Math – Page 3 – Mrs. Black's Class Blog

The Hour of Code!

Margaret BlackDecember 16, 2014December 18, 2014Leave a comment

This afternoon, our class participated in "The Hour of Code," an initiative aimed at providing school children, world-wide, with experience writing computer code. Students worked through various tutorials on the code.org/learn website.

Everyone LOVED the opportunity to learn about how computer programs are written, and to change the way characters and components of games behave. Here are some pictures from our Hour of Code experience (click on any photo to enlarge it):

DECEMBER 17 UPDATE:

Here are some comments students made about their Hour of Code experience:

Sam: "Hour of Code was really exciting because it made you feel like a computer scientist. It was just like building a game online."

Shenice: It was so fun when I created a Flappy Bird game with Elizabeth! We both took turns and we had so much fun when we were coding!"

Liam: "I have always wanted to code, and most of the games were so cool! It's like making your own games, so my thanks to the CEO of Hour of Code!"

Elizabeth: "The coding was very fun! It was really cool to make your own design for the rules. It was also fun to do it on a game you know how to play."

Christine: "The Hour of Code was awesome because you can make your own Flappy Bird game, and I found the Frozen game like doing math. I love Hour of Code!"

Ryder: "Coding is awesome because I learned a lot of the code. It was so fun it blew my mind!"

Clayton: "I felt very happy! It was so amazing and fun because you will not die on Flappy Bird Level 8. You just change the code!"

Zack B.: "I loved how you can do what you want to do and you can't die. I love how there was multiple games and you can make the game different. You could type what moves you wanted on this one game."

Madison: "The best part of Hour of Code was making your own game. My favourite game was the tablet and also the Flappy Bird game. I like the tablet because you can choose Stampy as a car. I like Flappy Bird because when you play it you can get 1,000 points each time you click!"

Rein: "I felt like I was a real video game maker. It was really fun because I could program a game, so I could get a point every time I clicked. I could also use it to prank other people. Finally, sure it's fun to just play a video game, but programming a game is way better!"

Ben: "I really liked the Hour of Code because you actually could program everything the way YOU wanted it to go!"

Lily: "What I loved about the code is that you can play games that you don't always get to play. I felt so happy! I loved that you also get to program how you get points and play the game. It was like you just made up a new game! I also loved the part where it helps students learn technology."

Aiden: "I really liked Hour of Code because it challenged me and you had to think about it. It never ends, and it has great games, and it was awesome because you design the game."

Kailem: "It was fun. The Flappy Birds game was awesome. I really wanted to play even more. It was fun making the game even better!"

Joslyn: "I thought Hour of Code was awesome because when I went on the Flappy Bird game, it was cool how I could personalize it and earn points. It was fun changing a game someone already made to the way you want it to be."

Kristen: "I liked the coding because there are really cool things, and because you learned how to make and awesome game. You can also let loose and have some fun!"

Thank you for visiting our class BLOG. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to e-mail me (Margaret Black): mblack@scdsb.on.ca or to add a comment to this page.

Book Character Day for Polar Bear Conservation

Margaret BlackNovember 22, 2014December 13, 2014Leave a comment

This fall, as our annual fund raiser for charity, my class invited students and staff at our school to donate a two-dollar coin (the one with the Polar Bears on it) in support of Polar Bear conservation, and come to school dressed as a favourite book character.

We used our media literacy skills to promote our fund-raiser, via the school newsletter, flyers, announcements and mini-posters:

Mrs. Black provided our class with an extra incentive to participate. She pledged to donate a dollar for each student in our class that brought in a donation. Twenty-three of us took up her challenge!

We estimate that about 30% of the school population participated in our event. We collected $168.25 in donations. Our money will help World Wildlife Fund Canada protect habitat and conduct research to ensure a future for Polar Bears in Canada.

These pictures show members of our class dressed up as favourite book characters, plus "Adopt a Polar Bear" items from World Wildlife Fund Canada. The bear is our new class mascot. We named him "Snowball!"

On behalf of the bears, we want to thank everyone who participated in our event!

Thank you for visiting our class BLOG. If you have any questions or comments, feel free e-mail me (Margaret Black): mblack@scdsb.on.ca or to add a comment to this page.

