Learning how to WEIGH and MEASURE!

We are learning a bunch of new things in Math! It would be great if you could reinforce them at home. 

Weighed in a Balance

Scales weigh things for us. There are many kinds of scales though and you will want to try some of them. Postage scales, kitchen scales, fish scales, balance scales, truck scales used by highway authorities.

Can you weigh things without a scale? You can! Use a balance or comparison methods. A balance has a weight of a set size on one side. You place your object into the other side of the balance until you can get the sides to be level. Ancient Egyptians used this method of weighing heavy things.

You can also estimate the weight of things by comparison. Use an item that you know the weight of, such as a sack of sugar. Estimation is how you know the two things compare. Is your object heavier or lighter than the sack of sugar?

Try measuring some things at home and practice your weighing skills! :)

Bathroom scales are found in most homes.

1. Weigh yourself on a bathroom scale.
2. Weigh your sister or brother on the bath scale.
3. Weigh your pet on the bathroom scales.
4. Weigh a friend on the scale. Write down all the weights.
5. Now try with a digital scale.

Record your info on this activity sheet: http://www.teachingideas.co.uk/maths/files/measuringlength.pdf

Read more at Suite101: Teaching Children How To Weigh Things: Learning How to Measure Weight http://www.suite101.com/content/how-to-weigh-things-a63124#ixzz1CMDGriAa


Learning to Measure!

Explain in language that children can understand. Relate the math to a real life concept. Use real life samples. Talk about the space in the child's bedroom or the carpet in the playroom.

2 Measure a few things together. Get a ruler or a long tape measure. Find the width of a room. Then find the length. Now multiply the two sides. Explain that area is length times width. When you multiply the two measurements together, you get the area of the room.

3 Tell kids that this is how people determine how much carpet to buy if they want to carpet a room. Make it a bit more challenging by adding cost to the equation. In real life, you need to know the cost of a carpet that covers your room before you buy it.

4 Pretend you are going to paint a wall. You must determine the area of the wall to decide how much paint to buy. Explain that if you can guess, you might buy the wrong amount of paint.

5 Tell children that area is measured in square units. In the United States, area is measure in standard units like inches or feet. In Canada, area is measured in centimeters or meters.

6 Write a list of the basic formulas for area. Explain that base is the bottom of the shape. Height is how high something is from the base. You can write the same formula as Area = length x width.

7 Show children that the formula for squares and rectangles is the same but that you divide the formula by 2 for triangles because two triangles equal one square.

8 Practice what you are teaching. Draw diagrams and ask the child to find the area with a ruler. Draw a house plan and have the child measure the area of the whole house. Then measure one room.

9 Find the area of odd shapes by dividing the shapes into rectangles. Then find the area of each rectangle and add the totals together.

Read more: How to Teach Geometric Area to Kids | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/how_2090533_teach-geometric-area-kids.html#ixzz1CMa3KB8I

Ian Falconer

Ian Woodwark Falconer (born 25 August 1959) is an American illustrator, children's book author, and costume and set designer for the theater. He has created 30 covers for The New Yorker as well as other publications. Falconer is best known for the OLIVIA series, which features a young pig and her many adventures, which was inspired by the birth of his first niece and his desire to give her a special "first" present. Born in Ridgefield, Connecticut, Mr. Falconer, who graduated from The Cambridge School of Weston, studied Art History at New York University and painting at Parsons School of Design and Otis Art Institute.

In the Olivia series:

• Olivia, 2000 - winner of 2001 Caldecott Honor
• Olivia Saves the Circus, 2001 - 2002 Booksense Illustrated Children's Book of the Year
• Olivia's Opposites, 2002
• Olivia Counts, 2002
• Olivia...and the Missing Toy, 2003
• Teatro Olivia, 2004
• Olivia Forms a Band, 2006 - 2006 Child Magazine's Best Children's Book Award
• Dream Big (starring Olivia), 2006
• Olivia Helps with Christmas, 2007 - 2008 Falconer won the Illustrator of the Year in the Children's Choice Book Awards for this title
• Olivia Goes to Venice, 2010

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Falconer)

Check out some Olivia books at the library!! They are SO much fun!!

SCIENCE: The Life Cycle of Plants

We are learning about plants! What their parts are, and how they grow. Something cool to talk about at home with your kids!

What Do Different Plant Parts Do?

Plant parts do different things for the plant.

Roots

Roots act like straws absorbing water and minerals from the soil. Tiny root hairs stick out of the root, helping in the absorption. Roots help to anchor the plant in the soil so it does not fall over. Roots also store extra food for future use.

Stems

Stems do many things. They support the plant. They act like the plant's plumbing system, conducting water and nutrients from the roots and food in the form of glucose from the leaves to other plant parts. Stems can be herbaceous like the bendable stem of a daisy or woody like the trunk of an oak tree.


Leaves

Most plants' food is made in their leaves. Leaves are designed to capture sunlight which the plant uses to make food through a process called photosynthesis.

Flowers

Flowers are the reproductive part of most plants. Flowers contain pollen and tiny eggs called ovules. After pollination of the flower and fertilization of the ovule, the ovule develops into a fruit.

Fruit

Fruit provides a covering for seeds. Fruit can be fleshy like an apple or hard like a nut.

Seeds

Seeds contain new plants. Seeds form in fruit.

(Taken from: http://www.mbgnet.net/bioplants/parts.html --> Check out their animation)

We planted some grass in the Science Lab with Mr. Cosby, but... since we were away for 6 weeks and plants need water (among other things)... Well... Woops! Let the picture say it all...

So we planted new ones!! And we will take REALLY good care of them! Here are some fun videos you can watch at home with your child and talk about Science:

Life Cycle of Plants:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxaELwrTChs&feature=channel
http://vimeo.com/1140592

Parts of a Plant:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CX2m2n2uDAE&feature=channel

WE ARE BAAACK!

