Monday, October 20, 2014

Science project

Nervous System Project !
Due November 3rd, 2014!!!

Your final for the Nervous System Unit is to make a model of the brain.


You may use any materials that you can find around the house.  Some ideas for things to use are: dry noodles, beans, clay, play dough, cardboard, Legos, baked pan cookies with icing. Just about anything will work as long as it does not create a mess in the classroom; no ice sculptures or ice cream models.       


You may not just draw a picture on paper, but you may glue things to poster board or cardboard, or build the model any other way you would like to. This is your unit ending final grade. I am looking to see what you have learned during this unit and how you are able to communicate that learning to me. Please show me that you care by spending some time and effort on this project and it will reflect in your grade. The majority of your grade will be the oral interview, but your project will be at least 1/3 of it. The entire project will have 30 possible points to earn.
You brain model will need to include:
• Cerebrum
• Cerebellum
• Brain stem/medulla
• Spinal cord
You will need to explain each area of the brain and what its function is to me during our oral interview.


Extra credit: it is not necessary but if you are looking for 5 extra points you can also include a model of a nerve. It must include the cell body, dendrites and an axon.

You can turn in this project any time before the 3rd, but it must be turned in by the 3rd. If it is turned in late, you will lose 5 points for each day it is late.

If you are in need of supplies to create your project, please let me know ASAP.
Tara Whalen






Nervous System Study Guide

Please practice with your child as they present their model to you.

Cerebrum-

Actions that take place in the cerebrum:

  • 85 % of the weight of the brain
  • 9/10 the size of the brain
  • The outer layer of the cerebrum is the cerebral cortex.
  • Voluntary muscles. (voluntary muscles are those that we can control- for skiing, walking, jumping, writing, etc)
  • Thinking
  • Learning
  • Personality
  • 5 senses
  • Emotions
  • Intelligence
  • Memory- long term and short term
  • Left side of the cerebrum controls the right side of the body. Right side controls the left side of the body.
  • There is a thick bundle of nerves that connects the hemispheres so that they can “talk” to each other.
  • Left hemisphere of the cerebrum:      
    • Math
    • Science
    • Logical reasoning
  • Right hemisphere of the cerebrum:
    • Art
    • Music
    • Creativity

Cerebellum-

  • Balance and Coordination- using both sides of the body in order to do something

Brain stem (also called the Medulla)-

  • “central computer”
  • “Post office”- sorts messages received from the body and sends them to the brain. Sorts messages from the brain and sends them to the body.
  • Involuntary muscles (involuntary muscles work on their own such as breathing, heart beating and digestion)
  • Reflexes     
Spinal cord-

  • Carries messages from the body to the brain
  • Carries messages from the brain to the body

Nerves-

  • Are what the messages travel on
  • Messages are “caught” by the dendrites and passed down through the axon where they “jump” to the next nerve.


Parent Guardian Teacher conferences

We are coming up on conference in just a few weeks- Oct 30th and 31st to be exact. You can click on the links below to sign up for conference with the 3rd grade team.

Thanks!

Click here for Tara Whalen's schedule



Click here for Sue Wetzel's schedule



Click here for Natalie Neuhart's schedule





Speaking of Ms. Neuhart... Click here for a link to her blog...

Thursday, October 16, 2014

Social Studies Study guide


Guide for Canada Test – October 20th

Please concentrate on how Canada is alike and different from the United States.  You may use this guide to study, as well the guide (Venn diagram) that you have completed in class.  The test will be in a Venn diagram format.  On your Venn diagram you will be required to summarize at least one historical development and how it has shaped the development of present day Canada and also identify that Canada is divided into provinces and territories.  I will bold print these points on this study guide. You will need to write at least 3 facts for each category plus and one additional fact, any category; it must include some of the bolded facts.

