our wordle that the word “math” was very important in its relation to the activities alot of us are involved in. It was a neat activity to show that math isn’t always just numbers. It is an integral part of our lives; involved in many of our daily activities. We just don’t think of it as math.

Anyway, it is a fun site to play with. You can find it by clicking here.

Ask A Scientist Day

June 2, 2008 eoin24 Comments 0 Comment

Tomorrow, students will be having their last Mad Minutes. We will also be finished with Test of Ten for the year. I have added a set of practice pages for students to practice on in the Box.net widget on the right side.

For Science today, we watched the recent shuttle take off on the NASA site. We also went to the Mars Polar Lander site and ask the scientists involved some questions about the Mars Polar Lander. The students asked some really good questions which I have shared below:

These are some questions from my class who are studying Space and Mars.

1) If there was water on Mars, where did it go?

2)What is the smallest part of the Mars Phoenix Lander?

3)Why does the Mars Phoenix just have to let go of the parachute?

4) Does it snow on Mars?

5)Why did you use rockets instead of the air bags you used on the Mars Rovers?

6) Why does Mars have ice?

7) How much does the Mars Lander weigh?

8) Is Mars hot or cold?

9) Why do you need space suits on Mars?

10)Why do you only send robots to Mars?

11) Why does mars have ice on the top, Is it like Earth with a North Pole?

12) When did they first know about Mars?

13) Does it rain on Mars?

14) If mars has an atmosphere, why does it have so many craters?

15) How far away is Mars to the nearest galaxy?

16) How are the Mars Rovers and phoenix doing?

17)Do the gadgets on the Phoenix run on gas or sunlight? Why?

18) How much does the Phoenix cost?

19)Is Mars a deadly planet for humans?

20) How long does it take to get to Mars from Earth?

21) How long could the polar lander last?

22) What do you think happened to the Lander that disappeared?

23) Why can\’t humans go on Mars if they can go on the Moon?

Thank you for answering our class questions! The Grade 3 class!

We also took a look at a couple of neat sites that tell you your weight on other planets. Another site I found after tells you how how you would be on other planets due to their orbit and rotation time. The sites are on the sidebar or here and here!

Sumer is Icumen

May 30, 2008 eoin24 Comments 0 Comment

As the title suggests, summer is a coming! It sure was a beautiful day today. It is hard to believe that summer is almost here and with it the end of the school year. We still have lots left to do. Please do not set any holidays during the last few weeks as we have a busy time of tests and finishing assignments.

Today was a fun day and the students got to make Ice Cream in our class. Not sure I would do that project again as it was very messy but the kids sure had fun and the ice cream didn’t turn out half badly either.

There was no home letter today but students do have a Basic Facts test next Tuesday which they should be practicing for. If you would like some pages to practice with you can use the Math Fact Cafe to make up some worksheets for them to practice on.

Have a great weekend!

Mid-week Happenings

May 21, 2008 eoin24 Comments 0 Comment

earth Devotion:

The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it. Psalm 24:1

We took some time to get back into our other subjects today after spending yesterday on our poems. We did our monthly 30 word spelling test. Following that, we discovered multiplying two and three digit numbers with one digit numbers. The students caught on quickly and I think had a good understanding on the concept by the end of the class. We teach multiplying multiple digits differently from when I went to school but I think this way gives the students a better understanding of the concept which they can then build on when we get to larger numbers. tornado

Students will be having a short quiz/test next Science period on sizes of objects in space. Basically, I am testing to see how well they understand that the farther things are away from us, the smaller they appear. So the Sun appears to be the same size as the Moon because it is much farther away from us than the Moon.

Mr. Beynon also came by today and showed us a neat way to create tornado with two pop bottles and blue-dyed water. Basically, take two pop bottles, glue the caps together, drill a hole through the two caps, put the water with the dye into one of the two bottles and screw the lids back on. Finally, flip the bottles over and swirl them around until you get tornado going. Cool! I’m glad I’m not swimming in there though!!!!

A Trip Through Space!

May 16, 2008 eoin24 Comments 0 Comment

Devotions:

Pray in the spirit at all times in every prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert and always persevere in supplication for all the saints. Ephesians 6:18

Just a quick blog entry today. I have been having lots of fun with the WWTelescope. If you haven’t downloaded it yet, please get it as soon as possible! It is a great program and those of the students that have downloaded it, many of them are already creating their own slideshows and presentations using the images available. I’m hoping that Microsoft will add some music soon so I don’t have to look for free, usable music.

icecream It was a busy day and it was made harder by the beautiful weather outside. We did get to go out and play some kickball which helped (and I think I got a sunburn because of it). Students had a math test today which was fairly long due to the fact that they also had a review test to go along with it. Tomorrow, students will have their spelling test. We have moved the memory verses to Tuesday as I will not be in the class on Friday. The students will actually have a sub tomorrow even though I will still be in the building. Tomorrow is the Spelling Bee and I will be busy helping out with that event.

