Global Project: Same Day in March

As is so often the case, I found a wonderful global project via Twitter! 

The global project is called Same Day in March! 

This collaborative project is a fabulous way to learn about weather, geography, technology, and culture. Thanks to Mrs. Ladd and Ms. Stefopoulou for creating and facilitating this project! Follow the project on Twitter using the hashtag #sdim18.

Today was day 1, but you can join at any time during the month of March. To kick off the project, we went outside with some weather tools. 

Photo by Mrs. Yollis

We used thermometers for measuring the air temperature and set up a rain gauge to measure the forecasted rain on Friday. 

Photo by Mrs. Yollis  

Learning how to read the thermometer was one of the first lessons we learned. 

Photo by Mrs. Yollis 

 From the NOAA National Weather Service, we learned that it will definitely be raining tomorrow! Good thing we have our rain gauge out to see how many inches of rain we receive. 

Don't forget your umbrella tomorrow! 

Photo by Mr. Seliskar 

UPDATE:

Although rain was predicted throughout the day, we only received .3 of an inch from 8:00 until 2:00. 

We used Google Earth to "visit" the communities that are in the project. As we zoomed out, we tried to classify each community. Is it an urban community, a suburban community, or a rural community? Some students took a screenshot and uploaded the information to Seesaw and added it to our "Same Day in March" folder. 

We also placed sticky notes on the locations. What do you notice about the classes that joined from the United States?

Are there any classes in the project that live in a place that is new to you? Because of their location, will their weather be similar to ours?

What are the names of some clouds we might see? What do they look like?  

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We Failed, But Grew Some Dendrites

We love the challenge of a Google BreakOut EDU. The object of a BreakOut EDU  is to solve several puzzles while working together with other members of your team. Each puzzle unlocks one of the locks on the box. You have 45 minutes to do it, and we were allowed ONE hint per team. If you unlock all the locks within 45 minutes, you win! 

Last October, we were successful when we did the TEAMWORK BreakOut with Mrs. Garcia.  There are many games to choose from. 

This BreakOut EDU was a Valentine themed BreakOut, so Carol the red bear came out to watch the progress. Carol LOVES to watch students working together to solve problems!

Mrs. Minicozzi was there with her enthusiasm and positive attitude! She brought the district's BreakOut EDU box and all the puzzles. 

Mrs. Minicozzi started the clock and the teams got started! Some of the puzzles involved finding hidden digits that unlocked a lock. 

Other puzzles required graphing and then using the data to come up with a 3-digit number that would unlock a lock. Concepts like even and odd and place value positions were important.  

One puzzle required a lot of addition and then some attention to little details. Everything is important when you're trying to solve the puzzles! 

One particularly difficult puzzle involved a black light and some clue cards. Students had to think...what do all these clues have in common?  

Students worked together on the puzzles. Sometimes, it was frustrating. 

Some puzzles were solved and a few locks were opened. 

Unfortunately, after 45 minutes, we were not successful.

Our failure gave us an opportunity to reflect about the game. What worked? What didn't work? How did each person handle frustration? Although we would always prefer to win, it is through failure that we grow and learn. As you learn your brain grows new dendrites! 

Here are some question to think about as you reflect: 

1. As you look back at the BreakOut EDU experience, what did you learn about yourself? 

2. What would you do differently next time? 

3. What did you miss that surprised you? 

4. Without giving away any answers, what tips would you offer a class attempting to solve a BreakOut EDU?

5. How did you keep yourself going when it got difficult? 

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An Array of Compound Words

Today we reviewed compound words. 

First, we watched the BrainPop Jr. video.

Something new to students was the idea of different types of compound words. For this, we stopped by the teacher resources from Spelling City. 

There are THREE different types of compound words, closed, hyphenated, and open compound words! 

Next, Mrs. Yollis got out some compound word cards. Each student was given half of a compound word. The object was to find a student with the other half. Together two students made ONE compound word. 

Once all the compound words were formed, we started making an array to figure out how many compound words we had in all. An array is a multiplication word we recently learned. When you line up objects in equal rows and columns, it makes it easy to get the total, or product. 

The first attempt is shown below. Students thought they had eight rows of four. So, 8 x 4 = 32 compound words.

Students soon realized that we had eight rows. However, some rows had four compound words and some rows had three compound words.  

We did some figuring, and realized we had 30 words.

Once we realized we had 30 words, we started building real arrays. 

6 rows of 5

15 rows of  2

2 rows of 15

3 rows of 10

What arrays did we miss? 

Leave a comment using at least FOUR compound words! 

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Multiplication! Multiplication! Multiplication!

We are learning and loving multiplication! 

Multiplication is repeated addition. 

4 + 4 + 4 = 12

3 groups of 4 balloons = 12 balloons

3 and 4 are factors

12 is the product

We've done a plethora of activities to clarify the properties of multiplication and memorize the facts! We have been attacking multiplication in a multitude of ways! 

Playing Multiplication Games

Thanks Marcy Cook 

Making Multiplication Bracelets!

Multiplication Tricks and Patterns for 9s!

Multiplication Bingo!

Making Arrays and Applying the Distributive Property of Multiplication 

The Distributive Property states that multiplying a sum by a number is the same as multiplying each addend by the number and then adding the products. 

6 x 7

We've even been writing about the Distributive Property of Multiplication over on our 365 Blog. 

Aaron's 324 x 5 example:

Keya's 7 x 8 example:

Students have photographed arrays to share on our class 365 blog. 

In the comment section, leave an equation for one of the following photos! Challenge, can you then apply commutative property or distributive property to your equation? Try to take your comment to a higher level! Here we go!

1. Mrs. Yollis' pan array 

 2.  Kostaki's picture array

3. Kostaki's bead array

4. Keya's pumpkin seed array

5. Ari's shoe array

6. Kate's pencil array 

7. Abigail's chalk array  

8. Keya's tile array

  

9. Lily's crayon array

Advanced: This array uses 3 factors and a set of parenthesis. Good luck!

10. Mrs. Yollis' cup cakes

Again, in the comment section, leave an equation for one of these photos! Challenge, can you then apply commutative property or distributive property to your equation? Try to take your comment to a higher level!

What is your favorite multiplication equation?

Which math fact is the most difficult for you? 

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