Look how many teeth we've lost already.  We added the numbers up in groups of ten and found we've lost EXACTLY 80 TEETH!  However, we have three teeth hanging by a string...soon to be 83.

Today we heard from a wonderful second grade teacher, Miss Kari.  Aspen Elementary School will be participating in the St. Jude Math-A-Thon again this year.  Today we learned a little bit about the fundraising process and got excited to do some extra math work at home!  You will see more information coming home in your Friday Folder.

Walking water!?  Have you ever heard of such a crazy thing?  Today we experimented with primary colors, water, paper towels, and some regular old Ball jars.  Here was the question: what will happen if you connect cups of different color water with paper towels?  We had a pretty good idea that the colors would  mix to form new colors, but we had no idea we were going to get such a rainbow!

First, we were very diligent scientists and made some great observations.

Then, we were very diligent scientists and made some reasonable hypotheses.

1. The colors won't mix because they're not in water and the paper towels are not attached. (5)
2. The water will stay, but the food coloring with "walk" over to the empty cups.  The first empty cup will turn orange.  The second empty cup will turn green.  The colored cups will turn clear. (1)
3. The colors will trade places with each other. (4)
4. Some of the water will evaporate. (2)
5. Half of the water from each cup with "walk" into the empty cups. The first empty cup will turn orange.  The second empty cup will turn green. (3) 

Last, we found out that #5 was correct.  The paper towels absorb the water.  Gravity helps start to equalize the amount of water in each jar.  The red and yellow mix to make orange.  The blue and yellow mix to make green!  

This is a great experiment to try at home!  Check out this video for step-by-step direction.  Experiment with some new colors!

Today we did some more addition and subtraction with groups of ten.  We turned to dimes and pennies to help us.  It's so much easier to add and subtract big numbers with a visual.  You can do this at home with the coins you have.  We added and subtracted groups of 10, 20, 50, 70, and 90 and we're feeling like experts.  Ask us how to make a "quick ten" drawing.

And for a Box Tops update...we pulled out our counting tricks by twos, fives, tens, twenties, fifties, and hundreds and found out we have...DRUM ROLL PLEASE...

650 BOX TOPS
The contest ends April 8th, so a few more weeks to keep on collecting!
P.S.  I think we're in first place for the first grade :)

Last night we had a visit from a Leprechaun.  We thought we were pretty clever.  We set up traps and were sure we would catch one or at least have some gold in the morning.  Unfortunately, St. Patrick's Day had other plans for us.  We had a particularly clever Leprechaun visit and instead of being trapped, he shrunk all of our traps into tiny Leprechaun hats!?  We were surprised to say the least.

We made up for a lack of gold though with a perfect afternoon of cross country skiing!

Wednesdays are wacky so why not do some wacky math!  Today we took a detour into shapes, but not just any shapes...3D shapes!  We looked at the qualities of cubes, rectangular prisms, pyramids, and pentagonal prisms to see which looked the strongest and which would support the weight of a dictionary.  Then we accepted a challenge and made these shapes out of 20 toothpicks and 10 gumdrops.  We were divided on which shapes we thought were strongest (except for the pyramid), so we tested them all out.  With toothpicks and gumdrops we could really see the structure of the shapes and watch what happened under weight.

In the end we all agreed the pentagonal prism held the most weight, but we remained divided on whether or not we like the taste of spice gumdrops.

We also got ready for St. Patrick's Day...we're tricking those Leprechaun's with some gumdrop traps.  We're definitely catching some tomorrow!  Stay tuned.

Today we officially started opinion writing.  We shared our collections of some of our most prized possessions.  We had Minion bath toys, Star Wars action figures, rocks, crystals, Legos, and hard earned medals.  We lined everything up and discussed their special qualities at length.  Which one is your favorite?  Why do you like it?  Does it make you think of a special memory?  Do you like the color the best?

Then we wrote about our favorites and WHY.  Emphasis on the why.  We're learning to be convincing authors of opinion pieces of writing.  Don't be surprised if we come home with compelling reasons why tonight is a good night to go out for ice cream!  And tomorrow night too!