Do your students know this man?

They will after completing the activities on the following links!

http://www.brainpop.com/math/geometryandmeasurement/coordinateplane/preview.weml

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2FqyJL2w8U&feature=channel_page

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesize/maths/revision_bites/grids.shtml

http://www.gradeamathhelp.com/coordinate-plane.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/mathsfile/shockwave/games/planethop.html

http://www.harcourtschool.com/jingles/jingles_all/5get_to_point.html

http://www.aimsedu.org/aimskids/ipuzzles/hurkle/index.html

http://www.funbrain.com/co/index.html

http://www.oswego.org/ocsd-web/games/BillyBug2/bug2.html

http://www.learningupgrade.com/mathup/index.htm

http://www.counton.org/games/virtualmathfest/dinosaur.html

http://education.jlab.org/topquarkgame/index.html

http://www.mrnussbaum.com/stockshelves1.htm

http://www.kidsthinkaboutit.com/meet_rene_descartes

http://www.mathplayground.com/locate_aliens.html

Independent Projects

Students in HAL have been working on their independent projects. As part of the process they have selected topics and subtopics, identified questions to explore, and searched the internet for answers to their questions. After completing their research, students were asked to share the information with their classmates in a creative way. Many of them chose to use PowerPoint, and these are poste on the Slideshare widget on this blog.

Other students built models to share what they learned. Here is Packer, a student at McDonald, showing King Tut's tomb.







Other students chose to do impersonations of famous people. Here is , portrayed by Talitha.

Greatest Common Factor

The Factor Game
http://illuminations.nctm.org/ActivityDetail.aspx?ID=12

Sliding Factor Game
http://www.visualmathlearning.com/Games/sliding_factors.html

BrainPOP video/ Factoring:
http://www.brainpop.com/math/numbersandoperations/factoring/preview.weml


Greatest Common Factors Online Course:
http://e-learningforkids.org/Courses/EN/M1104/index.html


Greatest Common Factor YouTube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guMCJ792UF0&feature=related

Greatest Common Factor online quiz:
http://school.discoveryeducation.com/quizzes8/mrforbes/GCF.html

Greatest Common Factor worksheet
http://www.mathslice.com/simple_gcf_lcm.php

Factor Trees
http://nlvm.usu.edu/en/NAV/frames_asid_202_g_3_t_1.html

Review and practice:
http://www.studyzone.org/mtestprep/math8/e/gcf5l.cfm

What do you MEAN?

Here are some resources for teaching mean or average.

You tube mean lesson:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgxZfQDf4qY

Online dice .. Have students "roll" a set number of times and calculate the mean:
http://www.random.org/dice/

Online playing cards..Have students "draw" a set number of cards and calculate the mean:
http://www.random.org/playing-cards/ndom.org/playing-cards/

Candy Colors Average Activity:
http://www.education-world.com/a_lesson/03/lp293-02.shtml

The Average Kid lesson plan:
http://www.education-world.com/a_lesson/00-2/lp2057.shtml





You know those free auto magagizines you see around town? How about using them for an averaging activity? I've used them before for place value, and my students absolutely loved it! You could use one of the following problems for a whole class activity, or you could put them on a think-tac-toe board.

• Cut out 3 (or more) vehicles. Find the average.

• Find 3 vehicles that were made in 1990's and calculate the average.
• Find 3 more vehicles that were made in the 2000's and calculate the average. What is the average difference between them? Why reasons can you think of that would explain the difference
• Find the average of all the cars on a page. (Put this in the center of the think-tac-toe board and encourage students who need more challenge to include it in their choices.)
• Find 5 cars that show a monthly payment. Find the average monthly payment of the cars. (This would be easier for students to calculate.)
• Use Mapquest to find the distance to several of the car dealers. Calculate the average distance.
• Find 5 cars that are named after animals. Calculate the average.
• Fnd 5 cars that are alike in some way (leather, AC, CD, same year..etc.) Calculate the average price of the cars.