Have a great night. I think I will go and get a bowl of ice cream!!!!

I Don’t Understand!

April 22, 2008 eoin24 Comments 0 Comment

A Whole New Term and Whole New Spelling Words! Werd, dude!

March 31, 2008 eoin24 Comments 1 comment

Well, I hope you all had a wonderful Spring Break. My wife and I enjoyed our time together and especially enjoyed our trip to New York. All the sights and sounds! It was amazing! If you ever have a chance to go, take it! New York is an amazing city and very safe. My wife and I went to a lot of galleries and art museums. We also saw three shows including The Little Mermaid. Here are some excerpts:

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/3RdrQy0j39E" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/2DUXVAg7oWg" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

In class today, we started our look at fractions relating the use of fractions to scores on tests and pieces of pie. The students are picking it up very quickly which I am pleased to see. In social today, we did a quick review of aboriginal communities in B.C. We will be adding the aboriginal community that is local to our map of the physical features of British Columbia. One of the questions we will be asking is why they think our local aboriginal group decided to settle in this area of the province.

We will be starting our new unit on space tomorrow with a little quiz to find out what students already know about the solar system. It should be very interesting to see the information the students have already learned and synthesized about this unit. It will also be interesting to see what misconceptions about the universe the students have. I think it will be a great unit, especially with all the great interactive materials for the smartboard that are available.

Here is the spelling list for this week:cheap cheerfulhonest freshcheap cheerful

honest fresh

rough wise

wide plain

actual sure

dependent delight

future choice

least young

pair faith

always steal

Finally, I showed this video to the students this morning and they got a huge kick out of it. I won’t give the secret away (and kids, if you are watching this with your parents, don’t tell them the secret either).[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/Ahg6qcgoay4" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]This is what some kids experience in class all the time! How do we teach our kids to focus amongst all the distractions of life?

100th day and more poetry please!

February 29, 2008 eoin24 Comments 0 Comment

We had a lot of fun these past two days on our new Poetry Unit. We had the start of our tournament with our first two poem competitors. It was a no holds barred poetry reading but we came out with a clear winner. How to Eat a Poem won a decisive victory against It’s Dark in Here!

Now it’s your turn to vote! You can vote for your favorite poem in the voting box on the right side after listening to these two clips:

Itsdarkinhere

Howtoeatapoem

We also spent some time closely looking at the poems the students chose during the poetry hunt. We wanted to really see what a poem was made of; what made it tick and how an author might use various elements to create their poem. We started a brainstorm looking at these various elements of poetry. We will be using this brainstorm as we continue looking at various poems. You can see our brainstorm below. We used the service bubbl.us to create it. Click on the +/- signs to zoom in and out and move the image with your mouse to get to different areas of the brainstorm.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://bubbl.us/sys/view.swf?sid=82854&pw=yaig/EznkEDRMMTl2MzRLWWZ5RlI2QQ" width="450" height="450" wmode="transparent" /]

We also watched a neat video yesterday. The video showed 100 people from ages 1 – 100. It was to celebrate the fact that we have past 100 days of school. We were all amazed by that fact. This year has gone by so fast. It is hard to believe that we have already gone through half a year and that we only have a half year left together. It has been an amazing experience and a learning experience for both the students and myself.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/GUHLa1qSy24" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Being Flexible!

February 6, 2008 eoin24 Comments 0 Comment

3B had another busy and exciting day today. We ended the day with gymnastics. It was wonderful seeing how much the students enjoyed participating in the class. They were very excited and bouncy. I myself would not have been able to move if I had tried to do any of the stretches, tumbles, twists or rolls your children were doing. It was a lot of fun to watch.

Unfortunately, we ran out of time to do the math quiz today. So the children have another night to practice their 3, 5, 9 times tables. I have told the students that these are easy marks and that, if I was going to just give them easy marks, they should all get 100%. I have given them pages to take home to practice all the times tables. These are colouring pages with the math facts on them. When they are done, they can cut the sides of the page to make flaps. These flaps cover the answers. As they practice, they can open the flaps to see if they got the answer correct.

Tomorrow, students will being starting their paragraphs again and adding in one -ly word per sentence. Today we wrote a paragraph together on penguins adding in the -ly words as we went. I also read them a paragraph I had written on the exact same topic when I was taking the Blended Style and Structure (BSS) course.

Please don’t forget to send in your permission slip for the swim trip next week. If you have not seen it yet, it should be in your child’s planner. If you cannot not find it, simply click on the document in the box.net widget on the lower right side. You can download the form from there.

Beyond The Desk

The Class Blog for Mr. Hancock's Grade 5/6 Class

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