Student Math Projects Inform School Decision-Making!

Margaret BlackNovember 4, 2014November 26, 2014Leave a comment

$math projects$

The Data Management and Probability strand of the Ontario Math Curriculum asks students to fulfill curriculum expectations related to the collection, display and analysis of data. As part of our data management unit, the class collected primary data for real purposes, i.e. to help adults make informed decisions about several school initiatives.

The class began by working in five groups to design questions around particular topics, administer surveys and compile responses into charts. Afterwards, each student produced his/her own display and analysis of the data his/her group collected.

Here are students engaged in various stages of the project:

Grade 4

Students collected yes/no data and then constructed double bar graphs to display their survey results by grade.

Group 1 posed a question to help Mrs. Black determine levels of student participation in our school's recent wildlife food drive:

We learned that 20% of students at our school brought in food for our local wildlife sanctuaries, and students from Kindergarten through Grade 7 participated.

Group 2 collected baseline data for our School Council, to help determine whether it would be advantageous to implement a breakfast program at our school:

We discovered that 25% of students at our school do not eat breakfast regularly, before coming to school. The most likely to eat breakfast are younger students. The least likely to eat breakfast are students in the intermediate grades. This information was presented at a School Council meeting and included in the School Improvement Plan.

Based on our survey results, School Council did implement a breakfast program at our school. Several trays of food, like this one, are available to students each morning, as they enter the school:

Group 3 sought to provide The Green Team and custodian with baseline data about how many students bring waste-free lunches to school. This information will help The Green Team develop a campaign to promote litterless lunches:

We discovered that just under half of the students at our school bring their lunches to school in disposable containers. Kindergarten and Grade 4 students were the least likely to bring waste free lunches to school, and older students the most likely to bring their food in reusable containers.

Grade 5

Students sought to determine what sports equipment children would prefer, should School Council have funding to purchase new baskets of DPA/recess equipment for our classrooms.

One group of Grade 5 students surveyed children from Kindergarten through Grade 3:

We discovered that younger students overwhelmingly prefer equipment such as trucks and large, soft bouncy balls, while older primary students like such items as skipping ropes, soccer balls, tennis balls and mini-sticks.

A second group of Grade 5 students asked children from Grades 4 through 8 about sports equipment preferences:

We learned that students in Grades 4-6 would love to have a wide variety of sports equipment, including soccer balls, basketballs, tennis balls, large bouncy balls, and baseball and volleyball equipment. Students in Grades 7 and 8 were most interested in acquiring volleyball equipment.

Thank you for visiting our class BLOG. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to e-mail me (Margaret Black): mblack@scdsb.on.ca or to add a comment to this page.

Wildlife Food Drive a Huge Success! 1

Margaret BlackOctober 6, 2014October 26, 20141 Comment

Rama Central's "Second Annual Food Drive for Orphaned Wildlife" brought in an astounding number of natural food donations. Over a span of three weeks, we collected boxes and boxes of acorns and pine cones, and also received donations of maple keys, wind fall apples, black walnuts, chestnuts and sumac seeds. Our class would like to thank the entire Rama Central P.S. community for participating.

Four carloads of food have been delivered to Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary, in Rosseau, Shades of Hope Wildlife Refuge, in Pefferlaw, and Woodlands Wildlife Sanctuary, in Minden. (Click on any photo in this BLOG post to enlarge it.)

Mrs. Black's car is now loaded for a second delivery to Shades of Hope Wildlife Refuge:

This morning, we engaged in some math problem-solving involving the food drive. We calculated how many kilograms of acorns and boxes of pine cones we collected, in total.

We collected 217 kilograms (478 lbs.) of acorns and eight cartons of pine cones.

Then, using information we obtained earlier about how many acorns are in a kilogram and how many pine cones fit into a standard-sized box, we estimated how many acorns and pine cones we collected.

Here are the totals!

We collected approximately 58,590 acorns!

We collected approximately 7, 200 pine cones!

Afterwards, some students tackled a "challenge question" using consumption estimates provided by Woodlands Wildlife Sanctuary. Woodlands estimated that, if a young squirrel ate only acorns, it would eat about 30 in a day. Based on this information, students calculated how long our acorns would last one squirrel.

