AIG Thinking Log

Mathmaticious - Fun Math Video

2009-05-20T17:11:00.003-04:00

Watch this video:

Free Technology for Teachers: Mathmaticious - Fun Math Video

What have you learned in math this year? What have you enjoyed the most? What do you think you need more work on? What math projects did you enjoy? What did you learn from them?

Photo courtesy Photos8.com

Inventors Hall of Fame

2009-05-12T13:09:00.006-04:00

New PBL Activity:
The director of SciWorks has asked you as a curator to help with a project. The Winston-Salem Convention Bureau has announced the Inventors Guild will be holding their annual meeting in the city this year. The Bureau would like to set up a display celebrating 20th century inventions and inventors. The Bureau has contracted with SciWorks to create the display.

Skype Conversation

2009-05-08T13:20:00.001-04:00

We just had our first Skype conversation with the class in Georgia. They could see and hear us fine, and although we could see them, we couldn't hear them . . . ugh! We still enjoyed our visit and saw some interesting books that we want to read! They were nice enough to tell us the authors of some of the book when we asked!

New PBL Activity!

2009-05-05T13:32:00.003-04:00

The Aquarium:
Your class will be getting a 30 gallon aquarium. The class will have $25.00 to spend on fish. You will plan which fish to buy. Use the Choosing Fish for Your Aquarium brochure to help you select the fish. The brochure tells you things you must know about the size of the fish, how much they cost, and their special needs. Choose as many different fish as you can. Write a letter explaining the fish you chose.

Giant Book Covers

2009-05-04T12:42:00.008-04:00

Each student used watercolors to create a giant book cover for the last book she read. This Friday, we will be talking with a class in Georgia about these projects (using Skype).

From the Mixed-Up Files . . . .

2009-05-03T17:15:00.007-04:00

Use this area to write summaries, answer questions, and do activities from the novel study page Share your great ideas and read the great ideas of others to get more inspired!

Learned this year?

2009-04-29T12:50:00.001-04:00

We love reading!

2009-04-28T13:14:00.001-04:00

We are reading a variety of books that we want to share with you!

First Video Call

2009-04-21T13:40:00.005-04:00

We just had our first video call over skype with a high school student! We looked at the record and saw that our call lasted 20 minutes, but it didn't seem like that since we enjoyed it so much!

Identifying Similarities and Differences

2009-04-16T14:01:00.005-04:00

From listening to the others in the class talk about the book they are reading, tell about some similarities and differences you think that book has with the one you are reading. Make sure to tell the names of the books you are comparing and contrasting!

Image from ClassroomClipart.com

Grids and Proportion

2009-04-16T13:13:00.002-04:00

We have been doing various activities dealing with proportion. Tell me about what we have done and what you have learned.

Magic Pen

2009-04-13T13:09:00.001-04:00

What types of math things do you learn from doing the Magic Pen activites?

Replay by Sharon Creech

2009-04-13T12:05:00.002-04:00

The 3rd grade girls are reading Replay by Sharon Creech. They can use this area to post their predictions and summaries as comments.

Tangerine

2009-04-13T12:02:00.003-04:00

The 4th grade girls are going to read Tangerine by Edward Bloor. My students in the past have really enjoyed this book. Post comments to this post making predictions and writing summaries about what you have read.

Math Game!!!

2009-04-07T13:35:00.003-04:00

Here is a math game site to build your math fluency, help you meet goals, and just have fun!
Don't forget your UserID and passwords for this site!
http://www.firstinmath.com/

VoiceThread on WriteOn Project

2009-04-06T08:56:00.001-04:00

http://voicethread.com/share/421609/
Please go to this voicethread and leave comments about working on this project.

Collaborative Story

2009-03-27T16:14:00.002-04:00

The story we started on the wiki was brought to a close today! Everybody did such a good job! Here is the link to that story:
http://writeonwsfcs.pbwiki.com/The-Story

New Book!!! New Book!!

2009-03-25T12:45:00.003-04:00

We are starting to read Tall Tails: Wingin' It with the Wright Brothers by Dona Smith. Students are completing various activities before, during, and after reading. Some of the activites they are doing are ones they thought of while others come from a list of 10 activities to do with novels. The activities students are choosing from is listed under the first comment.

Students, you can share your thoughts and ideas about the book here for us all to see! :)

Questions for Authors . . .

2009-03-23T14:16:00.002-04:00

What questions do you have about an author? What information would you like to find out? What information could help you make an outstanding presentation about an author? Do you want to just find out the boring facts or some interesting tidbits?

