UNICEF: a look at wants vs. needs

Today we watched a moving video about the work that UNICEF does on behalf of the world's neediest children. We did two related activities, one of which asked partners to work together to list 10 "wants" and 10 "needs." Very interesting conversations ensued. At one desk group, two students tried to decide whether love was a need, or just care. At another, two kids decided to place trust on their list of needs. One boy asserted that education was a need, but really good schools fell into the "want" category. Eric summarized the difference by stating that you can't live without the items on your "needs" list, while the items on your "wants" list make your living happier. Perhaps we can revisit this conversation next month as we approach Thanksgiving.

multiplication and division combinations

Two students were discussing what made studying the division combinations easy (they're just like multiplication) and what made them hard (they're like the opposite of multiplication). Austin had the last word when he said this about studying the division combinations: "It's like hanging upside down. You feel all woozy!"

Reading Around Town

Our reading bulletin board is crammed with reading life home projects and with photos of us reading around Amherst on our last field trip. Here are just a few comments from our post-field trip discussion. These comments relate to the readers we saw around us (at cafes, bookstores, and the library) as well as to our own experience reading in these public spaces:

"When we went to Amherst Coffee, there was this man. He was the only person reading just a book in the whole café. There were a million people reading with laptops!"

"I noticed that I never saw a person that was shallow in their reading. They weren’t looking around. They weren’t looking up and chatting at another person. They were looking at their book or laptop."

"I noticed that it was hard to read at the café because it was noisy… It was easy when I got to the library and the bookstore because it was nice and quiet. And I was surrounded by books which gave me the feeling that it was a reading place."

The bookstore was really easy to get into your book, but then because my book was so good I didn’t really look up, but there were so many good books there, it was fun to look up at the books. Usually, you could get distracted by those good books.

We have enjoyed a brief study of probability this week--placing events along a "likelihood line" (as you saw on the homework) as well as assigning numerical values to their probability. Students have engaged in vigorous debate regarding the likelihood of such events as rolling a 1, 2, or 3 on a die, pulling a girls' name out of a container filled with the names of students in our class, and even the return of dinosaurs to Earth!

Thank you to those of you who sent in written accounts, photos, and objects related to last year's ice storm. We had a great discussion about what people would be able to learn from these primary sources, as well as what they would still not know. If you or your child is interested, here is the main website we are using to investigate the "First Thanksgiving" (aka the harvest festival of 1621):

www.plimoth.org/education/olc/index_js2.html

Here is a post from Ms. Cannon, describing the study of whales our class is doing with her and including many excellent websites you might enjoy:

Through read-aloud, discussion, and videos we are learning about the largest animals that have ever lived on this planet. We have been discussing threats to whales and the importance of taking caring of the Earth and its many habitats. Third and fourth graders are recording facts about these amazing mammals in their whale research books. In art, both classes have made ocean collages using black and white nature photos to depict whales swimming in watercolor oceans.

Here are links to the videos we have watched to learn about different whales:

BBC- The Blue Whale

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K40D83obI8U

National Geographic- The Blue Whale

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/content/kingdom-of-the-blue-whale-3302/blue-whale-facts/#/compare/length

Humpback whales bubble-net feeding

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELca_ZWVJtM&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJvfjiCTvq4

Endless Ocean- Right Whale

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVX84qRrCSA

Orcas Whale Watching

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8kcMXjPiIQ

Fin Whale

http://www.arkive.org/fin-whale/balaenoptera-physalus/facts-and-status.html

http://www.enn.com/top_stories/article/26222

Sperm Whale Versus Giant Squid

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_z2Lfxpi710

American Cetacean Society Fact Sheets

http://www.acsonline.org/factpack/bluewhl.htm