How many ways did we find?

By: Anna Grace and Tenley
We have been working on a math problem were we have to find all the possibilities to build a town. All the buildings in the town had to be the same hight. We had to fit exactly 60 families in the town. We used cubes to help us solve this problem.  One family could fit in one cube. After we thought we had all the ways we had to organize it and prove it. My partner and I used opposites to help us. Here is an example of an opposite. If my partner and I found out that 5 towers of 12 worked then we would use that and switch it around so it said 12 towers of 5. When we thought we had all the ways we made a chart to organize it. We made two columns. The first column said "number of buildings" and the second columns said "how high." Then under the column that said number of building we wrote the number of buildings. Next we wrote how many cubes high the buildings were under the column that said how high.Then we made a very thin column and numbered the ways we had thought  of, there were  12 we had thought of.Then to prove it we made a chart that looked exactly the same but instead of  having  12 lines it had 60,then we wrote all the ways we had in it. Then we counted the empty spaces. We counted 48. We added 12 to 48 which made 60. We had  found all the ways.

Riddles from around the world

Each day this week we have been trying to solve a riddle from the book Still More Stories to Solve told by George Shannon. The kids really want to try to stump family members at home, so I've included one here.

Two Horses

     "There once was a clever king who had two sons. When he grew old and close to death, he sent for his sons. 

     'I want you to ride your horses to Jerusalem. The one whose horse arrives last will inherit everything I own.'

     The two princes mounted their horses. But, since each knew his horse had to arrive last if he was to win, both sons rode as slowly as they possible could. One was forever trying to lag behind the other. When they finally reached the outskirts of Jerusalem, both sons stopped. Neither dared go a step closer for fear of getting there first and thus letting the other one arrive last and inherit the kingdom. 

     The say for a day. Then two. They sat for a week and began to feel as if they'd spend the rest of their lives sitting at the edge of Jerusalem with nothing to their names. Then, suddenly, both sons had the same idea. They each jumped on a horse and rode to Jerusalem as fast as they could go. What made them change their minds and find a way to end the competition?"

My Side of the Mountain

This week we have been reading aloud from My Side of the Mountain. We have lots of copies so many students follow along. This book was chosen as a compliment for our study of the nature trail. Check back soon for a summary written by the class. So far we're amazed that Sam Gribley has been able to survive his few few days in Catskills (after running away from home) with only a penknife,  a ball of cord, an ax, and $40. He's managed to find food, shelter, and water with only a little trouble.

What does our world look like?

This week students were invited to draw a map of the world from memory. They were encouraged to include the continents, oceans, equator, prime meridian, and anything else they could remember. For some of us this task was very frustrating. Others seem to have a gift of map-making or perhaps just photographic memories. Each student will be assessing their own map based on the standards for third grade geography and then he/she will identify areas for practice. A friend will also be assessing the map to see if he/she agrees with the creator. We are trying to focus not on what we don't know, but rather on what we need to learn.

The self-assessment looks like this:

During snack time we have been exploring some fun geography games that will help us ALL improve our maps next time we try:

• http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/Games/GeographyGames/Copycat
• http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/Games/GeographyGames/Geospy
• http://www.playkidsgames.com/games/continentNames/default.htm#
• http://www.yourchildlearns.com/mappuzzle/continents-puzzle.html
• http://funschool.kaboose.com/globe-rider/games/game_my_world.html

The mystery continues...

Ms. Buchholz was doing a little more exploring and found two new interesting objects in her backyard. One is a spiky looking ball that is impossible to touch without gloves on. The other is a stem with a few leaves. At first glance these leaves look different than the leaves found the day before. So do these leaves grow on the same tree as the spiky balls? Or do these leaves go with the green sphere? What's inside the spiky ball? Why does it grow on trees? What is its purpose? We have so many mysteries to solve. 

What kind of leaf? And a green sphere?

"Ms. Buchholz was exploring in her back yard. She came across a leaf and a green sphere lying on the ground near each other. There were many trees around but she couldn't figure out what tree the green sphere had come from. Did they come from the same tree?"

We are trying to figure out what type of tree the leaf came from. We started by sketching. Many explorers, such as Lewis and Clark, used sketching as way to document what they found. Sketching helped us notice all kinds of details in the leaf that we would have missed. Here are Anna Grace's and Ryan's work:

After sketching we recorded what we noticed and also what questions we were wondering about. This is an important part of the research process.

Some of the things we noticed:

• Leaf is flexible
• Smaller veins between larger ones
• Veins in with small "thorn"
• Bent stem
• Veins are white/yellow
• Oval shape (skinny)
• Edges look like a wave (curly)
• Different colors in veins
• Veins are square shaped in middle
• Whole leaf made of smaller veins that connect
• Big vein in middle holds leaf together
• Small veins alternate off big one

Questions we're wondering about:

• Why are they prickly on the edges?
• How many "scales" are there?
  
• I wonder if we could use the stem as a type of string?
• Why is there a stem?
• Why do leaves have veins?

Do you know what type of leaf we sketched? We'll let you know what we find out. We're hoping to do some research in the computer lab Friday to identify the leaf and finally solve the mystery of the "green sphere." This sketching, note-taking, and asking questions is the process we will use when doing research for our podcasts.

Sketching a Dogwood Branch

Today we were supposed to go outside to the Nature Trail for art with Mary Lou, but it rained... all day! Rather than go outside to sketch, we decided to bring the outside inside. We spent a lot of time discussing the Dogwood branch and leaves. We found some great resources on the internet that helped us learn the scientific words that naturalists use to classify leaves. There was a lot of disagreement over the shape, margins, and "venation" of the leaves. We used the chart below to help guide us:

Suggestions for the shape were:
lanceolate, linear, acuminate, elliptic, and aristate
Suggestions for the margins were:
crenate, entire, and undulate
Suggestions for the venation were:
arcuate, dichotomous, pinnate, and cross venulate


What do you think? You can check out a bigger picture of the classification chart at:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6a/Leaf_morphology.png

We realized that there is a lot more detail in leaves than we thought. As we venture out to the Nature Trail next week we will have to use all we know about leaves to identify the trees for our future podcasts.

Check out our sketches:
http://picasaweb.google.com/thirdgradestonypoint/DogwoodBranch#