Almost the Last Bug Hunt

Soldier beetle (Cantharis livida)

Last week we had what I thought would be our last bug hunt at school (it wasn't). The kids found some interesting things in just a few minutes. Each photo is labeled.

I am so proud of what good caretakers of bugs the kids have become. They are not scared. They handle them correctly. They report quickly what they find. Finally, they release properly to the same spot that they found the creature.

On Steve's arm with a happy face.

We have a lot of fun with the kids and the bugs. I never expected Steve, the classroom counselor, to allow a soldier beetle on his arm, but he did and was very careful. There were a lot of jokes and laughter about man-eating bugs! In the end, though, the beetle threw Steve back, probably because he didn't taste good enough. 

Flying away

A slug. I have to do my slug and snail unit next year.

A crane fly

Unknown spider on student's finger

I still won't handle a spider in my hand, but this child did! I know of only one other student (in the high school) who will also hold spiders. In Vermont, there are no dangerous spiders, so there are no worries.

Asian Lady Beetle

I will miss having my little bug hunters gathering wonderful bugs and learning and constantly asking questions. I'm looking forward to next year.

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Cake Bugs

My new Nordic Ware Backyard Bugs cake pan

My Andrew gave me the new Nordic Ware Backyard Bugs cake pan for my birthday and we've been having fun with it ever since. He even included two Ghirardelli cake mixes and Baker's Joy spray. He sent it to Amy's house where she unwrapped it, baked bugs with it with her own cake recipes, and wrapped it up again.

A ganache coated butterfly

This past week at school saw scheduling changes and half days, so I asked the high school students to bake bugs for the pre-K and K boys for their bug unit. They did.

High school kids baked bugs for me from cake mixes.

I bought tubes of cake gel for decorating, thinking that small hands and developing coordination would work better with the tubes. I can't pipe icing, so I didn't expect them to! Do you know how expensive the gel is? $3 a tube! What I failed to remember was that small children at that age think that if a small amount is good, then all of it is better. We quickly had to ration gel amounts so that we could finish decorating all 24 bug cakes.

Yesterday, despite having only 30 minutes for class, the boys managed to decorate and distribute cake bugs to all of the staff and loved eating their own creations.

Some of their creations:

Jody and I have many plans for this pan this summer. I'm going to use different recipes (and the Ghiradelli mixes) and color up some buttercream. Maybe I'll even learn how to pipe icing! I'll try different colors of sprinkles, too. Happy days are coming!

Nordic Ware Rainbow Bugs cake recipe

Backyard Bugs Pound Cake recipe from Entertablement

Cornbread Muffin bugs from Mary DiSomma

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Thankful Thursday: New Office, Old Friends

Amelia came to school Sunday and helped put my new office together. I have been moved, thank goodness, so now I'm not so isolated and am in the middle of the action. I no longer have a classroom; just an office. But this office is mine, unlike last year. No sharing. No copier machine. Nobody else's stuff. Only my stuff. Plus, I found my complete set of Sir Cumference books that I have not seen for four years! I finished unpacking and arranging things on Wednesday. 😎

Jody, Amelia, Anna and I spent one virtual night last week trolling Twitter and sharing hedgehog pics. I decided I had to have a hedgehog village. So Jody surprised me with a starter home and two companions for the hedgehog.  💖  

My hedgehog starter home.

My hedgehog companions.

Unfortunately, the dinosaurs from last year's fossil class escaped. . .

Oh, nooo!

Not to worry; all are happy and well. I'm going to ask some kids to make a backdrop and forest floor for the cubby where these are being showcased.

These are the things I am so thankful for this week. 

I am blessed.

Click for more Thankfulness

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Wordless Wednesday: The First Day of School

I stop here at the store for breakfast.

And around the corner, there's my school!

Welcome back!

My new hedgehog starter home, 
a gift from Jody.

It was a great day!

Get Wordless!

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Monday Sparks: Back to School

Friday I will be returning to school. 😢

There won't be kids, it's just professional development. The kids come back August 30. We have to remind ourselves and each other constantly of strategies to help our kids in care. This poster has been making the rounds this summer, and it can help anybody with anyone who is suffering anxiety or trauma. Author unknown.

Visit Monday Sparks for more.

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Gingerbread Houses

On the day before Christmas break, the 8th grade made gingerbread houses. It was a fun class (even if it did not have too much to do with math!). We could have calculated the volume of each house, but we ran out of time. Good memories!

