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Sunday, October 14, 2012

Authors, Oreos & Google Hangout!

What's better than lunch in the classroom?  Lunch in the classroom with J.K. Rowling - author of the Harry Potter books!  On Thursday we were treated to a LIVE webcast hosted by Scholastic, Inc. featuring the famous author.  Live from Edinburgh, Scotland she read her favorite part of the first Harry Potter book and spoke about her love of writing.  She shared the new site Pottermore. which is a place to explore Harry Potter in a new way.

The following day we were delighted to host Debbie Miller, a favorite author from Alaska.  In preparation for her visit the fourth grade students read and discussed "The Great Serum Race" about the 1925 diphtheria outbreak in Nome.  At the end of her visit she shared slides from her trip to Australia which inspired her new book, Australia Journey.

Before all this we had our first Mystery Location Call using Google+ Hangout (instead of Skype). After many yes/no questions had been asked an answered we discovered that our Mystery State was New Jersey with Mr. Krakower's class. It is our hope to collaborate on other projects with this class.

Another highlight of the week included the O.R.E.O. Project (Our Really Exciting Online Project).  The challenge across the nation was to see how many oreos could be stacked before toppling.  Specific rules included using regular not double stuffed oreos, bracing the oreos against anything was not allowed and once a cookie was placed on the stack that was it - adjusting or shifting the stack was not allowed. At the end, we tabulated the highest number of each stack and found the average number.  This involved adding and dividing.  Then we sent our data in to the project coordinator.  The graph shows the results of all the participants.





Looking forward to another wonderful week of learning!






5 comments:

  1. Hi Mrs.Carroll what I liked about the viedeo is that all the groups are working together and that it shows every body stacking oreos and you asking how many we have .

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    1. You know - that's what I like about it too - it shows everyone working together.

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  2. I loved the video it was great! The highest I got was 21. I really hoped that we could have really talked to J.K Rowling. Please reply. Thanks!

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    1. If we could have spoken with JK Rowling it would have made that experience even better. But just think that she was reading the excerpt from her book "LIVE" and in "real time". I find that amazing that we can do such things with technology.

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  3. I remember the oreo project! My team and I stacked 20 oreos in one try! I hope the other students that have Mrs. Carroll get to have as much fun as I did!

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