Alike:

Native Americas lived in both first

Totem poles

Tepees

Hunted buffalo

Native people were treated poorly by settlers

Both were colonies of England at one time

Both are no longer Colonies of England

Both speak English

The money is called dollars and cents

TV shows

Food (hamburgers, cornflakes)

Multicultural

 

USA:

Rebelled against England and fought a war for their independence

Divided into states

Money has presidents and other American symbols

Baseball and football

Large population

President

Warm and cold climates

Eagle, a national symbol

Flag has stars and stripes

 

Canada:

Divided into provinces and territories

Settled by French people

Many speak French

Gradually and peacefully broke away from England

Money has a loon, beaver and the Queen of England

Mounties

Hockey

Larger in land

Cold climate

Inuits

Igloos

Flag has a maple leaf

Prime Minister

 

 

 

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Help please!!

Third grade needs snacks! If you can and are willing to buy and share, it would be very much appreciated.
Thanks
Ms. Whalen and Ms. Wetzel

Monday, October 6, 2014

The Common Core makes simple math more complicated. Here's why.

Click here for original article.

The start of a new school year means that confusing math problems linked to the Common Core are circulating again on Facebook and blogs. The conservative Heritage Foundation picked out the latest example, originally from RedState.com editor Erick Erickson: a textbook that uses six steps to explain how to subtract two numbers.
common core math

This math is frustrating to parents and to some students — with good reason. Elementary school math has become more complicated since the introduction of the Common Core state standards, which require that elementary school kids not just know how to subtract, multiply and divide, but understand what they're doing and why.
Common Core still requires students to learn and understand the standard algorithm, the techniques for adding, multiplying, and dividing that generations of schoolkids have learned. (Erickson says the standard algorithm is derogatorily called the "granny method," but if so, that term is not widely used in math education or textbooks.) But it also requires them to understand other methods, and those methods can make easy math look more difficult.
How Common Core math is different
Arithmetic has usually been taught like it's a recipe: Take the raw ingredients (the numbers), follow a series of steps, and end up with a result (the answer). While an experienced baker knows why you cream butter and sugar before adding eggs, then add flour last, a beginner just following the steps is in the dark. They might know what to do, but they can't explain why.
In the past, "students had this sense that math was some kind of magical black box," says Dan Meyer, a former high school math teacher studying math education at Stanford University. "That wasn't good enough."
One goal of the Common Core math standards is to make American students better at applying math in real life — a skill that's crucial for science and technology jobs, but one at which American students are particularly weak compared with peers around the world.
The theory is that if students understand why they do math the way they do, they'll be able to apply their skills more flexibly.

Do you have number sense?

Number sense means that you have a sense of how and why the tricks you call "math" work.
That seems abstruse and philosophical, but it's really not. You'd probably be flummoxed if someone ambushed you right after you finished a meal to demand that you multiply two decimals in your head — say, 18.5 x 0.2. That's a complicated arithmetic problem on a full stomach.
But this happens frequently in real life, where it looks like this: Your lunch cost $18.50. You want to tip 20 percent.
Cell phones with built-in calculators have made it easy to get the tip ($3.70). But many adults still do it in their heads: Move the decimal point over. OK, that's 10 percent, or $1.85. Now you need to double it. But multiplying a three-digit decimal still isn't easy. So you think about it this way: $1.85 can be broken down into $1.50 plus 35 cents. $1.50 times 2 is $3, and 35 cents times 2 is 70 cents. Tip $3.70.
Taking a challenging problem (18.5 x 0.2) and breaking it down into manageable parts ($1.85, $1.50, 35 cents) — that's number sense.

Can you teach number sense?

The Common Core standards aim to impart number sense. Although the standards don't tell teachers how to to teach or what materials to use, they say that students need to understand how to solve problems and why those methods work.