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Why the Break and Spotting meeyauw on the Web

School has opened again. That is why I haven’t posted anything recently. It’s been a crazy two weeks and I have a feeling it will be crazier very soon. I’ve been out with my camera and the cats (and gotten some pretty awesome bird shots). But I haven’t done a thing with the photographs yet. So it’s time to get back in stride and get caught up!

Back in July, John cut down a double cottonwood tree. When it fell, it was crazy with ants carrying pupae off the tree and down in a hole in the ground. They were distinctive and fascinating ants and I photographed quite a few of them and their babies-to-be. But who can identify ants? Not me. The folks at AntBlog did, though. Specifically, James Trager was asked to respond. He is a fascinating ant scientist and I am favored that he answered my question. You can find the entire post here at AntBlog.

The Irasburg Castle in 2005.

In August, Geek Mountain State picked up an old, old Irasburg Castle post that I did in September of 2005. It was nice to be blogged about, and even nicer that the post was so old. Thank you, Andrew! Andrew is a contributor to Geek Mountain State. I love him because he shares my son’s name (yes, that’s all it takes). You can find the Geek Mountain post here.

By the way, Archer Mayor, one of my favorite authors, is also a contributor. Archer’s site is at http://archermayor.com/. I can’t visit the site because my McAfee site advisor says it exhibits risky behavior. Knowing Archer, I know the site is safe, so I don’t know what the problem could be. You can go and buy his books here, though: Archer Mayor's book on amazon.comPlease. I get a small percentage of the sales. Amazon has a $10 minimum before they pay their associates and in seven years, I still haven’t made that minimum. But I’m close!

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Scratching "meeyauw"

Screenshots of the animation of "meeyauw" that I created in preparation for class on Tuesday. The animation can be seen at http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/meeyauw/308676. The kids in Scratch Club love this stuff! I found an excellent resource at learnscratch.org. Check it out.

Technorati Tags: Scratch
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'Sup

My daughter Anna always e-mails me "sup?" when she hasn't heard from me for awhile. And for the past two weeks nobody has heard much from me. Since October 4 I have been sick. I had a bad cold and got better. Then I suddenly got worse — I developed a sinus infection, double ear infections and bronchitis. There was a doctor visit, antibiotics and more days in bed. I slept, read two books and watched way too much MSNBC presidential campaign and stock market coverage. By Saturday I felt good enough to make bread and do some cooking. But I slashed my finger and was breaking dishes. Cleaning up the blood and mess was exhausting.

Now I am up and doing fine. It's tough getting caught up at school. We had only two days of school this week and an inservice day today. We have two more days off for teacher's convention. But me? I go to New Haven to visit Anna. There will be loads of photos and a visit to Pacifico Restaurant downtown.

I was going to go by train but they have raised the fare. With dropping gas prices it is now more convenient for me to drive. Especially since I would have to take a bus from Hartford to New Haven because of work that Amtrak is doing on the railroad track.

We had our first snowfall last night and half of today. It was a pretty enough snowfall and the roads stayed clear (although I did hear that Sheffield Heights was becoming difficult to travel). I met two other teachers for breakfast at the Candlepin Restaurant in the cold, dark and snow (you can see my new car alone in the parking lot in the photo). We went to the high school for our professional development day. Below you see totems on the school campus.


I stopped by the village electric company and found out that Illuzi did not slash and burn the trees and brush around the Unicel tower. It was the electric company clearing trees off of the power lines. I weakly complained about the gash made in the ridgeline (see the top photo as it snowed). My apologies to Mr. Illuzi for accusing him of doing the bad deed.

I will do my best to post from New Haven!
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Derby Academy

A sign marking the spot where the Academy (or high school) stood until 1957.

1840 DERBY ACADEMY 1967
THE OLDEST INCORPORATED SCHOOL IN ORLEANS COUNTY

On this site the Derby Literary and Theological Institute — a private boarding school — was founded by the Danville Baptist Association on one acre of land given by Lemuel Richmond and Benjamin Hinman. Colonel Chester Carpenter led a campaign for support as citizens readily came forth with money, labor and their produce to build a secondary school. Donated cattle were driven to a Brighton, Massachusetts market to help raise funds.

Counless numbers of students and this community have lived and prospered under the school motto

Qualis Non Quantus

A 1904 postcard of the Academy:

Jan 6
Dear Sister Mary we rec'd. your pkg. O.K. Many thanks for the jam (?). We are all well and hope this will find you all well. I wish it were s0(?) you could come out here. From your brother Will.

