Wintery Weekend and pajama day!

I hope that everyone enjoyed the scavenger hunt in class today!  It was fun to have everyone running all around the room and chatting, but still doing some great math work!  I hope that you guys have a fun and safe weekend enjoying the snow!  Homework is to study for the test on Tuesday.  You have tons of stuff to study from, so make sure that you are doing everything you can to do your best on the test!

Here's a post I found online that is simultaneously mathy, geeky, and depressing!

-Miss K  :)

Ira Glass on being creative and successful

-Miss K  :)

Nelson Mandela

-Miss K  :)

Pixel art for Monday

Okay...  We are going to get a little creative next week and play with pixel art!

Your homework is to come with a large, square (hopefully color) picture on Monday if you can!  Feel free to email the picture to me if you would prefer and I can print it out for you.  Instagram pictures are ideal for pixelating because they are already square and usually have bright, simple shapes.  If you want to use an instagram picture, you can hashtag it #misskpixelart and I will be able to access it!

If you can't get a picture printed, that is fine!  You can email me or tag the picture on instagram or just rip a picture out of the comics of your Sunday paper or whatever you can find.  If you can't make it happen one of those way, that's okay too!  I will have extra images for you!

Here are two pictures of my dog that I was able to pixelate digitally.

 

As you can see, when we pixelate, we can break an image up into boxes (sometimes even other shapes) and represent the image in a different manner.  Old video games used to look very pixelated.  See Mario and the Duck Hunt duck below.

I spent many an afternoon playing this game!

If you have a picture that you would like to digitally pixelate like I did to my dog above, you can go to LunaPic and pixelate it here!  If you have trouble getting to the "Pixelate" section, choose it from the "adjust" menu items.  It's the 6th one down.

Here are some fun and funky examples of pixel art, sometimes using pixels, sometimes using interesting objects like rubik's cubes or candy!

Rubik's Cubes!

Jelly Beans!

 Legos!

 Tee shirts!

A video on making the Tee Shirt pixel art!

Try making some basic pixel art here!

Check out some really cool mosaics made from random objects HERE!

If you have any questions or if there is any confusion about what you are supposed to do, don't worry about it and we will talk about it on Monday!  If you can bring in a picture, GREAT!  If you email me a picture, GREAT!  If you can hashtag a picture, GREAT!

If you can't, NO WORRIES!!!

Enjoy your weekend and I can't wait to begin making art with you on Monday!!!

-Miss K  :)

Today's Google Doodle!

Check it out and learn about Shakuntala Devi, the first "Human Calculator!"

From ABC news:

High school memories of math class may come flooding back to people who visit the Google homepage. Today's Google Doodle features a familiar olive green calculator screen, with thesearch engine's name written as upside down numbers. The reason for the doodle? The birth of a calculator, though not the one that you punched numbers into to get through trigonometry.

Instead, today honors the birth of Shakuntala Devi, pictured to the left of Google's logo. Though Devi lacked a formal education growing up, she astounded people with her ability to crunch large numbers. "At the age of 6, I gave my first major show at the University of Mysore," she once said, according to The New York Times. "This was the beginning of my marathon of public performances."

It may be that during one of those performances that Devi got the nickname, "the human computer." In 1977, at Southern Methodist University in Texas, Devi raced a computer to figure out the 23rd root of a 201-digit number. The computer took 62 seconds to find the answer, while Devi found the solution in 50 seconds.

Unlike the old computer, Devi's abilities are still astounding to this day. An old clipping from The New York Times archives shows other arithmetic problems that she solved in under 20 seconds. In addition, she earned an entry into the 1982 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records for needing less than half a minute to both calculate and say aloud the product of two 13-digit numbers.

Devi died earlier this year from both cardiac and respiratory problems. She was 83 years old.

Pretty darn Awesome if you ask me!

-Miss K  :)

Perseverance

Today we talked about perseverance and defined it!