If a squirrel ate only acorns, the acorns we collected
would last that squirrel approximately 5.4 years!

This math problem led to a discussion about healthy eating (our current topic in health). Students learned that, like us, squirrels actually eat a varied diet, consisting primarily of nuts and seeds, and that a varied diet is what provides squirrels with balanced nutrition and ensures good health.

At the end of the food drive, students in our class polled the school to determine how many students participated in the food drive. We were excited to learn that 20 percent of students and 25 percent of staff brought food to school for the animals! We distributed Certificates of Appreciation and I Saved a Life wrist bands (courtesy of Shades of Hope Wildlife Refuge) to everyone that participated.

food-drive-certificates2

Students in our class with their certificates and wrist bands

This project has provided students with some wonderful hands-on learning experiences in math, literacy, science and character education, but the best part of the food drive is seeing orphaned animals at local wildlife sanctuaries enjoying the fruits of our labours!

AV-flying-squirrel
A flying squirrel kit eating one of our acorns,
at Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary.

AV-raccoons-acorns

Above and below: raccoon kits at Aspen Valley
Wildlife Sanctuary, enjoying our acorns.

A baby squirrel at Shades of Hope Wildlife Refuge
enjoying our acorns and pine cones.

Link to video of baby squirrels eating our acorns,
at Shades of Hope

An injured adult porcupine dining on our acorns and pine cones,
at Shades of Hope Wildlife Refuge.

White-tailed deer fawns enjoying our sumac, acorns and maple keys,
at Woodlands Wildlife Sanctuary.

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OCTOBER 7TH UPDATE:

One day, when we were a week into our food drive, the supervisor and students that attend the school's before-school daycare came to Mrs. Black's class to tell her they had found a flightless bird on the schoolyard. Mrs. Black and Ben, a Grade 4 student in our class, contained the bird and brought him into the school. Mrs. Black e-mailed Shades of Hope Wildlife Refuge and they recommended that she bring the bird to them for treatment.

The bird, a male finch, spent two weeks living in one of the aviaries at Shades of Hope, recovering from a wing injury. When Mrs. Black took Shades of Hope their second food drive delivery, she picked the finch up and brought him back to the school, for release. This morning, Ben released the bird, while the other daycare kids cheered the bird on. Here is the video of the finch's release.

Link to high definition version of release video:
http://www.blackdeer.ca/wildlife-rehab/RamaCentralFinchRelease.mp4

To thank the children for rescuing the finch, students involved in rescuing the finch received I Saved a Life wrist bands (courtesy of Shades of Hope Wildlife Refuge). The kids of Rama Central's before-school daycare program are wildlife heros!

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OCTOBER 18TH UPDATE:

After the food drive officially ended the food just kept on coming, creating the need for a third food delivery to the closest sanctuary, Shades of Hope Wildlife Refuge!!!

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Thank you for visiting our class BLOG. If you have any questions or comments, feel free e-mail me (Margaret Black): mblack@scdsb.on.ca or to add a comment to this page.

Wildlife Food Drive Update #1

Margaret BlackOctober 1, 2014October 26, 2014Leave a comment

This year's "Food Drive for Orphaned Wildlife" is shaping up to be an overwhelming success! Over the past two and a half weeks, students from Kindergarten through Grade 8 have been contributing a steady stream of acorns, pine cones, maple keys, apples and black walnuts, to feed animals overwintering at three wildlife rehabilitation centres.

(Click on any photo in this blog post to enlarge it.)

On Monday, students in our class solved a math problem associated with the food drive. They determined how many kilograms of acorns fit in a standard-sized box. They weighed a student holding a box of acorns, weighed the student again without the acorns, and then worked with a partner to devise a strategy for calculating how many kilograms a box of acorns weighs.

The day we completed this math problem, Mrs. Black delivered four boxes of acorns to Aspen Valley, adding to the 29 kg they had already received. Students were asked to calculate how many total kilograms we shipped to Aspen Valley.

Altogether, Mrs. Black delivered 92 kg (203 lbs.) of acorns, a large box of pine cones, a small container of black walnuts, a box of sumac flowers, six pumpkins and two bags of peanuts in the shell to Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary, in Rosseau.

