Technomaths

Ola, Bon Journee, salam! Hello, and welcome to Technomaths.
I have changed roles this year, but still aim to use this blog to engage and challenge students.
My students so far have used worldmathsday.com to go head to head with peers from around the globe, answering mental maths questions in a short period of time.
Our next ICT focus will be ‘1001 Flat World Tales’. This will involve students using a wiki to write and edit the stories of their peers. Its an exciting project that I am sure the kids will love, and gain a lot of skills from.

I have been tagged in a Meme; What Web 2.0 means to me. So I have created this wordle.

The artwork posted below is an absolute beauty Grade 6 students!  It measures 1.2m x 1.5m in reality, but looks so tiny here on Technomaths.  You know that Australia has many species of wildlife, but did you know that roughly there are in excess of:

450 species of mammals,
300 species of lizards,
140 species of snakes,
2 species of crocodiles,
2,000 species of bony sea fish,
180 species of fresh water fish,
100 species of sharks,
50 species of rays,
750 species of birds,
2,000 species of flies,
5,000 species of bees,
110,000 species of insects and
2,000 species of spider.

That’s mind boggling.  How many of one species could you or members of your family, name off the top of your head?Roughly how many different species make up Australia’s wildlife population?  What percentage of this total population consists of different species of spiders?  Research 1 species of endangered bird.  Include some statistics that have been discovered about it.  Post your answers here at Technomaths, and also on the Maths page on your own blog.

Hi Grade 6! Ready for your latest challenge?

Click on the link to have a techno attempt at drawing regular and irregular polygons using web 2.0 tool http://www.skrbl.com/bexta  Its a lot of fun, and I can’t wait to hear what you think about this tool.  Write a blog post titled, ‘Web 2.0 Polygons’ on your own blog, and leave a comment hear at Technomaths.

Over the Weekend the annual Melbourne to Warrnambool (M2W) cycling race was held.  Do you know anything about this local sporting event?  This is your maths homework and challenge for the next week or so.

Challenge number 1; Find out three interesting facts about this race.  Post your answers here at Technomaths.  

Challenge number 2; If a cyclist starts the 300km race at 7.30am, and arrives in Warrnambool at 3pm, what was their AVERAGE speed?  (Food for thought; I wonder how long it would take you to ride that far?)

Challenge number 3; Use a ‘Melways’ or an atlas to plot the course that you think the 299km race might take to get from Melbourne to Warrnambool.   Try and get your course as close to 300km as possible.  Hint; It may mean that your race does not actually start in the heart of Melbourne…..If you do your homework, you will discover the actual starting point of this very old classic race.

Mind your thoughts;

They become your words.

Mind your words;

They become your actions.

Mind your actions;

They become your habits.

Mind your habits;

They become your destiny.

In class at the moment, the grade 6’s have to find a game that is challenging, fun and has a maths focus, to teach to their peers.  Each student must teach small groups of children their game, and will then receive feedback based on the criteria listed above.  They must also use effective teaching skills, and ensure that everyone understands the idea of the game and is able to play by the rules. 

My game is called Dodge Ball, and is a pattern game with only two players.  I am interested to read the responses the grade 6 students leave for me about this game.  Watch out for the poll to see who’s game was the favourite amongst the grade 6 maths class.

You have a basket full of delicious fruits and vegetables purchased from the market.  Your challenge is to group each item into one of two categories; fruit or vegetable.  

Post your answers on your blog, along with an explanation of what makes a fruit a fruit, and a vegetable a vegetable.  You may wish to take photos, or use magazine pictures to represent your groups, or you can just type your answer.  Oh, and one more thing….Can a fruit be a vegetable, or a vegetable be a fruit?

• tomatoes
• carrots 
• cucumbers
• figs 
• squashes 
• potatoes 
• zucchini
• avocados
• durians
• green, red, and yellow capsicum
• bananas 
• peapods
• pumpkins
• mangoes 
• apples
• broccoli

Thanks for your responses grade 6. 

A fruit is actually the sweet, ripened ovary or ovaries of a seed-bearing plant. A vegetable, in contrast, is an herbaceous plant cultivated for an edible part (seeds, leaves, stems, roots, leaves, bulbs, tubers, or non sweet fruits). So a fruit could be a vegetable, but a vegetable could not be a fruit.

Most fruits are sweet because they contain a simple sugar called fructose.  Most vegetables are not as sweet because they contain much less fructose. The sweetness of fruit encourages animals to eat it and therefore spread the seeds.

 Havana was without a doubt the most incredible city I visited on my recent journey around the world.  Its sometimes easy to forget that there IS a world out there, beyond our classroom doors, beyond our every day existence; a world that is different in every single way; and yet, when it comes down to it…people are the same where ever you go.  Maybe its our attitude that makes all the difference in the people that we are and who we will become.