Behind the old Academy bell you can see the parking lot for the North Country Union Junior High School with a bit of the school beyond. You can also see a newer wooden sugarhouse with green roof that is an ice cream stand in the summer.

Presented June 2001
By The Derby Academy Alumni
DERBY ACADEMY BELL

Cast by George H Holbrook in Midway, Mass. in 1841. Moved from the old boarding house about 1869, it hung in the Academy building until the building was replaced by the present Junior High building in 1957.

Photos taken during the week of June 10 during inservice programs for district teachers at the junior high.

Technorati Tags: Derby Academy, Vermont
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More Rocket Science

Our fifth grade rocket scientists launched

  more rockets two weeks ago.

Technorati Tags: amateur rockets

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Unplugged Project: Mancala

Update here.

Cut egg cartons apart to make your own Mancala game. Paint them or cover with pretty papers and you have a custom made and worthwhile game that two people can play. I am making mine for my classroom. I have cut apart the egg cartons and will have students at school paint them with paints that the art teacher feels would work best. The only other thing I need for the games are 24 little stones for each game. I may use beans or poker chips that I have at school because stones are rather difficult to find under a few feet of snow.

I piled them up in front of Possum's little countertop bed and she isn't sure if she likes this. (I had to use this opportunity to post a couple of the few good photos I get of this girl.)

What is Mancala? It is an ancient game from Africa that is mathematically significant for your children to learn. I am not even going to bother any of us with the mathematics but if you like, you can have your children talk about strategies the will increase their chances of winning. It is a rather complex game to learn, but once you learn you become addicted. I used to know how to play years ago but I had to learn all over again in order to write this post. You cannot overemphasize the importance of game playing for mathematics learning and for family relationships.

If you click the Mancala Snails image above, you will be taken to an online, free version of Mancala. It is the easiest way to learn how to play. Just choose "beginner lever" and play until you begin to develop strategies. There are many variations of the game, but stick to the basics that are in Mancala Snails. The rules used there are accurate and true to the real game. It is said that Mancala is the historical precursor to chess. I know for a fact that children love to play this game because they always ask me to get one for the classroom. Now I enjoy playing the computer at Mancala Snails when I am tired and just want to relax.

Possum is still a bit startled by the mess about her and hopes I take the cartons to school in the morning.

Thank you for stopping by.

Visit other participants of the Project at Unplug Your Kids
or clickUnplugged Project

Next week's Project: Pipecleaner (or Twist Tie? Or Wire?)

Technorati Tags: mathematics games, Mancala, Mancala Snails, Unplugged Project, sowing games, combinatorics
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Friday Fractal: NLVM Mandelbrot and Julia Sets Applet

The National Library of Virtual Manipulatives at Utah State University has a Mandelbrot and Julia Sets applet that is your first resource for playing with fractal images. Instead of making my own fractal image this week, I have skitched some images for you to peruse and perhaps use in your classes. We have no time to do this in our regular classes but they would be a fun introduction for children in an after school program or math club.

Be sure to read the instructions and the Parents and Teachers files (I have closed the sidebars with these files on these skitches).

The first skitch above shows the Mandelbrot set. There is only one Mandelbrot set. You can zoom into a portion of the image by dragging your mouse over the section you are interested in. It appears in the right hand window. You can then drag in the right hand window to further zoom in and it will appear in the left. Students will observe that the entire Mandelbrot set is reproduced again and again as you zoom in further and further.

Although there is only one Mandelbrot set, there are an infinite number of Julia sets. Julia sets are fractals: there is one Julia set for every point on the Mandelbrot set. Select the Julia Sets option and you will see a Julia set in the left hand window. You can zoom in on this fractal by dragging your cusor over the image. The zoomed image will appear on the right. You can also move the cursor on the coordinate plane that appears so that you can see what happens to the set in the different areas of the plane.

Above you see a zoomed image of a Julia set.

On the last option, you can explore the relationship between the Mandelbrot set and Julia sets. You will see the Mandelbrot set on the left. Shift-click on an area in which you are interested and the Julia set for the point that you selected will appear on the right. You can zoom with your cursor on either window.

I hope that you explore and enjoy this applet. It can help you understand the images that I make and you can begin to make your own with third party software.

Friday Fractal

Technorati Tags: National Library of Virtual Manipulatives, Utah State University, fractals, Mandelbrot sets, Julia sets
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