Cool Math Links

Being a great Mathematician takes time and practice. Here are some awesome sites I've found to help you practice your skills online.

Study Jams is really cool! You can pick a strand of Math and practice it by singing Karaoke, watching a video, doing a Step By Step lesson or Testing Yourself.

Math Live has cartoon episodes starring Anna and Hank who give you a real world problem to solve, and then go back and practice the skills needed to solve that problem. Bonus: it's a Canadian site!

Math Libs is a fun site where you can fill in the blanks, like in Mad Libs, and generate silly word problems that you get to solve. Try it! The word problems are based on the grade 4 and 5 curriculum, but would still be good practice for our 6s.

6s, in case you were feeling left out, you can try M-G6 is a really neat site with lessons, activities and a glossary, based on the grade 6 curriculum.

Clara has been using Khan Academy at home and likes it even more than IXL! I've signed us up for a class account. If you want a membership, just send me your email address and I'll sign you up! You can answer Math questions, like in IXL, but there are little videos available to coach you if you get stuck. And, you can take hints if you forget how to do something!

You can also access the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives to solve problems in a digital hands-on way!

On Free Rice, you can practice your times tables and earn grains of rice to be donated internationally from the World Food Program at the same time!

Vickie's Idea - Our Quote Wall

In order to inspire her classmates and other students, parents and staff around the school, Vickie came up with the idea of posting a graffiti Quote Wall outside of our classroom.

You should come and see how full the Quote Wall is now! Lots of inspirational messages are now posted here.

Hanging Around Outside!

How Roland Rolls - Our Roland Faces

After we enjoyed "How Roland Rolls", by Jim Carrey, the Rainbow Eggheads made their own, hilarious Roland faces!

Today in the Lab

Hello, boys and girls and welcome to our weekly computer lab time!

Today's jobs are fairly simple:

#1. Visit the blog post I made about our upcoming Science unit and Wonderopolis.
-Select one of the questions for your grade and click on the link.
-Once you get to the Wonderopolis site about that question, watch the video to whet your appetite for knowledge.
-Next, read the answer.
-You will notice that lots of words are underlined in red. Float your mouse over top of any of them and see what happens!
-Once you have read the article and learned the answer to your question, look on the right hand side of the Wonderopolis page. There is a box titled, "Test Your Knowledge". Click on that, answer the questions and check how well you understood what you read and watched.

#2. Visit TypingWeb and practice your typing for 10 minutes (keep track on the bottom right of your screen).

#3. Next, visit IXL and continue working on the tasks there. Today, I'd like you to focus on multiplication and division. If you are working in the section of your grade level and it is too challenging, select a lower grade level to practice with first.

Wonderopolis Can Help Us with Science!

To get ready to start our first Science unit: Understanding Structures and Mechanisms, I've been doing some exploring on a great site called Wonderopolis. 

Below are some links to the great articles, videos, activities and quizzes available on Wonderopolis that tie into our in-class learning.

If there is a question that has not yet been answered on Wonderopolis, you can submit one!

Can Kids Be Inventors, Too? Hopefully by the end of this unit, you'll answer this with one word: "Yes!"

Grade 5s, we'll be learning about Forces Acting on Structures and Mechanisms.

What Is a Hurricane?

What Is a Tsunami?

What is City Planning?

How Long is the Longest Bridge?

Why Do Bridges Freeze Before Roads?

Why Are Brick Houses So Strong?

How Many Blocks Make an Igloo?

Is the Leaning Tower of Pisa Falling?

How Tall is the Eiffel Tower?

What is a Waterwheel?

Grade 6s, we'll be learning about Flight.

How Much Does the Sky Weigh?

Which Bird Flies the Fastest?

Who Invented the Kite?

How Does a Hovercraft Work?

Do Boomerangs Always Come Back?

How Do Helicopters Work?

Who Were the Wright Brothers?

Why Do Airplanes Leave Tracks in the Sky?

When is Being Grounded Good?

How Far Can a Paper Airplane Fly?

We Stood Up for Girls 2013

Friday is the International Day of the Girl, Thursday, we'll Stand Up for Girls

Hello Rainbow Egg Heads,

  Today in the computer lab, you are going to be doing some reading and watching.

