Halloween Tricks and Treats!

First something serious and then something fun (well, they all really are fun to do)! 

Now that the first quarter of this school year has ended we have all settled back into the routine of school and are now moving into more challenging material in our classes.  We all know how important it is in math to know your math facts automatically so I am sharing a link to an app that is free for a limited time and a blast to do around Halloween:
MathVSZombies

Also, here are a couple of links to websites where you can carve a pumpkin without making a mess!

Pumpkin Carving
Pick a Pumpkin to carve
Online pumpkin carving

Finally, here is a fun site with trivia about Halloween that isn't all scary (although some of it is)!
Fact Monster

Fall Break Festivities

I hope that you all had as good a fall break as I did!  My family and I visited friends in New England (traveling through Boston, Newburyport, and Keenebunkport)

Kennebunkport, ME

and were able to enjoy beautiful fall colors, learn some history, check out interesting architecture, and eat lobster everyday while up there:)  I am including a couple of photos for you to enjoy.

Plum Island, New Hampshire

Cemetery in Boston where Paul Revere is buried.

 
I also wanted to let you know that Sumdog has announced today that their app for the iPad is now free and includes the Snowball game for fun fact practice!

 Finally, this afternoon several 3rd graders, Mrs. Stephens, and our wonderful parent volunteers went to the Lichterman Nature Center to receive our prize money for Gobbelina, the Tango Turkey's win in the Best School Entry in their annual Scarecrow contest.  Mr. Andy Williams (Executive Director of the Center) said that, "the show must go on!" so a little rain didn't stop us from going and then spending time checking out the other scarecrows.  Thank you again to Mrs. Padron, Mr. McGown, and Mrs. DeLany for their help.  I would encourage you and your family to visit the Lichterman soon and enjoy its sights, sounds, and smells of fall!

Math Mania Fun!

What a nice evening we all had playing math games and learning about what goes on during our math lessons at St. Mary's!  I wanted to share with those of you that didn't come by the Think Tank some resources that parents might find helpful.  There are several places you can go to for help if you have questions or are having trouble understanding the way that the information is presented in the Everyday Math program:

University of Chicago information - This site is hosted by the University of Chicago (the developers of the Everyday Mathematics program).  This is a great place to go to watch video tutorials explaining the algorithms of the program and to find information about all of the Everyday Math concepts.  When you click on the grade level links on the left side of the screen you will find specifics about what is being introduced and the family letters.   There are also links to sites with games to build fact fluency (down farther on the left-hand side).  This is a great place site to use at home!

Everyday Math - This is a site that we used last year when we had a subscription to the Everyday Math (EM) online components.  We didn't find the online math activities a necessary part of our program, but it does have a couple of tutorials and explanations of the program that are nice (including a list of books involving math!).

Additional EM resources - This site is another part of the EM suite of products and it contains some links to free games.

You can also click on the Math tab on this blog for additional games and activities!