Today we started working with Polydrons. Here is the man who sells toys to teachers and schools telling about how to work with polydrons.
Some of us noticed that you could make bowls and flower hats! Then we thought about putting two bowls together! It made something like a ball but it has edges and it doesn’t roll. Look at this video about Bucky Balls! Can you make a bucky ball with polydrons?
Pictures of our 3D land are coming soon!
We started talking about the Earth when Earth Day was near. We read The Lorax and put up posters of animals, talked about caring for the earth, planted seeds and went on a Nature walk. We know that every day is Earth Day because we live on it, but Earth Day is a special day to double remember and think of ways we can help keep our earth safe and clean for the animals and the kids.
Then, we started really thinking about the earth so we made a popplet “All About the Earth”. Here it is!
The next week, in math, we were talking about measuring things and the languages of measurement. Someone said, “But Ms Echternacht, you can’t measure everything! You can’t measure the earth!” Ms Echternacht said, ” Actually that is a very, very interesting question! I will tell you they DID measure the earth. But I can tell you have already thought of a problem! What are the problems with measuring the earth?”
“Its a circle! It’s a sphere! It’s very big!” We thought maybe they measured it from space in a spaceship, but then someone said, “But they would just be looking at it, they still wouldn’t know!” Someone else thought about using a very, very long tape measure. “Why did she think of using a tape measure and not a ruler?” Ms Echternacht wondered!
“I will tell you they measured the earth before there were spaceships. They used a secret code. The secret code is m-a-t-h”. Ms Echternacht found some videos on the computer that told kids about the man who measured the earth a long, long, long, long, long time ago. His name was Eratosthenes (air-a-toss-10-knees). Here is the video telling about how he cracked the code:
Now we are tracking the sun in our classroom. We put tape where the sun is on the floor. The sun keeps moving! Or is it? Did you know in olden times before there were clocks, they used the sun to tell time? Can you make a sun clock?
Bertie Bear has arrived in America! Our friends in England sent him! He came a long way by snail mail! It took many days for him to get here. He went on an airplane. He has a passport and a note! We are so excited he is here for a visit! He goes to visit Canada after he stays with us! We got right to work sewing clothes for him and making him some furniture! Stay tuned for more “Adventures of Bertie Bear in America!”
We made this Alphabet with Mrs Simar!
Our Alphabet from DeerTech on Vimeo.
And you can read along with the First Grade’s computer project here:
Our school has friends all around the world. This farm is one of our friends. The name of the farm is Sprout Creek Farm. They like to show pictures of all the things that happen on the farm and all of the baby animals that are born on the farm. They make cheese. They are expert cheese makers. How do they make cheese and why are the animals important to the farm? Can you make cheese at your house?
Thank you to Sprout Creek Farm for letting Ms Echternacht put their beautiful photos on the blog to show everyone! You have to ask before you can share photos. They said YES! Thank you, Sprout Creek!
Sprout Creek Farm
We use the Think Math! program and workbooks to practice and build our math skills. Some days we have “Game Day” or work to design our own independent math projects. We try to “find the math”. Can you find the math in these projects? Here are some videos of our work!
Look at this work that started out with printing numbers on a paper:
Look at this math invention discovery!
Look at how these pencils have been grouped and counted! How much do 4 groups of 5 equal?
Watch this project evolve:
This student came to me showing 4 identical towers of 16.
A student nearby was engaged in a completely different project in which she suddenly needed to know how much 11 was four times. See how one project changed to support anothers:
Further dialogue yielded this
While we were playing today we noticed there were lots of birds on the playground. Then we noticed one was a bluebird! Then someone else saw another bluebird! We spent a long time being quiet and looking out the window at the birds. We used binoculars to see them. You have to be quiet when looking at birds. We found bluebirds on the Peterson’s App and heard their beautiful song.
Homework: Can you draw and label 10 different kinds of birds? More on birds here.
Do you have a feeder at your house? Here’s a site that will help you turn your backyard into a place where more animals will come to visit you so you can watch them and learn about them!
Did you know computers have a language? They do! You have to learn computer language if you want to invent games for kids to play.
Mr Wees is a math expert friend of Ms Echternacht’s. He lives in BC. BC is very different than DC. BC means British Columbia and it’s in Canada. DC means where the boss of the USA lives.
Mr Wees knows computer language. Mr Wees invented these games by writing the computer language:
photo used with permission courtesy of David Wees
Click the address to get to the game: http://davidwees.com/javascript/blockly/demos/draw/
Click here to see triangles inside of triangles or Roll the dice
There are lots of computer languages. Do you want to learn how to write computer language? You start with CHERP and SCRATCH
We are working to “crack the codes” of math. Did you know that math has lots of secret codes? It does! Instead of sounding out “plus” or “minus” you can just write “+” or “-”. There are lots of patterns and discoveries to be made in math! We chose to work on these projects and worked to make math discoveries.
It all started when someone made this on the counting board:
We talked about the beads on this counting board for a long time. What numbers do you see? Where are they? Can you write them? How many beads are on each line? Can you “crack the code” and find some of the math patterns in this design?
We went off to make our own projects.
Take a look at our work!
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- Tess wrote her numbers and then transferred them to a 100′s chart
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- Here are the numbers stacked up like steps
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- Number lines to 19! What comes after 19?
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- Some worked to put colored circles on the Number Road
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- What math things do you notice in this creation?
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- What are the differences between circle, triangle and square bracelets?
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- We made origami and then opened it up and traced the lines. What do you notice about the lines?
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- Allison folded up the paper and then numbered the squares. We noticed there were 6 boxes going across and 7 boxes going down to make all together 42 boxes. Can you fold paper and count the boxes?
In olden times the only way to keep warm was by a fire. We made a pretend log cabin and used this fire to help us pretend we were living in Laura Ingalls Wilder and Abraham Lincoln times.
At our school we have “Big Sisters.” They are in 5th Grade. They said they liked our blog! They blog too! Click here to visit their blog!
Mr Ben and his class live in Indonesia. They live where the orangutans live. We like to tweet tweet messages to them sometimes.
We told them about Gouter. They don’t have Gouter at their school! But they do have a blog, just like us! Mr Ben and his class made a post for us telling us all about how to make and fly kites! Want to see? Click right here!
