For the second year in a row, our class has participated in a holiday card exchange with classes from around the United States and Canada. This project is one of the many collaborative projects coordinated by Jen Wagner, an amazing teacher who is willing to share her great ideas.
Our first task was to create some cards for all of the classes on our list. Our theme was SNOW!
When we finished we had lots of cards to send out.
Then it was time to wait for cards to come in. The week before our Holiday Break we had enough for everyone to open a card.
First we used Google Earth to see where the schools from our friends were located.
Then we got to open them!
We put the information in a spreadsheet to compare and contrast the different schools. Click on the link below to see our data. Christmas Card Spreadsheet
Look at these beautiful cards!
We had great fun collaborating with other schools with this project. We would love to hear your thoughts or questions about what we did. Please share them with us in the comments section below.
Last week our classroom participated in the Hour of Code.
What is the Hour of Code? The Hour of Code is an introduction to computer science. It introduces the type of logical thinking necessary to write computer code.
Check out the website here: Hour of Code. Students were able to write code for a variety of different characters. Some chose to write code for Elsa and Anna from Frozen.
Some chose to write code for Angry Birds.
Minecraft was a very popular choice.
And of course, with the Star Wars movie coming out this week, there had to be a puzzle for Star Wars!
We had to move the blocks to tell the computer how to make the characters move.
It took some time, and the puzzles didn't always work out the first time. We had to try more than once to solve them, and ask each other for help.
However, we stuck with it, and we were able to solve the puzzles!
When we finished, we received a certificate for working on our puzzles!
If your child enjoyed coding and would like to continue on his or her own, check out this link on our classroom website with additional coding opportunities. Coding Websites
Let us know what you think of what we learned about coding. Please share in the comment section below.
In Mrs. Essenburg's third grade classroom we have been working hard on learning multiplication! One very important part of multiplication is understanding the different properties and how they help us solve problems. There are quite a few properties of multiplication. There is the Zero Property.
In other words, any factor times 0 is always 0. So: 8 x 0 = 0 557 x 0 = 0 and 0 x 3,238 = 0. There is the Identity Property.
Don't forget the Commutative Property.
That means that we can flip the factors around and we still get the same product. So 3 x 7 = 21. But 7 x 3 = 21 too! It works with addition as well. Of course there is the Associative Property.
This means we can move the factors in all different places and if we use the same numbers we'll still get the same product. So 1 x 2 x 3 x 4 = 24 But 4 x 2 x 1 x 3 = 24 as well. So does 3 x 4 x 1 x 2! Don't forget the Distributive Property. It's very important! It helps us to solve problems with larger numbers.
There will be more on the distributive property on the bottom of this post. It is so important it gets a special definition!
After learning about all of these properties, we made a paper slide video about what we've learned. Check it out below!
We also learned how to make a screencast to show more about how the Distributive Property works. A screencast is a short video explaining a skill. If we can teach a skill to others that shows a real understanding of that skill. Please check out our screencasts below. Here is Ashlyn and Izzy's screencast about the distributive property.
Here is Jillianne's screencast showing how to do the distributive property.
Here is Dorothy's screencast showing us how to use the distributive property when we multiply.
Here is Camden and Lainie's screencast about the distributive property.
Here is Jason and Andrew's screencast on the distributive property.
Here is Jackson and Brody's screencast showing the distributive property.
And here is Joey's example of the distributive property.
Understanding the distributive property is so important! It will help all of us as we move into multiplying larger numbers. We have shared a lot of information about the different properties of multiplication. Please let us know what helps you when you multiply numbers. Do you use these properties, or do you use other strategies? Whatever strategy you use to help you with multiplication, we would love to hear about it. Please comment below.
