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Big Learning News 3-30-05 |
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Big
Learning News Visit BigLearning.org for past BLN issues, education headlines, and more! Subscribe! Send a blank e-mail to on-531@ezezine.com Table of Contents Math Moment: Obesity Statistics Obesity Statistics http://www.knoxstudio.com/shns/story.cfm?pk=FUMENTO-03-24-05&cat=KE Kids are probably hearing a lot about diet and exercise lately - with childhood obesity rates rising the issue is often in the news. Here's an interesting article comparing obesity rates in the US to other countries. It's a great opportunity to talk about percentages - What does it mean for obesity rates to rise 8%? Is 67%, the rate for US men, a high percentage? (Yes - it's about 2/3). Double Ball Bounce Physics Demonstration http://littleshop.physics.colostate.edu/2BB.html Cool at any age For this you just need two balls - one larger, one smaller. You set the smaller on top of the larger and drop the pair. The larger ball hits the floor, bounces, and pops the smaller ball high into the air. The activity page explains the physics and has a diagram showing the two balls. Gooney Bird Greene by Lois Lowry (Yearling, 2004) Ages 7-11 This is a very funny book with great stories, clever twists, and, believe it or not, embedded instruction about how to create a good story. Gooney Bird Greene is a new girl in Mrs. Pidgeon's second grade class. Her outlandish dress is the first clue that she's not going to be your conventional student, but soon the class discovers that Gooney Bird can tell a great story. The class becomes entranced by the stories she tells, which have intriguing titles like such as "How Gooney Bird Came from China on a Flying Carpet." Gooney Bird says all her stories are "Absolutely True" and at first no one believes her, but as double meanings in the titles are revealed it turns out the stories are in fact believable. As Gooney Bird tells her stories, the teacher or Gooney Bird slip in asides about making a good story, such as having a beginning, middle and end, or using words like "suddenly" to keep things interesting. My kids made me read this to them in a single sitting - they couldn't bear to stop. More Books for Kids! http://www.biglearning.org/newsbookreviews.htm You can help Big Learning stay online, and it won't cost you a cent. When you buy books from Amazon.com, just enter the site from any of our Buying information or Amazon.com links. We earn a commission no matter what you buy! Thanks in advance for helping. Name that Tune with Musipedia Have you ever had a melody running around your head - and you just can't remember what it is? Now there's a simple on-line tool that can help you identify a melody. Playing with it can help your kids develop their sense of how a melody moves - they can type in melodies they know and see if the site can identify them. You don't have to have any knowledge of how to read and write music to use the tool. To describe a melody, you sing the melody note by note. In the box labeled "Musical Contour (Parson's Code) you type "u" every time the pitch goes up, "d" every time it goes down, and "r" if the same pitch is repeated. I tried this for "Happy Birthday" and the site identified it correctly on the first try. Kids can also work on their singing accuracy by singing their melodies directly into the computer microphone - the computer will generate the code for them. Here's the pattern for Happy Birthday: *rududdrududdruddddurddud (* means "the first note"). I found that this exercise is much easier if you actually sing the song out loud (rather than just thinking it.) Your throat muscles tell you whether the note is going up or down. Changing Your E-mail Address? Don't Lose Your BLN Subscription! Sadly, each week, BLN subscriptions are cancelled because the e-mail address no longer exists. If you are about to change your e-mail address, don't forget to resubscribe to BLN! Just send a blank e-mail from your NEW address to on-531@ezezine.com or fill out the subscription form at http://www.biglearning.org. *******************************************
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