Back to school! Yes, sir!! Feels like we've been gone forever. 6 weeks can get you used to "chill" at home. -YIKES!

We have 10 kids! Dhofin moved to Indonesia, and is going to school in Jakarta. He left his classmates some really cool gifts from his home town, they all loved them. He was always very caring for his friends and we will miss him tons!

Sofia also left us :( Her family was moving to Canada, and she was really excited about it! Talking about snow, and snow angels, and French... Her beautiful smile and funny giggles will be very missed as well.

Martina is in Argentina! Gaby's belly is so big! It's a boy and his name is "Felipe". We are all so excited! We are counting the days 'till January 25th when Marti gets to hold her new baby brother -and send us more pictures! YAY!-
    

Hope everyone had a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS and a Happy New Year! Now... The fun begins!

Author of the month: Mem Fox

Mem Fox was born in Australia, grew up in Africa, studied drama in England, and returned to Adelaide, Australia in 1970, where she has lived with her husband, Malcolm, and daughter Chloë, happily ever after.

Mem Fox is Australia’s most highly regarded picture-book author. Her first book, Possum Magic, is the best selling children’s book ever in Australia, with sales of over four million. And in the USA Time for Bed and Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge have each sold over a million copies. Time for Bed is on Oprah’s list of the twenty best children’s books of all time. Mem has written over thirty five picture books for children and five non-fiction books for adults, including the best-selling Reading Magic, aimed at parents of very young children. Her recent book: Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes, beautifully illustrated by Helen Oxenbury, was on the New York Times bestseller lists for 18 weeks in 2008/2009. It also won the ‘best book for 0-3 year olds’ award (May 2010) at the International Book Fair in Turin, in its Italian edition.

Mem Fox was an Associate Professor in Literacy Studies at Flinders University in Adelaide (Australia), where she taught teachers for twenty four years until her early retirement in 1996. She has received many civic awards, honours and accolades in Australia, including two honorary doctorates. She has visited the United States over one hundred times, mostly in her role as a literacy expert although she is also a well-known author in America. She is an influential international consultant in literacy, but she pretends to sit around writing full time.

Her latest book is A Giraffe in the Bath. She hopes four year olds, and over, including adults, will adore it.

-Taken from Mem Fox's web site: http://www.memfox.net/welcome.html

Guess what?? Ms. Sloan is from Australia!! She came over during Literacy time and read to us a wonderful book by Mem Fox called "Koala Lou". We learned about Australia's animals (some are different than ours), we learned how to say some words with an Asutralian accent, and she even gave us a cute little koala to take home! 

We recommend you check out some books by Mem Fox at the library, we promise you will love them!

Science: The Water Cycle

The rainy season is a great time to study the water cycle. Study brings up some questions like how much water is on the earth? In the earth? Is water old? Is some of the water you drink today water that was on the earth centuries ago? Can water be wasted or is it always recycled in one way or another?


What is the Hydrologic Cycle?

First look at what water cycle being referred to. What is the water cycle? The water or hydrologic cycle is the continuous movement of water between the atmosphere, clouds, land, plants, and oceans.

Since no new water is entering the earth’s atmosphere, the water on and inside the earth must be very old water. It is water that has been flowing and evaporating and raining since the beginning of the earth.

Water and Soil Experiment

Place some dirt and seeds in a shallow pan. Set the pan on a rock or something to hold up one end. Spray or sprinkle water unto the dirt. Watch what happens. Did any of the water seep into the dirt? Did any create rivulets to run through down to the lower end of the pan? Has a pool formed there? Set the pan in a sunny place to see what will happen. Did the topsoil dry out and evaporate because of the heat? After a few days dig up the seeds to see if they absorbed moisture.

Rainfall Observation

Test the effects of rain on soil and plants by observing an area before, during, and after a rainfall. In a notebook record what you notice before, during and after. When you see that rain is expected, walk outside and check the foliage. Is it wilted and dry? Check the ground. Is it dry? Is there much dust? How does the dirt feel?

During the storm watch to see how the water moves when it falls. Does it run off roofs and cars and drip from tree leaves into the grass? Where does it go then? Into the grass where it seems to disappear, moving down a ditch, hitting the surface of a fountain or pool, lake or pond? Does the water run downhill with the slope of the street or land? After the rain, check out the same area again. What can you observe about the water? Has it puddled up in holes or depressions in the ground? Has any of the moisture evaporated? Is rain still moving in the ditches? Is the ground very wet? What happened to the water?

Water Cycle Experiment

This experiment takes a longer period of time. Fill a fish bowl with some soil, a small plant, a few rocks and some water. Top the jar with plastic wrap held in place with a rubber band. Set the jar in a sunny place. After the air inside the jar becomes warm, water will condense on the plastic and /or sides of the glass. It will eventually begin to rain (drip) off the lid into the soil. Plants catch, use, and hold water. The terrarium establishes a mini-water cycle.

The water cycle is the movement of the resource living things need everyday on the planet earth. Water evaporates from oceans and forms clouds. Clouds redeposit the water over land as snow or rain. The water eventually gets back to the ocean and the cycle continues.

Read more at Suite101: Teach Kids about the Water Cycle: Rainfall Experiments to do at Home with Your Children http://www.suite101.com/content/the-water-cycle-a118553#ixzz155rBlgva


Check out this cool video the kids loved!
The Water Cycle Song

Crazy Dress Day

The red hats organized a fundraiser called "CRAZY DRESS DAY" for Pakistan. They also worked on getting people to donate cupcakes and sell them, also for this cause. The fundraiser was a big success. They collected around 4.000Bs, and we all had a lot of fun wearing our crazy outfits! Check out the pics!