Pasta

Today we worked on pasta for the 6th grade restaurant. We have all been working hard except Buzz and his group. They have an automatic machine. The rest of us have to crank the pasta. So much cranking... I think that we have to do this tommorow : )

Below is a picture of 4 classmates making pasta. We are working really hard for our resturant. SO MUCH PASTA : ) Anyway, today has been really fun...making the dough, cranking it through the pasta machine, everything!

:D

Abacus, Anyone?

Here is a picture of Jun, a visitor at our school who taught us how to use an abacus. She was quite enthusiastic and funny (also very helpful if we made a mistake!)

When we finally learned how to use the abacus we did really hard math but it was easy at the same time. Jun was really fast.

After helping us learn to use an abacus, Jun showed us how she could beat a calculator doing math on her abacus; it was amazing!

Wow, Jun was so good at using the abacus, and we had a lot of fun too! But it was kind of confusing.

EARTH Field Trip

Paulina pedaled and pedaled to get that itty-bitty 25 watt light bulb to flicker. It's much easier to use the bio diesel fuel these guys talked about. Can you believe it took all she had to get a few flashes on the bulb!? Just imagine how much effort it would take to power up your whole house!


Peter and Buzz gave a good once over to Mr. Worm. Did you think you could cut a worm in half and grow two worms? Well, that's just a myth. Instead, the only end that will grow back is the one with the hearts in it. And yes, I meant hearts PLURAL - they have five, you know!

Paulina, Harper, and Anna pretended to be drops of rain travelling through the water cycle. Each stop, whether cloud, lake, pond, sea or snow was one bead, and it was no coincidence that all three kept landing in the ocean!

Ooooo, this is harder than it looks!! Imelda is trying to pump the pollution out of our groundwater in order to save the city from certain death!! Squeeze harder, Imelda!

Every Little Thing in its Place

Paulina, Rachel, and Dakota cleaned out the closet today. They organized the marker boxes, making sure every one of the them had all the necessary colors, then they moved on to the colored pencils. Rachel even took the time to sharpen the tips of the old colored pencils. What a gorgeous set of supplies we have now!!

MATH DAY at KU

Today was a celebration of Math Week at KU. We were the only class invited from throughout the city. We did all sorts of work with math related to climate and global warming.







Here's a video where we discuss the matter with the public! ; )
http://www2.ljworld.com/videos/2009/apr/15/24232/




The green circle you see us drawing on represented a flattened globe. We were demonstrating the Coreolis Effect of winds around the earth. When winds blow in the Norther Hemisphere, their paths curve to the right. It's the opposite in the Southern Hemisphere. We can use this to better predict weather patterns.






We also discussed Celsius and Fahrenheit. Did you know that we are only one of two countries in the world who still insist on using Fahrenheit? I wonder why that is. The other country is Belize. Somehow, Xavien knew that the ONLY place the two scales match is at -40 degrees. I guess he never expected that Book of Useless Information he'd read would prove to be so...well, useful!

We practiced using algebra to convert between the two systems and examined typical temperatures in Celsius around the world.

Mind to Market Food Edition

Today we had Mind to Market Food Edition. Each of us was supposed to cook and serve something from our home country. Plus we had to write about it and provide the recipe. (We suspect that's just because our teachers like to cook.)

There were foods from all over the world!

Everybody's Lookin' for My Sharp Dressed Class...

Yes, those handsome young men and gorgeous young ladies are my students. Can you believe they clean up so well!?

To say that Anna always puts forth her best effort is an understatement. This was the product of an assignment to "Make a map of Italy on a blank sheet of 8 1/2" x 11" paper." She received a standing ovation from the rest of the class as well as a bunch of ooohs and aaaahs.

Hawk Walk 2009

We LOVE Hawk Walk Day. We rode over in a bus, which we thought was kind of weird, since the park is only a few blocks away, and the day is supposed to promote fitness. So what are we doing 3 to a seat on a school bus!? Something about rules and safety.

We all did at least two laps around the park and finished up with cold water and some social time before we boarded the bus once again. Well, everyone except Alex and Arturo, anyway. Apparently they decided to take on a 4th lap, and we couldn't find them anywhere!! Finally we took off without them and they had to ride back with the 5th graders instead.