Image from ClassroomClipart.com

Author Presentation Challenge

2009-03-22T15:23:00.005-04:00

Several years ago, I created a PowerPoint presentation about an author. I enjoy reading books by this author, so I did some research and found out more information about her.

I challenge you to choose an author and create a presentation about him or her. Think about all the books we have read and all the technology tools we have learned about. See if you can combine any of those things to create something wonderful!

If you accept this challenge, I will too!

Identify Similarities and Differences

2009-03-19T13:02:00.001-04:00

Do you need to read a fictional story in a different way than you read a piece of nonfiction?
What is the author’s goal when writing a fictional story?
What is a reader’s goal when reading a fictional story?
What is the author’s goal when writing a piece of nonfiction?
What is the reader’s goal when reading a piece of nonfiction?
Why do you think this?

Fractions! Fractions! Fractons!

2009-03-19T12:46:00.004-04:00

Tell me all you can about Fractions!!!!

Clipart provided by Classroom Clipart

Retelling Because of Winn-Dixie

2009-03-17T18:21:00.008-04:00

Students used watercolors to create pictures to represent scenes from certain chapter. We scanned and uploaded those to voicethread for the students to add narration.
http://voicethread.com/#q.b401461.i0.k0

My students saw a box of math manipulatives under the bookcase. They decided to use those wooden shapes to create characters and objects from the story Because of Winn-Dixie. They used these things to retell portions of the story. We are at a magnet school for the visual and performing arts, so I guess this project qualifies :) Their retellings were filmed with a Flip Video camera.

Author: Sharon Creech

2009-03-12T12:15:00.004-04:00

As a class, we have have chosen the author Sharon Creech to focus on right now. I have several of her books in my class library for you to check out to read. When you read one, please post a summary of that book (make sure you mention the title of the book you read). You can also write about why you think she wrote certain stories or how you think she got the ideas for what she wrote. You can read things about her and find lists of the books that she has written at her website: http://www.sharoncreech.com/
Have fun reading this great author! She is one of my favorites!
Here is a wiki page with author information, a book plan, and book reviews all by us!

T is for Tarheel

2009-02-28T22:29:00.003-05:00

The 4th grade girls are going on an adventure through NC and its history as well as other interesting little tidbits about our great state as they read T is for Tarheel.

Activity Packet

Flag Picture from http://www.clker.com/clipart-9158.html

Lily Brown's Paintings

2009-02-26T13:39:00.002-05:00

Lily Brown's Paintings is one of the picture books nominated for the 2009 NC Children's Book Awards. Several classes at Diggs Elementary are reading the nominated books. Mrs. Uhrig has a blog for us to type on about these books. After reading this book, our class decided to create our own worlds. We drew pictures and painted them with watercolors.

Because of Winn-Dixie

2009-02-23T13:35:00.006-05:00

You girls are in for a treat becuase you are going to begin reading Because of Winn-Dixie, which is one of my favorite book! Before you start reading (and at various points while reading this book), please go to the Enrichment Wiki and answer questions and/or do certain activities.
Because of Winn-Dixie page

Online Activities

Literature Circle Job Sheets

Webquest

Now that the girls are almost finished with the story, they are using block to build things from the book. Pictures will follow shortly . . .

NC Picture Book Award Nominees 2008

2009-02-22T18:39:00.002-05:00

http://ncpicturebooks2008.blogspot.com/
Mrs. Uhrig created a blog for us read and review all the nominees for the North Carolina Picture Book Awards for 2008. We will be working together with Mrs. Uhrig and Ms. Feinman on this project.

MagicPen

2009-02-19T22:26:00.009-05:00

We have a good time learning about shapes, logic, cause/effect, and motion while working with the MagicPen site on the ActivBoard in math class. Videos done with Flip Video Camera.

http://magic.pen.fizzlebot.com/

Mr. Pilson needs our help again!

2009-02-19T22:04:00.001-05:00

From Mr. Pilson's Blog:

Would you like to be on a CD? We have a chance to get published! Please submit a bully free poem. Your work could be sung by students across the state of North Carolina.

http://makingmarvelousmusic.blogspot.com/2009/02/bully-free-community.html

Book Projects

2009-02-18T22:41:00.003-05:00

I posted links to various projects using voicethread in the sidebar. On the Book Project link, there are pictures and scans of some book projects uploaded to voicethread for you to add comments. Please share with us why you chose to create this and what the pieces mean.

Word of the Day

2009-02-17T16:46:00.004-05:00

I just added a new link to Useful Links in the sidebar: Word of the Day! I challenge you to check out the Word of the Day when you look at the blog . . . see if you can use that word that day! Be sure to tell us about what great job you do with this challenge!

