We're Still Here!

For the past couple of years, I have been recieving reports from my students that the world was going to end  in 2012. Specifically, the end of the world was to occur December 21, 2012. Fortunately for all of us, it didn't. Here's a short video produced by NASA that explains what the Mayan calendar does, and does not, say about 12/21/12.

Happy Holidays

I hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday break. Enjoy your time off! I will see everyone again on Wednesday, January 2nd.

Christmas Song Riddles--Week 3

Here's the last one. Same rules as last week. If you want to see the answers, you need to take the quiz. Here is the link to week 1 if you haven't tried yet.

1. Approach everyone who is steadfast.
2. Ecstasy toward the orb.
3. Listen! The Foretelling spirits harmonize.
4. Hey, Minuscule urban area southeast of Jerusalem.
5. Quiescent Nocturnal period.
6. The Autocrat troika originating near the ascent of Apollo.
7. The primary carol.
8. Embellish the corridors.
9. I'm fantasizing concerning a blanched yuletide.
10. I apprehended my maternal parent osculating with a corpulent unshaven male in crimson disguise.
11. During the time ovine caretakers supervised their charges past midnight.
12. The thing manifests itself at the onset of a transparent day.
13. The coniferous nativity.
14. What offspring abides thus?
15. Removed in a bovine feeding trough.
16. Creator, cool it, you kooky cats!
17. Valentino, the roseate proboscises wapiti.
18. The slight percussionist lad.
19. Father Christmas approaches the metropolis.
20. Seraphim we aurally detected in the stratosphere.
21. The tatterdemalion ebony atmosphere.

Week in Review

Early this week your took their perimeter assessment. The students needed to measure two shapes that were taped on the floor and then calculate their perimeters. Students in Mr. Borzick's math group should have received their graded assessment on Thursday while students in Mrs. Lew's room should expect to receive theirs when you return from break.

After completing perimeter, we began to dip our toes into geometry through two activities. The first activity is called, "Quick Images." In this activity I display a picture for three seconds and students must work to draw the same shape from memory. They then get to see it one more brief time so they can make corrections to their work. I will then display the image so that everyone can fix their picture and make it perfect. As a class, we then discuss what strategies students used to help them remember the shape. Some students see patterns, some see pictures, some break the larger picture into smaller shapes. Through these quick images we hope that students will begin to think about shapes in different ways.

The second activity the children participated in was building Tetronimos. Tetronimos are shapes built using four cubes; for parents familiar with Tetris, the shapes in that game are the

Track Santa

Beginning on Christmas Eve, you can track Santa's progress as he delivers his gifts at www.google.com/santatracker Should make for a very exciting day!

You can read the full details from Google's blog below.


While millions of people eagerly await Christmas Day, Santa and his elves are keeping busy at the North Pole. They’re preparing presents, tuning up the sleigh, feeding the reindeer and, of course, checking the list (twice!) before they take flight on their trip around the world. 

While we’ve been tracking Santa since 2004 with Google Earth, this year a team of dedicated Google Maps engineers built a new route algorithm to chart Santa’s journey around the world on Christmas Eve. On his sleigh, arguably the fastest airborne vehicle in the world, Santa whips from city to city delivering presents to millions of homes. You’ll be able to follow him on Google Maps and Google Earth, and get his stats starting at 2:00 a.m. PST Christmas Eve at google.com/santatracker. 

Simulating Santa's path across the world—see it live Dec 24

In addition, with some help from developer elves, we’ve built
a few other tools to help you track Santa from wherever you may be. Add the new Chrome extension or download the Android app to keep up with Santa from your smartphone or tablet. And to get the latest updates on his trip, follow Google Maps on Google+, Facebook andTwitter.

Get a dashboard view of Santa's journey on Google Maps

The Google Santa Tracker will launch on December 24, but the countdown to the journey starts now! Visit Santa’s Village today to watch the countdown clock and join the elves and reindeer in their preparations

Internet Safety

Because all of the students in Cudahy now have email accounts and can create accounts for themselves on various educational web tools, we spent some time today going over Internet safety in class. The students learned to follow the "YAPPY" guidelines.

Never give out:
Your name
Address
Phone number
Passwords
Your plans

Everything they learned can be summed up in one sentence: If you wouldn't tell a stranger in person, don't put it on the Internet. 

Click here to see the Garfield video we watched to teach the skills: http://learninglab.org/life_skills/online_safety/

States of Matter Glogs

As I mentioned in Friday's Week in Review, the students created Glogs to explain the three states of matter.

Isabella's Glog is embedded below (click the box in the upper right corner to see full size) but all of the Glogs can be found in the student work section of our classroom website.

Vocab Trading Cards

Today during guided reading, the students began practicing new vocabulary words using an iPad app titled "Trading Cards." Students created "baseball cards," complete with a picture, to help them learn the new words.

After each student finished a vocab trading card, they emailed a copy to his/her email address. From there, students can print out a copy from which to study. If students would like a color copy of their cards, they can access their email from home and print out the card from there.

To access the email, students cango to our classroom site, click on the "Your Web Tools" link, and select  Gmail.

Click on the image above to see a larger picture.

Week in Review

My plan is to devote some time each Friday to update you on what we have been working on in class during the week. Welcome to the first installment!

Our math class was cancelled twice this week, once because of the NED assembly and the other because of our field trip; however, we continue to work on measuremnt and have spent some time this week learning how to calculate perimeter.

Our other large topic this week was on parts of speach and sentence structure. Students reviewed what nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs were and then learned what a prepositional phrase was. Each of these parts of speach was assigned a shape and students rearranged the shapes in many different ways to see how one sentence can have the same words, say the same thing, but sound very different.