This was delivery #1 (29 kgs. of acorns):

These are students helping load Mrs. Black's car for delivery #2 (63 kgs. of acorns):

Delivery #2 ready to leave for Aspen Valley:

We have also shipped 57 kg (125 lbs.) of acorns and two medium boxes of pine cones to Shades of Hope Wildlife Refuge, in Pefferlaw:

This week, we are collecting for Woodlands Wildlife Sanctuary, in Minden. On the weekend, Mrs. Black expects to take them approximately 57 kg (125 lbs.) of acorns. Woodlands will also be receiving two medium boxes of pine cones, two boxes of sumac flowers, a box of black walnuts, some pumpkins, farm-feed corn and peanuts in the shell.

Food that students collect on the last weekend of the food drive will be delivered to Shades of Hope Wildlife Refuge next week.

Aspen Valley staff asked Mrs. Black if she would write an article for the Parry Sound newspaper, explaining how students in three schools have conducted food drives this fall, to help Aspen feed orphaned and injured wildlife over the winter. As a media literacy/writing project, students in our class worked in groups to write their own articles about the food drive.

Students even got to pose for pictures to illustrate their articles:

Here are a couple of the articles we wrote about the food drive:

Mrs. Black used our articles as sources for her Parry Sound North Star column, and let our class help edit her article before she e-mailed it to the newspaper.

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Friday, October 3rd Update

This is a link to the article Mrs. Black and our class authored, on the Parry Sound North Star website:

food-drive-article-2014 http://www.parrysound.com/news-story/4895585-students-hold-food-drives-for-animals-at-aspen/

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Next week, we will share three more math activities that are based on our food drive, and tell our blog readers how much food we collected during our three-week campaign.

Thank you for visiting our class BLOG. If you have any questions or comments, feel free e-mail me (Margaret Black): mblack@scdsb.on.ca or to add a comment to this page.

2nd Annual Wildlife Food Drive! 2

Margaret BlackSeptember 16, 2014October 26, 20142 Comments

Welcome to our class BLOG for 2014-15! This year, our Grade 4/5 class will engage in a variety of projects that fulfill curriculum expectations, while providing outreach that benefits the community and beyond.

Our first outreach project is a "food drive" to assist three local wildlife rehabilitation centres, by providing natural food for orphaned wildlife that will be overwintering with them before being released back into the wild. Orphaned animals need to be provided with the food they will eat in the wild, so they know what to look for after they are released. Our food contributions will go a long way toward educating and sustaining baby animals throughout the winter months.

Our class is taking the lead in advertising and organizing Rama Central's 2nd annual food drive for wildlife. Students from Kindergarten through Grade 8, as well as school staff, are encouraged to collect and contribute items such as acorns, pine cones, maple keys, apples, sumac, black walnuts and corn to the cause.

On October 6th, the deadline for bringing in food, our class will begin a multi-faceted math project that will involve estimating how many of each item we collected, based on weight and/or volume, and calculating how long our food will last if fed to particular types of animals.

When the math project is complete, Mrs. Black will drive our food contributions to Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary, in Rosseau, Shades of Hope Wildlife Refuge, in Pefferlaw, and Woodlands Wildlife Sanctuary, in Minden.

Here are some images of students counting flyers and preparing announcements, posters and our hallway display, to advertise our food drive. (Click any photo to enlarge it.)

Here are some of the beautiful posters students created, to decorate the school. (Click any photo to enlarge it.)

Day 1 of our food drive, and the contributions are already coming in! Today we received a bucket of acorns and several dozen pine cones. (Click any photo to enlarge it.)

Thank you for visiting our class BLOG. If you have any questions or comments, feel free e-mail me (Margaret Black): mblack@scdsb.on.ca or to add a comment to this page.

Schoolyard Biodiversity/Math Project

Margaret BlackApril 25, 2014June 3, 2014Leave a comment

Today we began to survey the diversity of living and non-living things in the field areas of our schoolyard. This project fulfills expectations for the Grade 4 science strand "habitats and communities" and also teaches and consolidates some important mathematical concepts for both grades. These concepts include estimation, fractions, percent, calculating mean and graphing change over time.