Here are some other tasks for a choice board:

• Find two vehicles that were made in the same year and are the exact same price.
• name two vehicles that are named after cities in the United States. Tell what state they are in and how many people live there.
• Choose 3 vehicles. Find the total. Find 5 more vehicles that have the exact total as your first 3 vehicles.
• Find a car that was made in the same year that the Denver Broncos won their second Super Bowl.
• Choose 6 vehicles. Find the total. Next, find out how much more money you would need, or how much you would have left if you had $1,000,000 to spend.
• Find 2 vehicles that have a price which is a palindrome.
• Find three vehicles that are named after animals. Research how much those animals weigh and what they eat.
• Choose 1 vehicle that is more than $30,000. Find out how long it would take you to pay it off if you pay $200.00 per month.
• Find a vehicle that was made in the same year that former president Ronald Regan died. Find out what Ronald Regan did before he became president.

Here are some ideas that the students came up with:
Choose three vehicles that are named after animals. Find the difference between the weight of the cars and the weight of the animals.
Choose three vehicles that are named after animals. Find the difference between the top speed of the car and the top speed of the animal.
Find a car that was made in the year you were born. Find out some major things that happened in that year.
Find the oldest car. Tell about some events that happened in that year.

Time To Measure!

Need some differentiation ideas for your measuring unit? Try some of these resources.

Try to balance the scales:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/mathsfile/shockwave/games/animal.html

This game tests your knowledge of angles: http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/mathsfile/shockwave/games/bathroom.html

Measure to the nearest fraction of an inch:
http://www.hbschool.com/activity/elab2004/gr5/25.html

Super lesson plan for lengths and heights: http://school.discoveryeducation.com/lessonplans/pdf/measure_lengths/measure_lengths.pdf

Another Discovery Education plan-converting from standard to metric. http://school.discoveryeducation.com/lessonplans/pdf/metricworld/metricworld.pdf

Metric scavenger hunt:
http://www.hbschool.com/teacher_resources/math/grade_03/g3a_measure.html
Interactive movies and activities:
http://www.saskschools.ca/curr_content/byersjmath/geometry/students/coverpg.html

Scroll down to find some interesting measurement investigations involving lunch:
http://www.sasked.gov.sk.ca/docs/elemath/projects.html

Lesson using measurement and oranges:
http://www.fi.edu/sln/school/tfi/fall96/oranges.html

Measurement webquest:
http://oops.bizland.com/gothedistance.html

Metric Interactive course:
http://www.learner.org/interactives/metric/

nrich time and measurment:
http://nrich.maths.org/public/monthindex.php?year=2008&month=05&showfulltier=yes

Bitesize lesson: measures
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesize/maths/shape_space_measures.shtml

elearning online courses-scroll to find measurement related :
http://www.e-learningforkids.org/courses.html

Olympic measurement webquest:
http://www.uni.edu/schneidj/webquests/fall04/olympics/index.html

Mrs. Lincoln

Lincoln School recently celebrated the birthday of Abraham Lincoln. When they asked me to portray Mrs. Lincoln, I jumped at the chance. I loved dressing in costume and telling students about Mary's life. I am not sure how effective I was, though. After my presentation, a boy came up to me and whispered, "I know you're a fake!" I laughed and replied, "What gave me away? Was it my wig?" He shook his head and said, "No, if you were real, you'd be, like, 200 years old!" Well, at least I got them thinking!

Smashing the World Record!

On March 4, HAL students gathered at McKinley Education Center for World Math Day. Their challenge was to answer as many mental math questions as possible with the ultimate goal of breaking a world record.
At the end of the day, the group had answered over 20,000 questions, and together with students from around the world, had answered 452, 682, 682 questions, smashing the previous record!!


Our top point earner was Andrew! Talk about a walking calculator!

We also had treats and prize drawings. Braden and Hope won World Math Day t-shirts, and several other students won Wal-Mart gift cards.

Thank you to all of you who participated in World Math Day! You were amazing! I can't wait for next year! Another big thanks to John Lindenberger for writing about us in the North Platte Telegraph.  And, of course, we can't forget Mr. Hokanson!   What did we ever do without him!  He helped us out all day and created our World Math Day video.   You are awesome, Neil!