2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi

The Winter Olympics begin soon so these are some links we'll use in the classroom to 

help us learn more about the games, the history behind them, the Olympians, the countries they represent and the location of the games this month. Go USA!

Here's the main website for the Olympics... olympic.org
There you can find schedules, information about athletes, countries that participate and more!



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"The 2014 Winter Olympics will take place in Sochi, Russia, from February 7 through February 23. Events are divided into 14 sports—15 if skeleton is counted as a separate sport from bobsleigh. (Here, we’re counting them as a single sport.) Some sports have multiple disciplines—men’s and women’s competitions, relay competitions, and races of different distances. Each discipline will have three medalists—gold, silver, and bronze." ~ from National Geographic Education

For information about the sports played in the winter games, check out Sports of the 2014 Winter Olympics on National Geographic Education.

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From NBCLearn:

Science and Engineering of the 2014 Olympic Winter Games
This 10-part video series, produced by NBC Learn and NBC Sports, in partnership with the National Science Foundation, explores the science, technology, engineering and math of the 2014 Olympic Winter Games.

Science of the Olympic Winter Games
This original video collection explores the physics, biology, chemistry, and math behind the Olympic Winter Games.

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http://cybraryman.com/olympics.html

This is a great collection of things you might want to know about the Game as well as teaching materials from Cybraryman, former teacher Jerry Blumengarten.

Extra Credit: CONNECT! Transform the Future

Check out this game from The Center For Science, GE and National Geographic (as well as local energy companies)! It's a fun way to learn more about green energy and energy conservation while playing an interactive game. Enter GREEN2013 for a special game bonus! You can earn extra credit by playing the game and teaching the class about what you've learned from it. How you share the information is up to you!

Plan It Green, the Big Switch is an online game that allows players to design and create their own energy-efficient city of the future!

• Build new energy technologies and advance energy research;
• Rack up points based on eco-friendliness, energy production, citizen happiness, and more!
• Compete with other “mayors” for the highest city rating;
• Tackle challenging quests and earn rewards for your outstanding achievements;
• Advance through game levels by exploring and building a diverse energy portfolio;
• Check out new game play elements as fresh features are added on a regular basis. 

Plan It Green, the Big Switch is part of CONNECT! Transform the Future, a new collaboration between the Center for Science (a network of leading science centers), National Geographic, General Electric and local energy companies across the country.

The goal of CONNECT! Transform the Future is to enlighten, educate, and engage the nation’s youth in a conversation about the future of energy.

The CONNECT! Transform the Future project is a portfolio of media and outreach resources that will integrate with each science center’s unique experiences and outreach programs.  Each of the project resources are being developed by National Geographic with input from scientists, technical advisors, educators and science center partners to ensure what is produced is of the highest quality.

Odyssey of the Mind Competition

Two of our classmates participated in the Odyssey of the Mind, Pet Project Competition recently. "Odyssey of the Mind is an international educational program that provides creative problem-solving opportunities  for students from kindergarten through college. Team members apply their creativity to solve problems that range from building mechanical devices to presenting their own interpretation of literary classics. They then bring their solutions to competition on the local, state, and World level. Thousands of teams from throughout the U.S. and from about 25 other countries participate in the program." (from the company's website)

 "It was a great experience," said GF. "I loved doing the Gangnam Style dance." Want to know more about the event? Here's a video created by the instructor, Sonny Cruz.

Everyday Mysteries

We are starting to dig into our Wonder projects! At my Library of Congress website training this week, one of the other participants came across this cool resource in the Kids & Families section.

 

Here's a bit about what you'll find there:

"Did you ever wonder why a camel has a hump? If you can really tell the weather by listening to the chirp of a cricket? Or why our joints make popping sounds? These questions deal with everyday phenomena that we often take for granted, but each can be explained scientifically.

Everyday Mysteries will help you get the answers to these and many other of life's most interesting questions through scientific inquiry. In addition, we will introduce you to the Library of Congress' rich collections in science and technology.

All of the questions presented on this Web site were asked by researchers and answered by librarians from the Library's Science Reference Services."

Cause an UPROAR for the Big Cats!

On Halloween, our class was able to collect $65.00 to help the big cats *YAHOO!* and we will be receiving bracelets from National Geographic soon as a thank you. But our work doesn't stop there! When we return to school after the winter holidays, we will continue our focus on animals and we'll be working on letter writing as well. We will participate in the Letters to Lions campaign as a way to practice letter writing with a purpose. (See below for more information.) Tomorrow begins NatGeo's Big Cat Week and they have lots of great educational shows scheduled that you may want to watch with your family.

One of our second grade writing standards is letter writing:
2.2 Write a friendly letter complete with the date, salutation, body, closing, and signature.