On each of five field observation days, spread ten days apart, students go outside in small groups. They throw a hula hoop, to identify a random sample area, and make a list of the the non-living items (such as sand, pebbles and sticks) and flora (such as grass and small plants) that they find inside their hoop. Then they estimate how much of each item is present in their sample area, as a fraction and a percentage.

On a second observation sheet, students make notes or sketches of the fauna (insects, worms, etc.) and unfamiliar flora they notice inside the hoop, so they can look the items up in field guides once they are back in the classroom.

Afterwards, they repeat the process two more times. After all three of their field observations are complete, groups go inside and calculate the mean percentage for each item observed that day (brown grass, green grass, sand, etc.) and enter these percentages on a line graph.

By the time this project is complete, students will be able to track changes in vegetation that occur over six weeks, during the spring growing season.

Here are some pictures of today's field work and graphing sessions:

Thank you for visiting our class BLOG. If you have any questions or comments, feel free e-mail me (Margaret Black): mblack@scdsb.on.ca or to add a comment to this page.

Marvelous Miss M.!

Margaret BlackDecember 17, 2013December 19, 2013Leave a comment

Over the past five weeks, Olivia Manovich, a teacher-candidate from Lakehead University's Faculty of Education, completed a teaching practicum in our classroom. During her first week with us, Miss M. observed Mrs. Black's teaching. From weeks two through five, Miss M. began to create her own unit and lesson plans and teach the class herself, with Mrs. Black providing feedback. Each subsequent week, Miss M. assumed a larger proportion of the teaching responsibilities, until last week (week 5) when she was teaching full time.

Miss M.'s enthusiasm was contagious and her thoroughness was second to none. She brought as many new ideas to the table as she took away! We want to thank Miss M. for all her hard work and dedication. It just won't be the same when we return in January, and Miss M. isn't there. 🙁

Here are a few images of Marvelous Miss M. at work with our class (click any photo to enlarge it).

Introduction to The Elements of Dance:

Daily Physical Activity:

Math:

Writing:

Gym (Volleyball):

Science:

Playing with the school band and teacher-band:

We wish Miss M. all the best in her future as a teacher. Any school would be lucky to have her!!

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Thank you for visiting our class BLOG. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to e-mail me (Margaret Black): mblack@scdsb.on.ca or to add a comment to this page.

Wildlife Sanctuary/Math Project, Pt. 2

Margaret BlackOctober 15, 2013October 16, 2013Leave a comment

This is a follow-up to our earlier post about collecting natural food items for two local wildlife sanctuaries. They will be using what we collected to teach overwintering baby animals what to eat, and to keep them well fed throughout the winter.

In this BLOG post, we will be showing the math associated with this project and some pictures of animals at the sanctuaries enjoying food we collected for them.

After we finished our two week "food drive," we began to tally up the food we collected. We decided that the number of acorns could be estimated by weight, because there wasn't too much variation in the size and weight of acorns. We used a bathroom scale to weigh our boxes of acorns and a kitchen scale to determine how many acorns weighed 100 grams. Then, we did the calculations needed to estimate how many acorns we had altogether:

Weighing one of two big boxes of acorns

Counting out 100 grams of acorns

We brainstormed how to estimate the number of acorns as a class.

Vaughn did a great job adding the extra acorns we collected later.

Our pine cones came in a variety of shapes and sizes. Most were dry and light weight, but some were green and heavy. Therefore, we decided to estimate the number of pine cones by volume, instead of weight. First, we counted out how many assorted pine cones it took to just fill a dish pan. We did that four times and then calculated the mean (average) number of pine cones in a dish pan. Next, we figured out how many dish pans worth of pine cones we had. Last, we multiplied the number of acorns in a dishpan times the number of dishpans of acorns we collected, to figure out approximately how many pine cones we had altogether:

Our calculations.

Like the acorns, all of the maple keys were of similar in size and weight. We decided to estimate how many we collected based on weight.

Here are our totals:

Acorns = approximately 9,800 (35 kgs.)
Pine cones = approximately 2,300 (39 kgs.)
Maple keys = approximately 28,500 (2.25 kgs.)