#1. Read my blog post about International Day of the Girl and Stand Up for Girls from last year (there are three short videos to watch on there too).

#2. Read the post and comments that include our discussion about this from last year.

#3. Read the post and watch the video about what we did last year to Stand Up for Girls. Do you want to do this again today (since we won't be at school on Friday, the International Day of the Girl)?

#4. Write a comment on this post describing why you think some girls don't get to go to school in other parts of the world and finish this sentence: I stand up for....
Before hitting "post", double check what you have written for clarity and accuracy.
Success Criteria: thoughtful and juicy thoughts shared, full sentences, proper spelling/punctuation/grammar
Green Light Level response by one of your peers: 
I think girls don't get to go to school because they are neglected by their society.
I stand up for... not letting girls be in poverty just because they're girls

#5. If you have not yet completed the "Stars and a Planet" task, click on this link to do so (many people used the QR code to get to this link).

#6. Follow step 3 on this post if you have not yet joined our Edmodo groups..

#7. Spend the remaining time doing your choice of IXL or TypingWeb.

HUGE Project Thank You News!

As you know, your teacher is wacky! One of the reasons I am so wacky is because I love comedy, and one of my favourite comedic actors is the one and only Jim Carrey. This past weekend, Jim Carrey was making an appearance in Toronto, only a four hour drive away, to read his new picture book, "How Roland Rolls".

After a late night/early morning drive to Toronto, and many, many hours in line, I got to meet Jim! Of course, I was thinking of my wonderful Rainbow Egg Heads and planned ahead, printing out a Project Thank You card for him.

Here I am, getting my copy of the book signed and explaining to Jim about Project Thank You.

He wanted to know more about you and what grades you are in.

Here he is with the Project Thank You card which he promised to keep passing on!

And...I got to make funny faces with the funniest faced man in showbiz!

Here's Matt with Jim. Don't they look alike?

Room 209 Fashion: Sk8r Twins

Math - Practicing Operations

In Room 209, we've been talking about how learning, especially in the subject of Math, is like building a Jenga tower.

All the new things we learn are stacked on the top of our towers, but if we have a lot of holes in the bottom part our our towers, from those skills we don't know or haven't practiced enough, our new learning will fall right off, rather than it sinking in.

In order to help everyone have a solid tower, we've been practicing a lot in class. We have been focusing on our operational sense and making sure everyone has strong skills in addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.

Some holes that are in many of Room 209's towers are multiplication tables and a clear understanding of place value. A recommendation for all students is to practice these skills daily. A great way to do that is in conversation with your parents, or "Math Boot Camp", as one family calls it, or by practicing your skills on IXL. Log in and practice place value and the basic operations. Don't forget to have some scrap paper near you as you work so you can work out more complicated questions on that!

Today in the Lab

Hello Rainbow Egg Heads,

  Welcome to the Lab. You have several jobs to do today.

1. First, log into your TypingWeb account (your username is your first name and the digits of our classroom, and we all have the same password, Shauna reminded you of it in class). You will work on there for 10 minutes.

2. Next, log on to your IXL account (you have your username and password on your password card). Work on either: Number Sense and Numeration, Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication or Division, wherever you feel you need to spend time. You will work on there for 10 minutes.

3. Then, visit Edmodo and log in to your account (you have made up your own log in and password). Ensure that you have joined all these groups: Rainbow Egg Heads (wzc75u), Global Read Aloud 2013 Grade 5s and 6s (7tmn9x), Fifth Grade Out of My Mind GRA 2013 (ayj7vc), GRA13 - "Out of My Mind" (d9q4h2), and Out of My Mind - Pineville, NC and Ottawa, Canada (j9ibm9) . The codes to join these groups are posted here (but only temporarily!) If you need help with Edmodo, talk to Millie, Camden, Fiona, Hannah, Yaro, Hunty, Madi, Kaleigh, Miggy, Thomas, Mel or Pat, and they'll support you in the lab!

4. Finally, go onto the different groups about the GRA that you have joined. Read what is going on. Respond to at least one post, poll or assignment.

5. If you finish all this, continue to visit the Edmodo groups and add to the conversations or search the hashtag #GRA13 or #GRA13OOMM on Twitter.