Winter is Here!

The winter solstice will happen for us at 8:49 P.M. today!

win·ter sol·stice

noun

1. the solstice that marks the onset of winter, at the time of the shortest day, about December 22 in the northern hemisphere and June 21 in the southern hemisphere.

In the Northern Hemisphere, winter is the coldest season of the year. It begins about December 21 and lasts until about March 21. Around December 21 or 22, the sun's rays fall directly over the farthest point south of the equator. This marks the first day of winter.

Winter days have fewer hours of daylight because of the path the earth takes as it revolves around the sun. The earth completely revolves around the sun during 365 days. The earth's axis always tips about 23 1/2 degrees from a line perpendicular to its path.

In the Southern Hemisphere, winter begins in June.

Different regions have longer winters than others. For example, in the polar regions, winter takes up half the year. In the Temperate Zones winter takes up about one quarter of the year.

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In regions where there is cold weather, it causes many changes in the environment. Water may freeze and become ice, snow, sleet or icicles.  Sometimes it gets so cold, boiling water will vaporize!

(Thanks Mrs. Rose from Ontario, Canada, who created this Vine two Decembers ago!) 

Most plants and animals become dormant and rest. Some animals hibernate. The only plants that grow and remain green are evergreens. People protect themselves from the cold climate with winter clothing when they go outdoors. They enjoy a variety of indoor activities or outdoor winter sports such as skiing, skating, or sledding.

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Here are some fun winter links!

  

Want to make an online snowflake? 

Click here! 

BrainPop has some great winter and snow movies! 

Click here! 

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What do you enjoy most about winter?

What activities will you be participating in this winter break?

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? 

Verbs, Today and Yesterday

We have been learning about verbs. 

According to the dictionary:

verb

vərb/

noun

GRAMMAR

plural noun: verbs

1. 1.

   a word used to describe an action, state, or occurrence, and forming the main part of the predicate of a sentence, such as hear, become, happen.

Although we have done some worksheets with verbs, we've also collected verbs and placed them on our Daily 5 Word Work board. Notice the past tense verbs are in categories! Can you name each past tense category? 

For homework last night, everyone left a blog comment using at least three past tense verbs. Today we looked the the verbs in the comment section. We thought about the present tense of the verb and the past tense of the verb. 

Here are some examples of our verbs. 

Some past tense verbs did not follow any of the patterns. 

Those verbs are called irregular past tense verbs. 

Sawyer used the verb dive. Then he used the past tense dived. 

We were not sure if that was correct. So, we used the dictionary!

Is it dived or dove? Which is correct?

Leave a comment using at least two past tense verbs. Which category are your verbs from?

What is your favorite verb pattern?

What are some irregular verbs?

Edublog Awards :: Voting is Now Open!

We are honored to be named an Edublog Award finalist in the category of Best Class Blog! 

According to their website: The Edublog Awards is a community-based incentive started in 2004 in response to community concerns relating to how schools, districts and educational institutions were blocking access of learner and teacher blog sites for educational purposes.The purpose of the Edublog awards is to promote and demonstrate the educational values of these social media.

If you'd like to support us with a vote, click here. 

1. Locate Mrs. Yollis' Classroom Blog under drop down menu for "Best Class Blog". 

2. Then scroll to the bottom and press vote.

You can vote one time every day! 

ONE vote per IP address a day. 

There are lots of categories and bloggers to support! 

Please check out the finalists and vote for your favorites! 

Hour of Code!

Computer Science Education Week

December 7 - 13, 2015

To celebrate Computer Science Education Week, Mrs. Yollis and her students will participate in the global Hour of Code! This is the third year of participation for Mrs. Yollis' class. 

Hour of Code ~ 2013 

Hour of Code ~ 2014 

Thank you, Hadi Partovi for creating this project!

Computer Science week coincides with the birthdays of two computer science pioneers. A pioneer is a person who is one of the first to enter a field of study or explore a new area of thought. 

• Ada Lovelace, born in England on December 10, 1815, is considered the world's first computer programmer.

• Grace Hopper, whose birthday is December 9, 1906, was an American computer programmer and Navy rear admiral. She

  

  Photo Credit

  contributed to the development of the COBOL language and is credited with popularizing the term "computer bug" in the programming community. 

Grace Hopper said: "To me programming is more than an important practical art. It is also a gigantic undertaking in the foundations of knowledge."

For students:

We will be accessing these Hour of Code Tutorials on our Acers or iPads. 

A hearty thank you, Lisa Highfill for putting these Hour of Code tutorials into a useful hyperdoc! 

Students, you are free to go to these tutorials at home with your parents. Share what you've learned with the class in the comment section! On Monday, we will start our Hour of Code Tutorials and begin to write and create with code!

We will be Tweeting about our progress using the hashtag #HourOfCode. 

Because coding is a language, Hour of Code activities will also serve as our grammar homework for the week!

What are you going to create with code?

What are some coding sites or apps that you like?

Teach us some code in the comment section!  

Congratulations, Family Blogging Month Winners!

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Congratulations to our Family Blogging Month Winners, 

Abigail, Keya, and Kate! 

Each blogger received a free kid's meal to a local restaurant, a fabulous crown to wear, and a free choice post on Mrs. Yollis' Classroom Blog!

Past FBM winners have made these blog posts: Meet Mr. Gallon Movie, Doggy Disobedience School, Sarah Performs Chopin, and Meet Heather's Dog, Rocky.

Photo by Mrs. Yollis 

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Mrs. Yollis created the idea of Family Blogging Month back on April 1, 2010. The participation, the quality of the commenting, the interaction and learning that transpired via this classroom blog and the 365 Project makes Mrs. Yollis beam with pride.


Not only are her students and their family members becoming superior writers, but they are also honing important digital skills like how to communicate and contribute on line, how to limit personal information on the Internet, and how to develop a dynamic digital footprint. (To hone is a fancy verb that means to improve over time.) 

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Mrs. Yollis would like to personally thank all the parents and family members for their constant support.Your participation is the key to your child's educational success!

What did you think of Family Blogging Month?

Who commented from your family?

Where did your family comment from? 

Origami Stars

Each month, parents volunteer to come to class and teach a seasonal art project to the students. Today, we made a beautiful origami star! Origami is the ancient Japanese art of paper-folding. In Japanese, oru means fold and kami means paper. 

The two origami stars who put together this craft were Karissa's mom and Abby's mom.  

Each student needed two identical sheets of origami paper. 

One side had a design and one side was white. 

There were many steps. Since we were doing origami, many steps involved folding. Students were encouraged to carefully fold and heavily crease the origami paper after each step. 

After folding one sheet four times, it was time to measure and mark four areas to be cut. The moms provided a nonstandard measuring tool to mark the length of each cut. 

Next, it was time to make the four cuts. It reminded us of the time we made the compass rose! Each cut was at a cardinal direction: north, south, east, and west.  

The next step was to do some additional folds where the cuts were made.  

Finally, we glued the folds in a way that created a 3-dimensional point.   

We then repeated all the steps with the second piece of origami paper. The two 4-pointed stars were glued together to form this 8-pointed star.

When we were done making the stars, we went outside and created a panoramic picture. Do you notice anything unusual about this panoramic?  (Hint: Look at the person on the end.) 

 Click to Enlarge this panoramic picture. 

What did you like about this parent-lead craft project?

What other origami project would you like to create?