India from the air…

As you probably know our new theme is “A village in India”…but this represents a fantastic opportunity to find out more about the country itself !

There are some incredible images available – some of my favourites are images from Yann Arthus-Bertrand’s extraordinary collection of photographs entitled Earth From Above – check the link below. There is a side menu that allows you to choose a country – they are all amazing but the ones from India will really help to start you off getting an idea of the country.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fascinating Facts…?

Welcome back to the new term everyone. I don’t know about you, but after what you taught me about our local area, I am really looking forward to finding out interesting stuff about India in our new theme! I came across these bits of information over the holidays and wanted to share them with you. I love facts that really stick in your brain and maybe raise an eyebrow or two…

 

• How many people a year drop their i-pods down the toilet?  Apparently it’s about 31 a day…mathematicians can you work this out over a year!?

• How much waste is produced when making a toothbrush?  The waste produced when making anything is called its “ecological rucksack.” The ecological rucksack for a mobile phone is 75kg! A computer’s is 1500kg! Even a single toothbrush creates 1.5kg of waste! 



•  Why is the Michelin Man white, when tyres are black?  Bibendum, the Michelin Man is white because tyres were white or beige when he was invtroduced in 1898. Tyres are black because carbon black was added to them as a preservative in 1912. 

OK I am throwing down the gauntlet! Who can come up with the best and most interesting/funny/exciting/?!?!??! facts in our class? The prize is we shall declare you the most awesome person in 4B…for a day at least!

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Let’s keep our writing going as well this term…in case you need (more) proof that stories repeat themselves…here is something you might find interesting! 

 

Keep smiling! 

 

Planet 10 !

Must link to this site (at last) – it comes highly recommended by our class. You will need shockwave player to play (TOP TIP! Our school technician tells me if you have problems with shockwave you should make sure it is properly installed alongside flash player and java…it has worked for me in the past!) Many thanks to A (you know who you are! ) for this recommendation – we have really enjoyed using it so far!

 Create your own planet…Lots of areas to complete – physics, chemistry, biology, orbit and launch!

Let the simulation play a while to see what happens… can you create the perfect (and not-so-perfect!) world…

Finally, congratulations to all those who are keeping up with mathletics – thankyou for bringing in your certificates – they look great on our wall!

 

Local Area Project…

Here is a reminder of our current class project. I am looking forward to seeing what you discover and how you choose to share it!

Note that our slideshow (bottom of post) now includes pictures of our local church…

Do some research on your local area – this might include using books, photographs or drawings…it’s up to you! 

• Present this in a folder or book.
• It MUST be in your own words…not copied out word for word or just printed off the Internet.
• Use your imagination – you could conduct interviews or create maps, posters and models
• Try to select a theme for your work like looking at leisure or mining or something else. You could use more than one theme… Use your imagination!

 TO BE COMPLETED BY 4^th April 2008

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Welcome back!

Here we go again – and here’s hoping that the next few weeks will feature events at least as exciting as our visit from the Fire-Fighters that rounded of our last term in fine style!

Looking forward to posting more of your work here – see you all tomorrow!

Work below from our heroes week, if you haven’t seen it yet, check it out…

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Happy Birthday AOTN!

Birthday greetings !

February 14^th, 2008 is the tenth anniversary of a well known sculpture – the Angel of the North. It has become one of the most famous pieces of public art ever produced. There is a year long programme of events planned to mark its anniversary. Check out Angel of the North to find out more, and for a virtual tour of this huge land mark.

       

• The wings of the sculpture are 54 metres wide (measure this out to get an idea of the size). How tall would you estimate it is?
• About 90,000 people see the sculpture every day! How many is this over a week? A month? A year?
• This sculpture pays tribute to the industrial history of the North-East. What do you know about the industrial history of our local area?
• If the angel could speak, what do you think it would say?

Check out our writing blog this week to see some of the work you have produced as a result of looking at Heroes this week!

 

Linked to Roman times…

A bit of information about tomorrow, February the 14th, Valentine’s day…included simply because it links with our gone but not forgotten Roman theme from autumn term. The lovely valentine themed mosaic below reminds me of the ones at Caerleon – seems so long ago now!

The history of Valentine’s Day and its patron saint is still a bit of a mystery. One legend says that Valentine in Roman times. Emperor Claudius II banned marriage for potential soldiers. Valentine continued to perform marriages in secret. When Valentine’s actions were discovered, Claudius ordered that he be put to death. Other stories say Valentine was killed for attempting to help Christians escape Roman prisons, or he sent the first greeting himself to his sweetheart from prison.

Speaking of letters! In an effort to get your fingers dancing over your keyboards and improve our ability to enter our information for the digital age, try the link below to become a better typist…

Lastly today, check the links on the blog and the picture below for a recommendation from Ahorey: Mathszone is a brilliant site – you could spend hours brushing up on your maths skills with fun games and activities….more links like this one please.

 

Getting stuck on your Learning Journey

Using the learning journey today it has been a real privilege to notice what strategies we have and are prepared to use in class when we get ‘stuck’ with our work. I am thinking of the ‘Stuck Poster’ again and the different ways of behaving when we get stuck. If you are feeling like you get ‘stuck’ a lot this year….GREAT! J Why? Well, an anonymous but excellent quote I read recently says:

“Be thankful when you don’t know something, for it gives you the opportunity to learn.”

So GETTING stuck is wonderful…STAYING stuck is not so much! I really want us to ask questions like, “What do I do when I get stuck?” this year. So what do you do? Look at the picture and think about this carefully.

I would like to focus on the green chap near the bottom right of the poster today. Notice how he is using his eyes and ears? In our learning today we focused on using our classmates in a useful way. We used our eyes to notice who was managing their learning well…we used our ears to listen when they explained their learning to us.

We are missing out on a really important resource when we are not using each other’s talents to learn. Of course it is nice to spend time chatting with our class-mates, but we must notice the difference between relaxing with our friends and working with them. Remember there are 30 teachers in our classroom, not just one!

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Starting a “Good Morning Work” section on the writing blog…we will use this in class. Click the writing blog link on the right and then on the Morning Work Category to get to the latest….see what you think!

 Lastly, many thanks to those of you who have commented on the blog in the last few days. If you have not done so yet, check the poster in class for the details you will need and have a go yourself. We need your ideas and feedback…get involved!

Recognise the icon for 4b Comments? See you tomorrow!

 

Heroes!

Powers…gadgets…vehicles…partners…everything the hero needs! Great designs folks – looking forward to learning about real-life heroes next week too.

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This player will also feature on our writing site and we can add more of our work as we go.

On the subject of heroes, I think we have a good number of these in our class…looks like you are brilliant at helping each other learn! Look at some of the comments made about learning this week in 4B:

Prepare for Heroes Week! Check out these websites and improve your background knowledge…(also check the TASC blog entry – remember we are using our learning journey to record our thinking?).

     

If you find any more good sites, they will be really useful next week…let me know so I can check them out and post them here if appropriate

 

Internet Safety… (and Literacy Link!)

Quick post today!  

We will be doing a lot of thinking and talking about internet safety over the coming year. It is really important that you talk with your parents about this as well, so they can help you stay safe online. There are lots of sites that publish rules that you can use as a starting point for a discussion, like Kidsmart. If you plan to visit others, make sure you look with your parents!  

Hope you have been using the maths magician site already! We have been doing a lot of work on description this year as well, so it should be useful to point you towards a site that should help you explore adjectives and adverbs…

See you tomorrow!