Have you heard that expression before?  I have said it a million times, mainly referring to my lack of energy, but over winter break, I  experienced “running on empty” first hand.

About two months ago, I noticed that the heater in my van wasn’t producing much heat.  As you can imagine, it was a little chilly driving during the days with low temperatures!  I drive a 2003 minivan and we found ourselves having to repair quite a few things this past year including the starter and transmission.  We’ve been talking about trading the van in and buying a new or used one to replace it, but our van is paid for and it’s nice not having a car payment.  The heater completely stopped working  a couple weeks ago and we figured the repairs would cost us at least three hundred dollars.  With the holidays approaching, I did not want to spend the money so I bundled up and kept driving.

Two days ago, my husband suggested taking my van to a shop he discovered.  I was hesitant because we still didn’t have the money for repairs, but I took it in anyway.  After 15 minutes of checking it over, the technician came in and told me that my heater was working like a charm!  He added a gallon-and-a-half of antifreeze and told me it would cost $12.83!  Can you believe it?  I was literally running on empty!  Needless to say, I’m happy that my heater is working and that I might be able to drive my van just a little bit longer.

Have you ever had a similar experience?  Have you ever tried fixing or repairing something old?  Tell me about it by leaving a comment!

Wordly Wise is a vocabulary reinforcemnt program. Each lesson presents a list of words with their part of speech and definition(s).  Students complete 5 components for each lesson which gives them an opportunity to learn the words in a variety of contexts. My favorite component of each lesson is where all the words are used in a story and then the students have to answer questions about the story. This week’s story in Lesson 2 of Book 2 was about bats. Very interesting!

There’s a free Wordly Wise app for the iPad. You can download it here or by clicking the link below.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wordly-wise-3000-vocabulary/id632074934?mt=8

If you have a chance to download the app, let us know what you think by leaving a comment!

Do you remember studying Fibonacci's sequence 1st quarter?  This TED Talk gives all sorts of interesting information and patterns found within Fibonacci's sequence!

Cool!

The Magic of Fibonacci Numbers

What a beautiful weekend!  I hope you all enjoyed the cool fall weather and had some time to relax!  We had a couple football games on Saturday and I took my older two boys to River City Roundup today to help judge a robotics competition.  Speaking of robotics, I hope to take some teams to the UNO Robotics Showcase on February 22, 2014.  I’ll have more information on that later.

This week in EY we talked about the strategy of Guess and Check.  Students were given 10 film canisters (that was a lesson in itself as some of the kids had no idea what a film canister was! ;)) that had 1-10 pennies in them.  The goal was to arrange the canisters from lightest to heaviest without peaking in the canister.  After “guessing” the correct order, they “checked” by opening the canisters to see if they succeeded.

Click here to see a video of the Westbrook students.

During a second round, students could use a scale if they wanted.  As we completed additional rounds, students came up with different strategies in order to speed up their sorting time.  We even took the challenge “on the road” and invited principals to complete the activity.

Click here to watch Mr. Jagels.

We talked about other situations where guess and check is used.  When cooking, sometimes we need to guess on an ingredient (like salt) and then check the taste to see if more needs to be added.  We also talked about picking out clothes in the morning and checking to see how it looks in the mirror.  Can you think of other situations where guess and check is used?

We will be using the last few weeks of the quarter to create some math and vocabulary videos.  Here is one Dylan put together for some friends we’re connecting with in Wisconsin.   We will be exchanging math story problems and then afterwards “Skype”ing with them to check our answers.

Do you know the answer to Dylan’s problem?  Leave your answer and explanation in the comments section.  Also, let us know how you use strategies in your everyday life!

This week 6th graders from Hillside and Westbrook used the app Educreations on the iPad to narrate a problem.  You can watch two sample videos by clicking here and here.  Educreations is a free app in the iTunes store.

We spent some time looking at the strategy of working backwards.  I let the students know that I always have to work backwards when I lose my keys, phone, etc.  Can you think of an everyday situation where you have to work backwards?  Please leave a comment and let us know!

Click here for the problems students used to practice the skill of working backwards.  As you can tell, the problems get really “wordy” so using another strategy (solving a simpler problem) can help us break the problem into smaller pieces.  See if your child can explain one of these problems to you.

We ended the week with an amazing seminar!  Check out some of the pictures here:  https://ey.westside66.org/?p=59