Image Provided by Classroom Clipart

Sign of the Beaver

2009-02-17T13:28:00.005-05:00

What do you think about the book so far? What are the best parts? What do you think will happen next? Is there anything else you want to tell me about this book?

More Activities:
CyberGuide
More Information
WebQuest

War With Grandpa

2009-02-16T12:48:00.005-05:00

WOW!! The third grade girls finished Wish Giver in 3 days!!! Now they are on to their next book . . . War With Grandpa
So girls, here is a place for you to tell me about what you are reading now and what you think so far . . . you can make predictions too !

Questions and Activities

Rotation, Reflection, and Translation

2009-02-13T08:14:00.005-05:00

You are the author/illustrator of a new math book. It is your job to use designs, models, and/or computer graphics to illustrate and explain reflections, rotations, and translations of figures. Your part for the new math book is due in one week!

http://tinyurl.com/de8uwb

Books! Books! Books!

2009-02-11T12:41:00.004-05:00

Both groups just finished (or will soon finish) reading Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life! We really enjoyed this book. The 3rd grade girls have just started reading The Wish Giver by Bill Brittain and the 4th grade girls will soon begin reading Sign of the Beaver. The students are working with the teacher to create their own reading schedule and projects to go along with the books! I can't wait to see what we come up with!

Math, Math, Math!!!

2009-02-11T12:30:00.005-05:00

Talk to me about math . . . What have you learned recently? What have we done? What do you think you need more help with?

Using Flip Video . . .

2009-02-08T17:44:00.003-05:00

Here we used the Flip Video to record us working on our voicethread projects! :)

Update on Jeremy Fink!

2009-02-06T12:50:00.002-05:00

What have you found out about Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life so far? What has been your favorite part? What do you predict will happen next?

Book Projects

WSFCS WriteOn Project

2009-02-02T13:41:00.004-05:00

We are working with several other classes in the school system to create a collaborative story on a wiki.

Our group is writing the beginning of the the story!

Voicethread Projects

2009-01-23T13:00:00.005-05:00

We have been learning to use this technology tool (voicethread.com) to demonstrate the things we are learning or working on in class.

Click to see Lydia's Math Vocabulary Project

New Project: Who am I?

2009-01-21T11:25:00.004-05:00

The Governor just announced that an African-American section will be added to the Museum of History. The Governor is requesting that 20 African-Americans be represented. 4 of them must be athletes, 5 of them must be women, 5 must be entertainers, 1 has to be an educator, 2 must be doctors, and 1 must be a politician. You are in charge of deciding who to include and developing an autobiographical sketch for the museum.

What do we know?
What do we need to know?
What is the plan?

You can work on this project on the enrichment wiki

Flip Video!

2009-01-15T06:24:00.000-05:00

Our Flip Video Camera came from DonorsChoose yesterday!! Yay!! I can't wait to see what we create!

Area and Perimeter

2009-01-13T13:47:00.010-05:00

Before the holidays, students worked on projects about area and perimeter, or at least that was the original assignment. The projects seemed to have grown to cover and review lots of math topics we have discussed so far this year. The projects turned out even better that my original idea! :)

Beonca and Lauren's Project:

LaSonya and Lydia's Project

2009-01-06T16:47:00.001-05:00

Yay!!!!

2009-01-04T14:23:00.002-05:00

My request on Donors Choose for a Flip Video Camera was fulfilled over the holiday break! We will soon be getting a little camera we can use to video things in class and put them on our blog and/or my website!

New Project Assignment!

2009-01-03T21:15:00.004-05:00

I have a new project for us to work on. Click on the Edwards Enrichment Wiki link. You can also find this link under the Useful Links heading on this page. I can't wait for all of us to work on our research, organization, and technology skills on this project! :)

Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life . . .

2008-12-27T16:14:00.001-05:00

After watching the video above (and/or reading the book review on the class novel page on my webpage), please read the first 2 chapters of Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life. ONLY THE FIRST TWO CHAPTERS!!!! I know it might be hard to stop (I did not want to either)

What do you think is in the box Jeremy received? If a mysterious box was suddenly delivered to you, what would it look like and who would it be from? You can be as creative as you want . . .

Mr. Pilson needs our help!

2008-12-11T08:07:00.001-05:00

At Mr. Pilson's blog, he needs our help writing a song about animals from different continents. Can you help him write some lyrics? He needs a short poem about whales, elephants, seals and penguins. Can you write a short poem about these?

Visit his blog to post your poem as a comment
http://makingmarvelousmusic.blogspot.com/

4 Squares

2008-12-11T07:30:00.002-05:00

If you take 4 squares that are all one inch by one inch and place them side by side, you will have a figure that has an area of 4 square inches. The perimeter of this shape will be 10 inches.
How many different ways can you arrange these 4 squares if they have to be joined along an edge and not just at the corners? What is the area of each of these figures? What is the perimeter of each of these figures?

