Excel Math: 03/01/2015

Celebrate Pi Day in the Math Class

Leave a comment in the box below to let us know how you celebrate digital learning in your class.www.excelmath.com/downloads/manipulatives/shamrocks.pdf

Friday, March 13, 2015

It's Digital Learning Day in the Math Classroom!

Digital Learning Day, presented by the Alliance for Excellent Education and other national educational associations and organizations, including ALA's American Association of School Librarians (AASL) calls on teachers, schools, principals, community leaders, parents and students to celebrate innovative teaching practices that encourage digital learning.

The goal is to make learning more personalized and engaging and encourage exploration of how digital learning can provide more students with more opportunities to get the skills they need to succeed in college, career and life.

Watch how teachers, school leaders and district teams across the country are successfully implementing digital learning strategies for the twenty-first century. Watch videos and read more at http://www.digitallearningday.org

With Excel Math, students learn math concepts that spiral back into the lessons on a regular basis, using spaced repetition. Excel Math worksheets encourage students to write answers to problems as well as how they arrived at the answers, helping students retain math concepts in long-term memory.

Excel Math Projectable Lesson

Teachers use Projectable Lessons on CD to focus as a class on the lesson of the day using whiteboards or electronic boards where students can show their work to the entire class.

Timed Basic Fact Practice give students a chance for basic math fact practice with addition, subtraction, multiplication and division or a combination of all four.

Read more . . .

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Celebrate Pi Day in the Math Class

Leave a comment in the box below to let us know how you celebrate digital learning in your class.

Thursday, March 5, 2015

Spring Forward for Daylight Saving Time

On Sunday, March 8 Daylight Saving Time or DST begins once again. DST is often incorrectly referred to as "daylight savings time." Other countries call it “Summer Time.” When DST is not observed, we say we are observing "standard time," "normal time" or "winter time."

Unless you live in Hawaii, parts of Arizona, all of American Samoa, Guam, etc. you will be resetting your clocks this weekend, moving them ahead one hour (to 3:00) on Sunday morning at 2:00 a.m. or before you go to bed Saturday night.

Standard time zones were introduced in the US and Canada by the railroads in 1883. Before this development, time in each local area was determined by the sun overhead at high noon method.

The 1918 Standard Time Act made time zones official.

Details of making it work were left to the Interstate Commerce Commission, which controlled train schedules. The bill also established DST.

Due to constant bickering and complaining, DST was repealed in 1919. It was re-established nationally during World War II, ending in September 1945. After the war, observance varied depending on where you lived.

The 1966 Uniform Time Act formalized a national DST beginning at 2:00 a.m. on the last Sunday in April and ending on the last Sunday in October. Responsibility was shifted to the Department of Transportation (trains, planes and buses).

During the "energy crisis of 1974," Congress temporarily set the starting days as January 6, 1974 and February 23, 1975, then DST reverted back to the last Sunday in April.

The 1986 Public Law 99-359 shifted the starting date to the first Sunday in April, 1987. The ending date remained the last Sunday in October.

The 2005 Energy Policy Act changed the starting date to the second Sunday in March and the ending date to the first Sunday in November.

The website TimeandDate.com gives a brief (but not complete) overview listing which countries and territories plan to observe DST this year.

You may want to have your students discuss the value of Daylight Saving Time and whether it actually helps us save time in the year 2015. They could list the pros and cons and then take a class vote to find out if it's worth keeping.

In Excel Math, students learn to tell time, calculate time across weeks and years, find time intervals on a number line and much more. Take a look at sample math lessons for Kindergarten through Grade 6 on our website: http://excelmath.com/products.html

Read more . . .

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Wednesday, March 4, 2015

Celebrate Pi Day in the Math Class

Next week we celebrate National Pi Day! On March 14 (3.1415926...) we recognize the never-ending number π with classroom celebrations, special events, food, song and rhyme.

Pi Day is a holiday celebrating the mathematical constant, π. For 2015 the date includes the first 5 digits of Pi—3/14/15. If you hold your celebration at 9:26, you will have covered the first eight numerals: 3.1415926.

This year marks the twenty-seventh annual Pi Day. On March 12, 2009, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a non-binding resolution recognizing March 14, 2009, as National Pi Day.

Pi is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. Pi is always the same number, no matter what size circle you use to compute it.

You might want to plan a Pi Day celebration for your students to help them remember this special number. They could write their own songs and poems, see how much of the number Pi they can recall, draw pictures of what comes to mind when they hear the word infinity, solve a Pi-related brainteaser, and enjoy some Pi-related snacks.

You could even hold a school-wide Pi-athalon at 9:26 where you have students ride tricycles, eat pie, recite the digits in pi, solve pi-related brainteasers, etc.

Read more ideas . . .

Questions about how Excel Math lessons work? Leave a comment below.

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Sunday, March 1, 2015

Celebrate Read Across America with Math

March 2, 2015 is Read Across America Day or Dr. Seuss Day. This year the book being read across America is the Dr. Seuss classic, Oh, The Places You'll Go. After reading it to your class, let your students write their own story (or poem) in a similar Seuss style or summarize the book or set some of the lines to music.

You can read more about Dr. Seuss and download posters, visuals and certificates for Read Across America Day from the NEA website:
http://www.nea.org/grants/61668.htm

You can also get activity ideas and event suggestions for Read Across America Day. You may want to celebrate reading and books (especially those by Dr. Seuss) all week just you can try out a variety of reading and literacy activities with your students.

The Hats Off to Reading Educator's Guide gives some fun teaching ideas and creative suggestions for celebrating Dr. Seuss in the classroom.

After reading The Lorax together, you could challenge your students to come up with some ways to conserve natural resources, recycle, reuse and reduce waste.

Help your students tidy up their desks and work areas after reading The Cat in the Hat. Let your students make posters encouraging their classmates to pick up after themselves, recycle paper and aluminum, and conserve water and energy at home as well as at school.

You may want to ask your students to share their favorite Dr. Seuss books or characters, write their own poems, stories or songs, make up their own colorful Seuss-style character, and then share their creations with others.

Excel Math merges math with literacy using frequent word problems plus longer story problems and Create A Problem exercises that let students write and solve their own word problems.

What do you do to encourage reading and literacy in your classroom? Share your ideas in the Comments box below.

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