The Process of Graphing, Video, Too!
Today we began exploring the process of graphing information. We broke down the process into four steps:
1. Collecting Data
2. Organizing the Data
3. Charting the Data
4. Interpreting the Data
In today’s lesson we focused on the first two steps through trial and error. As you can see in this gallery below, we found a progression towards efficiency with our data collection and organization. Nice work kids!
Here is a video of us collecting data in our small groups:
By the way, don’t forget to watch the video in the post below as part of your homework. Tomorrow we will be mapping the story a bit more, then onto our rough drafts!
Here is the work for the day:
Video: Bradley Reading From An iPad, Breaks Rules of Old Reading!
Today I let Bradley read off of my wife’s iPad today. Shortly after beginning to read I noticed Bradley do something very smart and intuitive. He used some of the features of iBooks to teach himself the meaning of “heed”. Here is is tutorial:
http://www.marchionda.org/mediafolder/video/20100406BradiPad_conv.flvAmazing, he had only had the device for 20 minutes at this point. Great work, Bradley!
read moreHave a Fun Extended Weekend!
I hope you enjoy your extended weekend. Make a snowman,
read a book with a friend,
or do a dance.
http://www.marchionda.org/mediafolder/video/nadiadancing_conv.flvWhatever you do, have fun and be good! I know I am going to enjoy my day tomorrow with my little girl.I will see you all on Monday!
For Parents: I just want to take a moment and thank you for coming in and meeting with me. It has been a really nice year with your children, and with your support. I want you to know that I appreciate all that you do for me and for your children. You go have yourself a great weekend, too! 
Also, thanks for your support with the student blogs. It has been really fun to see what they write about. Take a peek by using the links in the sidebar to view our student blogs.
Science Test Tomorrow!
Just a reminder that our test on plants will be tomorrow. We will be able to use our books and guides. We should be pretty practiced, but it would not hurt to read over some of the vocabulary again tonight.
Great work on your play performances today! I was really impressed by how well each of you know your parts. The cooperation and collaboration was also a joy to watch. Wanna video? I’ll add one soon!
Here is the work for the day:
Valentine's Party News
Just a reminder about our Valentine’s Day Party at 2:00 on Friday. Please be sure to have a mailbox and your Valentines all set to go. I know mine will be. All parents are welcomed to attend.
You will notice that there is not a lot of work on our planner below.The reason for this is that we took some of our school’s SMART Goal assessments and mid year language arts assessments. We will continue assessing the mid year material until we are finished. In the afternoon we did science, math, and social studies. We will be taking a test on square numbers and factors of 6, 7,and 8. Head on over here to practice some facts.
Also, here is a movie from our last counseling class with Mrs. Lehman. We were practicing following directions and listening attentively using a fun dance. Enjoy!
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Pants on the Ground
We will behaving an open book science test tomorrow on forces and motion. We will also be having a reading test. Below is our book for the week (Coyote Places the Stars), feel free to read along.
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As we were walking between buildings yesterday, I heard behind me one of the funniest things I have heard as a teacher. Some of my students were singing the infamous American Idol hit of season 10 “Pants on the Ground”. It was one of those moments where I had to stop and shoot a video of it. Lot’s of fun!
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Exploring Newtons
Today in science we conducted a little experiment about how much energy in Newtons it takes to lift different amounts of matter. We practiced hypothesizing, recording data, and making inferences based on the numbers and our experiences with this experiment. Here is a shore video of some of the activity:
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read moreLast Day with Science in Residence
Today was our last day to learn from our Science in Residence scientists from UW-Oshkosh. Today was spent in a large group in the gym learning about chromatography, cleaning pennies with different materials, the Stroop Effect, modeling our solar system, and determining acids and bases by their tastes. Here is about a 12 minute video of us from each of the different centers.
While you are at it, don’t forget to head on over here to view all of our movies from this school year! We are collecting quite a few of them.
Next week we will get into full swing in math class by jumping right into multiplication concepts. We will explore multiplicaiton concepts through both models, symbolic models, and written equations. We will be learning about rural communities in social studies. In reading we will be studying a few traditional fables and sayings, trying to find the wisdom in them that their authors intended. Adjectives will be our focus in writing for the week, too.
Have a great week and I will see you all on Monday!
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On our second day of working with the students from the UW Oshkosh science department we made scale models of the planets in our solar system using Play Dough. After this we were able to conduct a science experiment that helped us determine the sizes of craters from different sizes of meteors and different speeds of meteors as they hit a surface.
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read moreScience in Residence, Day 2
Today, with our scientists, we explored how meteors make their mark and made scale models of the planets.
Here is a movie for you to download. I will try to get it in flash soon and add it to the movies section.
Here is the work for the day.
Simon's Subtraction – The New Math is Just Old Math Done Well
There has been some discussion around education recently about math. There is the “New” math and the “Old” math. The new method of math focuses on constructing the concepts, while the old method is more memorization based. My math is a blend of the two. While memorization and repetition definitely has it’s place in my math day, so does understanding why we do things . . . construction. Also, hard work, practice, and writing writing writing writing round out a day in my math classes. But . . . I have something to share from our new movies pages.
In this video Simon demonstrates how to solve a difficult borrowing subtraction problem by using symbolic blocks and expanded form. We are using these methods on our way to the standard algorithm. These steps are important to us so that we know why the standard algorithm works. Why do we use the standard algorithm at the end of the day? Well, the goal is to solve these problems in the quickest, most accurate way. These methods help us get there with sound fundamentals.
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