The underlying lesson: "Numbers aren't these brittle, fragile things that break," Meyer says. "They can play with them in fun, flexible ways."
Students will still learn what's known as the standard algorithm, the way that their parents learned to multiply, divide, add, and subtract. But they'll also learn other methods that try to make the underpinnings of the standard method more obvious.
One example is subtraction with a number line. This went viral this spring after a father posted his child's confusing homework assignment with his critique:
O-common-core-math-570
The idea behind using a number line for subtraction is that students get a visual representation of what subtraction is: figuring out the "distance" between two numbers.
Here's what a clearer version of the problem above would look like: Students put the two numbers at opposite ends of the number line.
Screen_shot_2014-04-17_at_5
Then they travel from one number to the next to figure out the distance. It's 4 steps from 316 to 320, 100 steps from 320 to 420, 7 steps from 420 to 427.
Screen_shot_2014-04-17_at_5
Then they add the steps together: 4 + 100 + 7 = a distance of 111. LearnZillion, a company that creates lesson plans for teaching to the Common Core standards, has a 5-minute video explaining this technique. Here's what it's supposed to look like on another sample problem:
Screen_shot_2014-04-17_at_4
Multiplication, too, is explained visually. Most people learned to multiply two-digit numbers like this:
Screen_shot_2014-04-18_at_3
What's really happening there: 16 is broken down into (10 + 6). Then the multiplication is done in two parts (27 x 6) and (27 x 10) and the answers are added together. But most students see math as a series of steps or even tricks — line up the numbers, write a zero on the second line — without a rationale, says Diane Briars, president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, which helped to write the math standards.
One way to explain the rationale, according to Common Core standards, is an "area model." Here's an explanation from the tutors at Khan Academy using the same problem:

Still, few adults would sit down to draw an area model or number line to do a math problem. (Most wouldn't do it by hand.) Students are still expected to learn the standard approach, which is indisputably faster. But the emphasis is switching from speed to understanding.
"Students should be able to understand any of these approaches," said Morgan Polikoff, an assistant professor of education at the University of Southern California who is studying how the Common Core is implemented in the classroom. "It doesn't mandate that they necessarily do one or the other."

Parents should brace for frustration

Other nations whose students have stronger math skills focus their education on problem-solving and understanding underlying concepts. But there might be other factors in play; research found a popular American math textbook is more challenging than South Korea's textbook, but South Korean kids still are much better at math.
A key question is whether elementary school teachers can learn to teach the conceptual side of math effectively. If not, number lines and area models will just become another recipe, steps to memorize in order to get an answer, Polikoff says.
Much of this is bound to confuse parents. When parents see their kids frustrated by math homework, their first reaction is to step in and help. It's natural for them to teach the step-by-step way that they learned to solve problems.
"What we want to tell parents to do is they don't need to teach the math," says Briars, the president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. "What they need to help their children do is figure out, What is the problem asking you?"

Friday, October 3, 2014

I forgot!!!

I forgot to hand out the study guide to the kids today! Please download a copy for them :)

Thursday, October 2, 2014

Muscles and Bone Assessment Study Guide


Muscles and Bones Unit Exam Study Guide

 

 

Students also have a packet of bones that is used as a study guide.

Students should be able to:

 

  • Label 20 bones of the human body. (word bank will be provided)
  • Identify the number of bones in an adult human body. (206).
  • Name the three functions of the skeleton as form, protection and movement.
  • Name the largest, longest bone in the body as the femur.
  • Describe how bones are made up of four layers: “bone skin”, compact bone, spongy bone and bone marrow.
  • Explain the reasons how we know that bone is a living thing. They heal themselves. They grow. They make blood.
  • Name the five types of joints and be able to label them on the skeleton.
    • Hinge joint- Opens and closed only. (fingers, toes, knees and elbows)
    • Pivot joint- swivel- up and down and back and forth. (wrists, elbows and neck)
    • Ball and socket- can move in any directions (shoulders and hips)
    • Gliding joint-  bones must move together- (spine)
    • Locked joint- anywhere two bones have grown together and will never come apart. (Skull)
  • Identify the largest muscle in your body as the gluteus maximus.
  • Name the three types of muscles as voluntary, involuntary and cardiac. They will also need to give examples of how each is used. Voluntary muscles are muscles that we can control such as kicking a ball or writing a letter. Involuntary muscles are muscles that we do not control such as our brain functioning, our lungs breathing, our digestive system working. Our cardiac muscle is our heart.
  • Define
    • ligaments as tissue that connects bone to bone
    • Tendons as tissue that connects muscle to bone
    • Cartilage as the tissue that is known as soft bone like that in our nose and ears. Also, as the jelly like substance found in between bones which reduces friction.
    • Joints are where two bones meet.