National Geographic Kids website offers a great opportunity to practice this form of writing while doing something good! From the site - "Lions are in danger of extinction across Africa. Filmmakers and National Geographic Explorers-in-Residence Dereck and Beverly Joubert want you to help save lions! Write letters to lions and the Jouberts will deliver them to African leaders to let them know how important lions are to kids everywhere. And we may feature a few of them in a gallery on the National Geographic websites and in print!"

For more information about these beautiful animals, click here. Nat Geo Wild will be supporting National Geographic's Big Cats Initiative with Big Cat Week starting December 11th. Check it out and cause an uproar!

Toys From Everyday Objects

I just watched this fascinating video of Arvind Gupta and his ideas for making play things out of ordinary items. It got me thinking about all of you creative kids who are always using the tools I give you in new ways... :) As a teacher, that has sometimes frustrated me but this video made me think about it differently! Time to explore and create new things is so important. Check out this video and see what it inspires you to create...




Please email me or comment below if you come up with something you'd like to share. Hope you're staying cool and enjoying vacation! :)Ms. G

Synesthesia

I came across a video today that made me instantly think of my students so I had to share! If you follow our blog, you may remember that we read a great book called The Name of This Book is Secret. For more about that, click here. Synesthesia was an important topic in the book and the children often wondered if it was "a real thing." Though we discovered that it was indeed real, we didn't learn much more about it - other than what we learned from the book.

Daniel Tammet, who appears in the video below, has linguistic, numerical and visual synesthesia and is further described as a high-functioning autistic savant. He describes how much richer words and numbers can be to synesthetes. The video actually meant for an adult audience so some of it may be difficult for children to follow but I found it very interesting to hear him describe how he views the world. Check it out and let me know what you think by leaving a comment...

Kids - I miss you all and I hope you are enjoying your vacation so far! Hugs, :)Ms. G

San Diego Science Festival

This event snuck up on me again... I'm sorry for bringing it to you at the last minute! Here's some information about the event from La Jolla Light:
The San Diego Science Festival, the largest celebration of science on the West Coast, returns this March with content-rich, interactive learning experiences for kids of all ages.
Bringing together hundreds of innovative local organizations and individuals, the San Diego Science Festival demonstrates that careers in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) are accessible and exciting pathways to a better future. This festival starts on March 19 and culminates with EXPO DAY at PETCO Park on March 26.

And here's a direct link to the KidZone where you find videos, a great science song and a quiz about the our earth...

I scored 75% - can you beat me? :)

Tide Pools

We are currently working on a habitat project and these are some links for one of my groups... :)

http://42explore.com/tidepool.htm
http://www.seaworld.org/wild-world/ecosystems/info-books/tide-pools/intertidal-ecology.htm
Explorations
http://www.ohv.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=23926

Paper Airplane Project

We recently wrapped up our airplane project, listening to the findings of each of the groups. We discovered a lot about what factors make the airplanes fly farther.

What effect would paper clips have on the plane?

They discovered: One paper clip in the front seems to make a plane fly farther. Lots of paper clips all over the plane made it flip over and fall straight to the ground.

Can different materials make the plane go farther?

They discovered: Construction paper airplanes can go farther than sandpaper airplanes.

Can different materials make the plane go farther?

They discovered: If the plane is regular, it flies well. If you put toothpaste and glue on it and throw it gently, it will go much faster and farther.

Which designs fly the farthest?

 

 

They discovered: If the airplane has cuts in it, it seems to fly farther because the wings don't get damaged as much. If it has more cuts and folds, it will just fall to the ground.

Can different materials make the plane go farther?

They discovered: The sandpaper was heavier than the construction paper and copy paper so those two flew more smoothly and farther than the sandpaper. We think the weight caused a shorter flight.

Will a plane fly farther if we throw it up VS down?

 

They discovered: Throwing the paper down the stairs was better than throwing it up the stairs. When we threw it down, it flew all the way out to the parking lot.

Can different materials make the plane go farther?

They discovered: The sandpaper plane didn't fly very well. There was a tie between the copy paper and the construction paper, like the other group found.

In most cases, our predictions were incorrect. The airplanes didn't behave the way we expected. We found that the planes that fly the farthest:

• are made from lighter paper.
• have cuts in the design.
• have more weight in the front.
• have balanced, slightly heavier wings.

Here are a couple of websites and videos we looked at together that your child may want to check out again at home:
http://paperplane.org/
 

https://www.thepaperairplaneguy.com/site/



And a few others you may find interesting...
http://www.amazingpaperairplanes.com/
http://www.paperairplanes.co.uk/planes.php 
http://www.origami-kids.com/