According to dictionary.com, the definition is as follows:

per·se·ver·ance

  [pur-suh-veer-uhns]

noun

1.

steady persistence in a course of action, a purpose, a state, etc., especially in spite of difficulties, obstacles, or discouragement.

We tried our patience and learned that we could persevere by playing the dice game, "Petals around the Rose."  Together, we found that we each felt frustrated, struggled to figured out a pattern, came up with an idea that didn't work in the end, but finally got to the solution.  I admired everyone's willingness to work hard and continue to work even as friends "got it" near by.

We also learned about Jessica Cox.  There are two videos about Jessica below.  You can watch them here or check out her website at http://rightfooted.com/.  I encourage you to share the videos with your friends and family if you get the chance.  I think she's an amazing person for two reasons...

#1  She's accomplished so much despite her physical limitations.

#2  She knows that we can each accomplish amazing things if we persevere.  Whether it is a new sport, an artistic skill, a new level in Candy Crush, making a new friend, changing for the better or doing something you're scared to do, YOU CAN DO IT!!!!





Tonight's homework is to fill out your index card with something that you were eventually able to do because you persevered.  It doesn't need to be a long description and you can add more than one thing if you'd like.  Examples:

Thanks for being amazing and for persevering today in class!

-Miss K  :)

Wise words from Astronaut Chris Hadfield Zen Comics

-Miss K  :)

Perseverance!

We really accomplished a lot in class today.

First we completed a mad minute!  30 multiplication problems in just 60 seconds!  I was pleased with everyone's efforts!  We will do a few more of these over the next week or so.  You can practice your multiplication facts if you want to improve your score...  Here's a fun game to help you practice.

We played a dice game and began talking about perseverance.  Though the game was totally confusing when we first started, 10-15 minutes later, everyone knew how to play!  These were some of the things that you thought of when we talked about perseverance:

• Following your dreams
• Facing Fears
• Never giving up
• Not letting "I can't" be part of your vocabulary
• Keep trying even if you are frustrated
• Just because something is difficult or hard doesn't mean you should stop trying
• If you try to do something, you can do it
• Believe in yourself
• Determination and leadership help you do something fearless
• Keep on trying
• Don't compare yourself to other people
• Challenges are opportunities
• Never say never
• Push on through, keep moving forward
• Don't worry about what other people tell you about what you can't do
• Believe that you can do the impossible
• Stay strong and believe in yourself
• Use your challenges to help motivate others
• If at first you don't succeed, try again
• Be invincible
• Keep reaching for your goals
• Nothing is impossible, anything is possible

We also watched a short video on Jessica Cox.  If you want to watch it again or share it with your family, it's posted below.  Her website is rightfooted.com

Thinking about perseverance and getting creative in math reminded me of this video about the Makey Makey...  

It's pretty amazing what people can do when they put their minds to it!  I can't wait to see the amazing things you do this year when you persevere and remember that a Positive Attitude + Work = Success!

Tonight's homework is to check out the blog and if you are reading this, you already completed your hw!  If you need to get the other side of your orange sheet signed, please remember to bring it in Thursday!

-Miss K  :)

Seuss knows best!

-Miss K  :)

Gotta love a smart kid...

Find something interesting and LEARN about it!  You, just like this little girl, can certainly be smarter and more educated on a topic than the general population.  Go show the world what you know!!!



-Miss K  :)

Stop and smell the flowers... And read this.

From I waste so much time.

-Miss K  :)

Google's 2011 Year in Review

-Miss K  :)

Sometimes, you just gotta dance!

-Miss K  :)

From Derek Sivers

-Miss K  :)

Beautiful!

This woman is 29 years old and was born deaf.  Thanks to a "hearing implant" she was able to truly hear for the first time.  I don't know about you, but I thought this was pretty amazing!

Enjoy the beautiful, wonderful things in the world kiddos.  We often have to deal with a difficult times, frustrating people and other issues in our life, but there are some truly awesome things in life too!

Have a good day and find a reason to smile every single day!  I am so thankful to have all of you in my classes and look forward to sharing many amazing moments with you this year!

-Miss K  :)