Based on food consumption data that Woodlands Wildlife Sanctuary provided, we estimated that our food would last the 20 squirrels at Woodlands Sanctuary and the 20 squirrels at Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary about 5 weeks, if they only ate pine seeds, acorns and maple seeds. However, the wildlife sanctuaries will be supplementing the squirrels' diets with other foods, so our contribution will likely last about three months, or most of the winter.

In addition to pine cones, acorns and maple keys, we also collected apples, cedar seeds, corn, black walnuts and sumac for the animals. These were not part of our math project.

This is what all of the food collected by students and staff at Rama Central looked like, when it was assembled in one place!

This is Jan, the wildlife rehabilitation specialist at Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary, with the six boxes of food we dropped off at the sanctuary in Rosseau:

One of "the locals" thought the acorns were for him!

Jan sent us pictures of a couple of squirrels that are in rehabilitation at the sanctuary, and Furley the Black Bear (former resident of Springwater Provincial Park's wildlife compound), enjoying some of the food we delivered to the sanctuary:

Students were quite impressed by this picture of
a very large bear eating the tiny acorns they collected.

Staff and Students at Steele Street P.S. and Shanty Bay P.S. were inspired by our project. They also contributed items for Woodlands Wildlife Sanctuary. We delivered their items with ours. This is what we took to Woodlands:

Our Grade 5/6 teacher, Mr. Fitzgerald, contributed the bird houses.

This is Monika, the wildlife rehabilitation specialist at Woodlands Wildlife Sanctuary, and my daughter Emily with some of the food we dropped off at the sanctuary in Minden:

Monika sent us some pictures of animals in rehabilitation enjoying our food drive items. The fawns are eating windfall apples that some of the students collected:

This little guy can't believe his luck!

Monika also e-mailed us a really neat thank you graphic. We posted a colour copy of it in our classroom:

We think our food drive for local wildlife sanctuaries was "wildly" successful! It also showed us how math can be used to answer some real life questions. We plan to do this again next year!!

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Thank you for visiting our class BLOG. If you have any questions or comments, feel free e-mail me (Margaret Black): mblack@scdsb.on.ca or to add a comment to this page.

Wildlife Sanctuary/Math Project, Pt. 1 6

Margaret BlackSeptember 15, 2013October 15, 20136 Comments

Our special math project, which is also an outreach project in support of Woodlands Wildlife Sanctuary is now underway. (Sept. 23rd NOTE: We have collected so many items that we will now be sharing with Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary, as well!)

We have sent home notes to parents, explaining what we are doing (click on any picture to enlarge it):

Everyone in our class received a paper bag, for collecting items,
with a note attached to it.

We have started a Community Service bulletin board in our classroom:

The entire school has been invited to help us collect acorns, pine cones and maple keys, to feed to baby squirrels, porcupines and fawns that will overwintering at local wildlife sanctuaries:

Students in our class counting out invitations for other classes

Teams of students from our class have started touring the school, making presentations explaining what wildlife rehabilitation centres do and why it is important to feed orphaned animals the types of food they will see after they are released back into the wild:

Students rehearsing for classroom presentations

The collection of natural foods for orphaned baby animals has begun:

And, in a truly remarkable twist of fate... The week we began collecting food for orphaned baby animals, the family of one of my students rescued a four-week old squirrel they found on their driveway, alone, cold and dehydrated. They did a great job with emergency care, and then I drove the little guy to Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary, where I happened to be going for a meeting. "Squirrelly" will be one of those babies who needs to overwinter at a wildlife sanctuary, eating the kinds of foods we are collecting! Next Spring, he will be released back into the wild close to where he was found.

"Squirrelly" receiving a feeding of Pedialyte (2 ml), via eye-dropper

Full tummy = sleepy baby

Next step: During the first week of October, we will be spending two or three math classes sorting, counting, calculating fractions and equivalent fractions, estimating percentages, graphing and estimating how long our food stash will last, when fed to baby squirrels.

Then I will drive all the great, natural food we collected to Woodlands Sanctuary and Aspen Valley Sanctuary, where it will teach baby animals, like Squirrelly, what foods to eat and provide them with sustenance all winter long!

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Thank you for visiting our class BLOG. If you have any questions or comments, feel free e-mail me (Margaret Black): mblack@mail1.scdsb.on.ca or to add a comment to this page.