Mathematical Monday - Volume with Product Boxes

I happened to walk by this fabulous math project that one of my team members was doing with our kids. With her permission, I'm sharing it with you :) As a side note, I don't have pictures of the process because I discovered this project after-the-fact.

In math class, they have been working on finding the volume of a rectangular prism. Students brought in boxes from various products, such as cereals, mac and cheese, even empty cases of pop. They used interlocking cubes to measure the length, width, and height of the box. Then they found the volume of the box using cubic units as the label. Using grid paper, they traced the dimensions on each side, cut out the box, reproduced the artwork on the sides, and assembled it into a box.

Here is how they ended up! My favorite is the case of Mountain Dew :)



Link up your math ideas!

Tried It Tuesday - QR Codes and Tieks


I know that some of you were interested in my Tieks experience and here it is. I don't think they're for me. I really want them to be, but I just can't justify it.

Cute packaging
Nice personal note
Comfy, but can you see my big toes poking through? (Also, ignore the flip flop tan lines :/)
I think that a size bigger would be too big since they only do full sizes :( So I went to my local outlet mall and bought two pairs of Hush Puppies ballet flats for less than what these cost. So back they go!

On to the educational portion of this post :)

In addition to all of the games that we played to get ready for our Native American test, today we did a review with QR codes. I recently discovered that we had a set of 14 iPods with cameras that already had QR reading software on them. FYI - There are many free QR code readers out there. Just go to your App Store and search.


To make the codes, I went to a free site called {Kaywa QR Code}. You'll see choices for URL, Facebook, Contact etc. Click on More. Select Text. Type in what you want it to say and click Generate. Then copy and paste the QR code into the document where you want it. I recommend that you create a document containing all of the questions first so that you can copy and paste into the generator. That way you have a record of all of the questions without having to scan them to remember what you wrote. Not that I'm speaking from experience or anything...

I am including this activity in my soon-to-be-finished Native American review bundle. {Follow me on TpT} if you want to be notified when it's available!

And because I haven't posted pictures of my garden recently and just found this picture when I was pulling off the other pictures in this post, here you go :)




Spark Student Motivation - Native American Review Activities


I'm having 20% off most of the items in {my store} to help TpT with their Facebook milestone. The sale is for all of my products that are priced over $1.00. Use the code "FB100K" at checkout to get another 10% off!


Next week is our Native American unit test, so we've been busy wrapping things up and reviewing. This week I've been using three different games to help them review.


I Have Who Has
This good ol' game is always a hit with the kids. For those of you who do not know how to play, you create a series of cards that have questions and answers that are linked. One person might have a card that says "Who has a Plains tribe?" The person who goes next has the card that says "I have the Sioux." Then that person reads the question at the bottom of the card that links to the next person.

When we played it this week, I gave each class four opportunities to establish the best time. Between each round, students had to trade so they had a new card so they just weren't memorizing who came before them. After they traded, I gave them a few seconds to read through their new cards and decode any tricky words. The class that had the best time (which we had to discuss was the LOWEST time) won a piece of candy for each student. We also had to incorporate math because I didn't use a timer that counted up. I set the timer for 5:00 and we had to figure out how much time elapsed. So I got to reinforce that when we borrow a minute, we are actually trading for sixty seconds, NOT one hundred. It was pretty funny when we got to the end and I stopped the time. There was a moment of silence while calculations were going on in their brains trying to figure out whether they got to cheer for the new best time or whether they didn't quite make it. It was also interesting to note that the students who always had their noses in other people's business often didn't even know that everyone was waiting for them to read their card because they were sure that someone else had it. I know that others kids noticed that interesting trend, too.


Swat
Oh. My. Gosh. This is the first time that I have ever played this game with students. They LOVED it! I know that many of you have done this before with your students, but it was a first for me. I took the same terms from I Have Who Has and taped them to my front wall, spreading them out to cover the whole whiteboard. I divided the class into two teams and gave the first person on each team a flyswatter. I read a clue and they competed to see who could swat the right answer first. I think that the hardest part was keeping the rest of the class from blurting out the answer, so I deducted one point from the team that blurted. I read three clues to each pair before it was the next person's turn. It was fun to see them go crazy when the two kids knew the answer but couldn't find it! If there was enough time, I let each student have two turns, for a total of six swats. And of course, during my last class of the day, my admin comes in to observe the last fifteen minutes.

There was only one issue. In the first pair, one of the students got skunked 3-0 and a student on her team called my game "stupid." So I sent him to the hall to watch from the window. I think that he soon regretting being a bad sport, since it ended in a tie and everyone got a piece of candy. Well, almost everyone... Guess you should think before showing your poor sportsmanship.


Wordo
Yet another game that's adaptable to any subject area. It's pretty much bingo. Project a list of terms for the kids to copy onto their game boards. I like to make the kids do it instead of giving them preprinted ones. That way I can use a generic game board template for any unit. Read the clues. Five in a row wins. I usually have students raise their hands to share the answers for a few rounds. That helps the lower kids feel that they have a chance. After a few rounds, we no longer raise our hands to share, but I encourage them to whisper and help their neighbors. We keep going until there is a new winner. So if Amy wins the first game and gets a prize, she can still win again (to keep her into the game). If she wins a second time, she still gets a prize, but then a keep that game going until someone new wins. That way the kids are happy for the people that are repeat winners since it really doesn't affect them.

To mix it up, I'll do four corners or have them made certain shapes on their boards (plus sign, X, etc.). If I really feel generous, I'll let them trade boards. If the person playing their board wins, then so do they. That encourages them to trade because they double their chances of winning.

All of these activities for Native Americans will soon be in my {TpT store}. Make sure that you're a follower so you can get notified when they are available.

Winners and Totem Poles

Congrats to the following winners of my 1,000 TpT follower giveaway! Expect an email shortly :)


Today we finished our totem poles projects! We also did them {last year}, but I still want to share this year's creations. They're just too fun not to share.

I asked them the same questions:
  • Have you ever felt drawn to one animal or another without being able to explain why? This could be animal, including birds and insects.
  • Does a certain kind of animal consistently appear in your life? This doesn’t necessarily have to be a physical appearance, it could be represented in other ways such as receiving card and letters with the same animal pictured over and over, unexplainable dreams of a particular animal, watching television and seeing the same animal featured time and time again, or, actually having the animal show up.
  • When you go to the zoo, a park, wildlife area, or forest, what are you most interested in seeing?
  • Are there any animals that you find to be extremely frightening or intriguing?
  • Is there a particular animal that you see frequently when you’re out in nature?
  • Have you ever been bitten or attacked by an animal?
  • Have you ever had a recurring dream about a certain animal, or a dream from childhood that you have never been able to forget?

Then it was time to create! One thing that I learned from last year was to organize my scraps that the students used.


This cut down on the number of scraps in a huge, unmanageable pile.


I already linked up last year's totem pole project to this linky, but you should link up your Native American or other social studies projects and products!

Native Americans Linky