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World Math Day 2011

What it is: It is March 1st which means that World Math Day is here!!  The official competition runs for 48 hours, as long as it is March 1st somewhere in the world. World Math Day is a live worldwide math competition for students.  Students login to the World Math Day site and compete against each other in real time to see which country can answer the most mental arithmetic problems the fastest. Each game lasts 60 seconds and students can play up to 100 games. Students who answer the most math problems correctly get featured in the World Math Day hall of fame. There are 5 levels of mental arithmetic competition each with 20 games, there is a something for every student k-6.  My students look forward to World Math Day every year.  We hold competitions throughout the day in my lab and students play in their classrooms in a 60 second math center rotation.  Students ask (beg really) to play on World Math Day at home.  When is the last time you had students begging to practice mental arithmetic at home?  Registration is easy and quick, during registration, you will also be signed up to have your students participate in World Spelling Day which will be March 3 (2011).  Register as many or as few students as you would like (individuals and home school families are also welcome!)  This is such a fun day of friendly competition and it gives students the drive to practice, and get fast, at math fact and math fact recall. How to integrate World Math Day into the classroom: It couldn’t be easier to get your students involved, just sign them up by registering, pass out usernames and passwords and away you go.  Students can play in a computer lab setting (they like to try to login at exactly the same time so they can play against each other in games) or on classroom computers in 60 second rotations.  The 60 second time limit on games makes it easy to pass all of your students through a World Math Day center on classroom computers.  In addition, students can take their login information home with them to play at home.  World Math Day takes place every March, now that you know it is coming, plan to make it an Olympic type event in your classroom.  I have been known to hold opening ceremonies in my classroom prior to the event. Since your students are competing against students from around the world, why not use the competition to practice using a map and identifying countries?  Since I had a Promethean board, I did this digitally with a Google Map.  Each time a student competed against a country, they would come up to the board and put a “pin” in the map.  Don’t have an interactive whiteboard? The paper map and actual pins are just as fun! Tips: Don’t forget to check back for World Spelling Day- a new competition! Please leave a comment and share how you are using World Math Day in your classroom!

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Planet Quest: Alien Safari

Posted by admin | Posted in Primary Elementary, Science, Secondary Elementary, Understand (describe, explain), video, Websites | Posted on 10-05-2011

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What it is: Planet Quest Alien Safari is an interactive exploration adventure that encourages students to click on “life zones” around the world to find bizarre and extreme organisms that live on Earth.  Students will also learn about what the extreme organisms reveal about finding life in space.  As students explore they will learn about organisms that can live without sunlight, those with the highest radiation dose, those that are the most acidic, those that live the furthest underground, those with the strangest habitat and those that are the hottest.  Students click on a life zone on the 3D Earth to begin a video introduction to the organism.

How to integrate Planet Quest: Alien Safari into the classroom: Planet Quest Alien Safari is going to be a popular one with your boys.  My students got a kick out of “discovering” new organisms.  Use Alien Safari when discussing different life forms, classifying organisms or studying space.  My students wanted to do more than just explore the organisms, they wanted to write stories about them.  Students wrote creative stories imagining what kind of super hero the organism would be, or making them into super villains (As I said, the boys have fun with this one!).

Ask students to make predictions about the organisms based on where they are found, what does their geographic location tell us about the organism?

Tips: The music on this site gets a little OLD (at least for me, the kids may disagree) I had the kids use headphones when they were accessing this site independently.  If you are using it with the whole class and an interactive whiteboard or projector-connected computer, you can turn the music off in the bottom right corner.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using  Planet Quest: Alien Safari in your classroom!

Comments (1)

Ben C said on 10-05-2011

This is a great find and will be a useful one in the classroom for me. Thanks for sharing.

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