Sean's Spectacular ePortfolio

Sean has been working all year on some excellent projects. Here is a link to his ePortfolio. Have a look around and let him know which project you liked the best!

See a Turkey Vulture and a Salamander

By James, Shane F., and Sean

Thursday, we had Ms. C. from the Wildlife Experience program. She will be visiting us five times before school is out and will share animals from North America. This is a complement to our science unit on Animal Adaptations.

We learned that a fly has a compound eye. That means it sees many of the same images at one time. Above is a picture of a fly's compound eye.

They are difficult to swat because they really see you coming.

She told us that snakes are reptiles, and that they shed their skin as they grow.

Here is the turkey vulture, the only bird in North America that can smell. It can smell something two miles away. It eats dead things off the ground. If you look closely at its right wing, you will notice it is deformed. He was injured when he got hit by a car. Luckily, someone called the Wildlife Experience group and they saved him. Its predators are bobcats and red tailed hawks. Because he had a hurt wing, he could not fly away and a predator could have killed him and eaten him.

The salamander is an amphibian that has holes on its body so it can breathe in water and on land. Interestingly enough, the salamander had tiger strips that were yellow and black. These beautiful stripes give it the name the tiger salamander. The tiger salamander had a long, lizard-like tail that the class got to stroke. The Wildlife Experience was fun and great for learning about animals from North America.

Have you ever seen these animals in the wild?

Do you know anything else about turkey vultures or salamanders?

If so, please comment!

A New Shiny Penny!

By Shane F., Sean, Behyan, and Matthew

A few months ago Shane F. and Matthew published a post called the “New One Dollar Coin”. In one of the comments, Mrs. Harding mentioned that a new penny is coming!

Here are some interesting facts about the new penny.

The U.S. Mint made the new penny to honor Lincoln’s 200th birthday. The penny has been around for one hundred years. The U.S. Mint revealed the penny on September 22. It still has the same face, but a different reverse, or back.

The reverse of the penny has four different pictures, so try to collect all four!

On the reverse of one coin is Lincoln's log cabin.

Abraham Lincoln was born in 1809, in a county in Kentucky. He lived in a log cabin from the time he was two-and-a-half until he was nearly eight years old. The cabin and his birth date are shown on the reverse of this coin.

On the reverse of another penny is Lincoln cutting wood

In this image, young Abe is taking a pause from rail splitting and is reading a book. He did not go to school, but he learned by reading books. He was perfect at plowing and using an axe in the woods. He used the axe and rail splitter for cutting wood. This coin tells a lot about his former years in Indiana.

The reverse of the third penny is the Illinois Capitol.

Early in his life, he took on several jobs. One of his jobs was piloting a steamboat, but the thing he admired most was politics. In September 1836, Abe got a law license. In 1834, he became a member of the Illinois General Assembly. He was elected President in 1860.

The final reverse has a picture of the U.S. Capitol.

In late 1863, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation announcing that slaves would be free on January 1. Pictured on this coin is the unfinished U.S. Capitol building. It was being built while he was serving his term as President during the Civil War.

The pennies will come out over three month intervals in 2009.

Has you seen one of these new pennies? If you have, please write a comment.
Which reverse did you get?

Multiplication Property Games

By Shane F., Sean, and Matthew

In our multiplication unit we have been playing games to help us learn the properties of multiplication.

Order Property of Multiplication Game

A few weeks ago, Mrs. Yollis made two yellow factor cards, and she picked two people to be "factors". The "factors" chose a number from her box of digits.

Next, they hid their number under their yellow factor card.

When Mrs. Yollis yelled, "Name the product!" the two factors revealed the factors to the class.

The class wrote down the multiplication sentence with the correct product.

Students with the correct product could then be chosen to be part of the game.

We learned that if you switch the order of the factors, the product stays the same.

8 x 9 = 9 x 8

Grouping Property of Multiplication Game

Today, we learned to multiply three factors! Mrs. Yollis made another yellow factor card and a set of cardboard parentheses. We learned a new game for this property.

* * *

Three students were chosen to be the "factors". They hid a number under their factor card. One at a time the numbers were shown. When all three factors were revealed, Mrs. Yollis allowed one person to be the grouper. (An organizer, not the fish!)

That grouper came up and grouped two of the factors with the parentheses. The class wrote the newly grouped factors in a number sentence on their white boards and solved the equation.

Students with the correct product could become a new "factor" or the grouper.

We learned that it doesn't matter how you group the factors.

(1 x 2) x 5 = 1 x (2 x 5)

The product will always be the same.
We also learned that grouping certain factors together made it easier to come up with the product.

Perhaps you would like to play the games too!