Example of how words can be rearranged. Click image for a bigger picture. 

Lastly, students have been constructing Glogs about the states of matter. Only about 1/3 of the students are finished; however, I will not be devoting any more class time to this project. Students can finish their Glogs from home by clicking on the "Your Web Tools" link from our classroom website. Remind your child to add a link to their Glog by clicking on the orange button. 

Christmas Song Riddles--Week 2

Now that we're into Week 2, it's time to make it a bit harder. Each of these phrases is a rather complicated way to say the name of a common Christmas Song. For instance, #4 could be "translated" into "Silent Night." Best of luck, remember to take the quiz to see the answers.  If you would like to try your hand on last week's picture puzzles, you can click here.

1. The apartment of 2 psychiatrists.
2. The lad is a diminutive percussionist.
3. Festoon the entryways with colorful decorations.
4. Sir Lancelot with laryngitis.
5. A B C D E F G H I J K M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y X Z
6. Present me naughty but dual incisors for this festive Yuletide.
7. The event transpired when a smogless bewitching hour arrived.
8. Exuberation to this orb.
9. 288 Yuletide hours.
10. Do you perceive the same longitudinal pressure which stimulates my auditory sense organs?
11. The red-suited pa is due in this burg.
12. Stepping on the pad cover.
13. Uncouth dolt has his beezer in the booze and thinks he is Dark Cloud's boyfriend.
14. Far back in a hay bin.
15. Leave and do an elevated broadcast.
16. That exiguous hamlet south of the holy city.
17. Behold! I envisioned a trio of nautical vessels.
18. Listen, the winged heavenly messengers are proclaiming tunefully.
19. A joyful song relative to hollow metallic vessels which vibrate and bring forth a ringing sound when struck.
20. As the guardians of little woolly animals protected their charges in the shadows of the earth.

Spirit Day Tomorrow!

Don't forget to wear your spirit wear tomorrow!

12/12/1912

Just an interesting tid-bit to see how the NY Times covered 12/12/12 100 years ago.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/12/12/us/12121912_article.html?smid=pl-share

The Problem with Diamonds

Today the class and I had a discussion about one of my "pet-peeves" and I thought it important to share with you.  There is not a shape called a diamond.

Looking at the above shapes, students will immediately identify the blue one as a square. They see the four equal, straight sides. They also see a shape oriented in a typical way. When students look at the red shape, they call it a diamond. The problem with this is that they are the same shape; only one has been rotated 45 degrees.

When looking at shapes, all children need to learn that it is not the orientation of the shape that defines its name. Students should look at the number of sides a shape has, the size of its angles, and whether or not its sides are parallel. That is what gives a shape its name.

While I am mentioning parallel lines, I'd also like to point out the following shapes. They are parallelograms, not diamonds-regardless of how they are rotated.

Once a Century

Today is 12-12-12. So, I thought it appropriate to post something at 12:12 today.

Happy Aaron Rodgers day!

NED Show

Today the students participatd in the NED Show assembly. The assembly's focus in on character development and teaches the the children to:

Never give up
Encourage others
Do your best.

It was a wonderful assembly and don't be surprised if your child asks for a Yo-Yo for Christmas.

The show has a fairly extensive website complete with parent resources.



Show Clips from The NED Show on Vimeo.

Measurement is Back

We started our new math chapter today and we are again studying measurement. Today the children worked together to find objects in our classroom that were about an inch, centimeter, foot, and yard/meter. These objects will become "Benchmarks" that the students can use to better visualize and estimate how big each of these units of measure are. 

Spirit Day

Each Friday at Kozy is Spirit Day. Children are encouraged to wear Kozy T-shirts (Anything with Kozy on it including Walk-a-Thon shirts), a red shirt, or a grey shirt (Kozy Colors). The class with the highest percentage of students participating wins a traveling trophy.

So far, our class hasn't done too well; we rarely break the 50% mark.  I would like to win this week. Please remind your child to wear their Spirit Wear this Friday.

Operation Move

Just a quick reminder that tomorrow is our field trip to "Operation Move." We will be gone all day, so please remember to pack your child a lunch.

Christmas Song Riddles--Week 1

Each Friday until our winter break, I'll be posting  Christmas Song riddles. The next puzzles are word puzzles, but I thought I'd start out easy and give you some pictures to work with. Each of the pictures below represents a well known, classic Christmas song. Once you've figured them all out, take the "Quiz" by clicking here, this is also your chance to see the correct answers.  Perhaps at the end of the three weeks I'll give a prize to the student from the family who has the most correct answers.

High School Play

Message from the HS Theater Department....

On behalf of the cast and crew of the High School Theater, we would like to invite you all to the production of "Harvey."  Dates for the show are Thursday December 6th through Saturday December 8th. All performances are at 7:00pm. Tickets are $5.00 at the door.

We hope to see you all there to suport the arts, our students, and enjoy the wonderful talent of all involved. 

Math Problems.

More "Math Problems Explained" were posted today on the classroom website. This is the last blog post that I will make about individual math problems being explained on the site. In the future, please visit our classroom  site to see any updates. You can also subscribe to an RSS feed of all new math problems explained if you don't want to check.

These problems are meant to serve as an example to both students and parents if there is any homework difficulty.

Santa's Workshop

Our class is scheduled to visit Santa's Workshop tomorrow and Friday. If you would like your child to make purchases at this event, please send money with your child.

Substitute

I will be out on Tuesday and Wednesday attending a conference. Mrs. Huber will be my sub on Tuesday, and Mr. Hoenfeldt will be my sub on Wednesday. I will not be checking my voice mail, but will be watching my email.