Landforms

2008-12-09T13:56:00.001-05:00

Uploaded on authorSTREAM by Rina

Perimeter

2008-12-03T13:50:00.002-05:00

We have done several activities on the ActivBoard and the laptops dealing with perimeter. Tell me about what you have learned and how you would teach someone else about how to find perimeter. We also talked about the difference in regular and irregular polygons.

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever

2008-12-02T08:23:00.004-05:00

Since you have not read this great book that is a quick read, we are going to read, discuss, and enjoy it in the short time before our holiday break!

Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life

2008-12-01T18:26:00.002-05:00

Novel Theme Song

2008-11-23T16:17:00.004-05:00

•Think about the mood and purpose of the theme songs of your favorite movie or TV show
•Your job is to create a theme song for the novel you are reading or have just read
•You may want to think of a familiar melody write your own words or create your own sounds too
•After you have composed your Novel Theme Song, you will need to write a paragraph explaining the relationship between the song and the novel
•When this project is due, you will perform your song for the group and we will record it!
*If you would like, you may also create an interpretive dance to go along with the theme song you created

4th grade: Esperanza Rising
3rd grade: In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson

Bridge to Terabithia

2008-11-20T18:19:00.004-05:00

Although we are not technically doing a novel study on this book, my 3rd graders decided to both read it. So, L and L I am creating a place for you to ask questions, summarize, and share your wonderful ideas. You girls do a very good job of THINKING while you are READING and I would like for you to share some of those thoughts! :)

http://www.terabithia.com/
Here is the official site of the author of this book (Katherine Paterson). It includes an autobiography, answers to frequently asked questions about her life and writing, and summaries of her works.

Let me know if you want to do some more activities or things with this book. I am glad that as soon as you finished reading the last book, you immediately wanted to get started on a new one (and came to ask me which one I would recommend . . . well I actually think you just wanted to look in my big box of books not in the class library!)

Exploring Properties of Rectangles

2008-11-17T20:09:00.001-05:00

Manipulate the dynamic rectangle and parallelogram on the site below by dragging the corners (vertices) and sides (edges). You can rotate or stretch the shapes, but they will retain particular features.

http://standards.nctm.org/document/eexamples/chap5/5.3/index.htm#applet

Questions to think about :

What is alike about all the figures produced by the dynamic parallelogram?
What common characteristics do parallelograms and rectangles share? H
ow do rectangles differ from other parallelograms?

Predict whether the dynamic rectangle can make each figure below, then check your prediction by trying to duplicate the shape using the dynamic rectangle.
Predict whether the dynamic parallelogram can make each figure below, then check your prediction by trying to duplicate the shape using the dynamic parallelogram.

PowerPoint Creators

2008-11-14T12:29:00.001-05:00

My AIG girls have gone wild over PowerPoint recently. The 3rd grade girls are creating a Math Vocabulary presentation that they will continue to add to as new information is discovered. The 4th grade girls have started creating one as a Reader Response Activity to the novel they are reading. They have discovered how to change backgrounds, add text boxes, add pictures, and add new slides. They are having fun changing fonts and pictures (too much I am afraid). We may even add some sounds and slide transitions. Lydia is even adding some animation to her creation.:) After they work on their projects a few more days, I will post them using voicethread so we all can see what they are working on.

Esperanza Rising

2008-10-28T16:15:00.001-04:00

The 4th grade girls are going to read Esperanza Rising. They will make predictions before starting the book and at various points throughout the book. We can stop at the end of chapters and predict what is going to happen in the next one. This book is an example of the genre Historical Fiction. We will also be looking for genre characteristics as we read through this book.

Character Suitcase

2008-10-28T15:58:00.000-04:00

The project of the month was to create a suitcase and contents carried by the main character of a book. Since we read A Year Down Yonder as a group, students created a suitcase for Mary Alice.

In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson

2008-10-28T14:03:00.000-04:00

The 3rd grade girls are going to read In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson. They will make predictions before starting the book and at various points throughout the book. We can stop at the end of chapters and predict what is going to happen in the next one. This book is an example of the genre Historical Fiction. We will also be looking for genre characteristics as we read through this book.

A Year Down Yonder Story Maps

2008-10-17T17:00:00.000-04:00

New Book

2008-10-07T16:47:00.000-04:00

We recently started reading the book A Year Down Yonder. What do you think about the book so far? What happened in the chapter you read last night? Do you see any connections to anything else you have read or anything in your life?

2008-10-06T17:25:00.000-04:00