(This post was originally posted on the collaborative blog Our World Our Numbers. Be sure to visit that blog for lots of great posts from elementary classes around the world.)

In Mr. Salsich’s class, we have really enjoyed all the great posts about animals from around the world on Our World Our Numbers over the last few weeks!

We wanted to add a post about some animals from Connecticut, but couldn’t decide on which local animals to talk about (there are so many!) So we decided to share information about our state mammal, the sperm whale, even though we don’t really see them here in Connecticut.

Some sperm whale numbers

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Sperm whales are amazing animals. They aren’t the biggest whales in the world (the blue whale is much bigger), but they are the largest of the toothed whales. 

Sperm whales do hold some other “records” though;

1. They have the heaviest brain of any animal (five times heavier than a human brain), 
2. They produce the loudest sounds of any animal, and 
3. They can dive deeper than any other mammal.

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We made a VoiceThread about sperm whales and the incredible number facts that help to explain them. We tried to compare some of these numbers to a typical 3rd grade student (8-9 years old). We hope you enjoy the VoiceThread!

(You can watch it in a larger format here.)

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(Sperm whales are massive, but blue whales are even bigger! Here is a link to an amazing interactive about blue whales from national Geographic.)

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What was the most interesting fact you learned about sperm whales?

If a blue whale weighs over 200 tons, how much heavier than a sperm whale are they? About how many sperm whales would it take to equal that weight? About how many African elephants would it take to equal that weight?

A blue whale can be 100 feet long. How many sperm whales would it take to equal that length?

Do you know any other interesting information about whales?

In our class we love to connect and learn with our friends around the world.

Today we are launching a new global project called Our World, Our Numbers.

We have a blog http://ourworldournumbers.edublogs.org where we’ll meet up with our blogging buddies to learn together for the next five weeks.

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In late 2011, many of us worked on an award winning global project called Our World, Our Stories. This latest project is based on a similar format with a mathematical focus.

Classes involved

The students are all from primary (elementary) classes and are from three different continents and five countries.

Mr Avery’s sixth grade class from Massachusetts, USA

Mrs Monaghan’s 3/4 class, Room with a View, from England

Mrs Morris and Miss Jordan’s grade four class, 4KM and 4KJ, from Victoria, Australia

Mrs McKenzie’s 2/3 class, B4, from New Zealand

Mrs Yollisí 2/3 class from California, USA

Mr Salsich’s third grade class from Connecticut, USA

Mrs Watson’s K/1/2/3 class  from Canada

How will it work?

Students from all classes will connect and collaborate by sharing their mathematical lives. This will happen through the blog and involve a variety of media.

A different class will lead a mathematical topic every four days or so, publishing posts and replying to comments.  The other classes will read the posts, possibly publish their own posts, and leave blog comments.

We will share topics such as currency, seasons, time zones, population data etc.

The learning

Through blog posts, the students will teach each other about different aspects of mathematics based on aspects of their own culture.

The learning will continue in the commenting section where students, teachers and parents will engage in conversations to explore mathematical and cultural topics further.

Students will gain an understanding of mathematics through the eyes of children in different countries and cultures. They will make comparisons and contrasts between their lives and other students’ lives.

If you want to keep up to date with how the fun and learning unfolds, there is a “subscribe via email” box on the right hand side of the Our World, Our Numbers blog.

Get Involved

We encourage all members of our blog community to get involved!

4KM and 4KJ are leading the first topic by sharing about Australian currency.

Head over to the Our World, Our Numbers blog now to check out 4KM and 4KJ’s post and leave a comment.

What do you think about our new global project?

Today we started practicing for the World Education Games, which will officially take place March 5-7.

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Every year students from all over the world compete in friendly, 60 second competitions of math, spelling, and science. It is a great way to get faster at math, spelling, and keyboarding – and it is a lot of fun!

Competing against students near and far

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When we played today we played against students from as far away as Nigeria and Hungary, but we also played against some of our friends right in the classroom!

playing against friends

Victory!

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It will be fun to have practice games, and the real thing on March 6, 7, and 8 will be very exciting. Last year 5.9 million students from over 235 countries combined to correctly answer 293,571,830 math questions! Wow! How many will we answer this year?

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Since part of the fun is seeing what country you will be playing against, we will keep track of the countries we have played against in the comments.

Click here (or in the Learning Links) to visit the website and login to compete with students all over the world.

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What do you enjoy about playing the World Education Games?

What countries have you competed against?

In math we have been learning how to compare large numbers and find the difference between them. This is helpful when comparing statistics or data. It can also be used when subtracting large numbers.

We decided to make a new ‘Mathlete Show” video to share what we have been learning. In this video we will compare two of the NFL’s greatest quarterbacks, Tom Brady and Peyton Manning, to see who had the better season.

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Brady vs. Manning!

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Here is the video, starring “Nugget”, “Purple Piggy”, and “Bubble”:

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Who do you think is the best quarterback in the NFL?

Tom Brady passed for a total of 4,827 yards and Peyton Manning passed for a total of 4,659 yards. How many more yards did Tom Brady pass for? How did you figure it out?

What did you think of the video?

Last month we studied data and graphing in math.

Data just means pieces of information. People use data a lot in life to understand things better, to answer questions and to make decisions. Graphs help to organize data so it is easier to understand.

Here is a Mathlete Show video (starring Pico de Gallo, Pork Chicken, Cupcake, and Doug) explaining what we learned about data and graphs:

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What are some other things you can tell by looking at this double bar graph?

Favorite sports in 3rd and 4th grade

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What is your favorite sport to play? Vote on our poll below:

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What did you think of our Mathlete Show video?

What are some things you can tell by looking at the double bar graph?

What is your favorite sport to play? Why do you enjoy it?

We are starting to learn about multiplication in math.

Multiplication is really just a faster way to add together equal groups of things. Here’s an example from Sean:

5 groups of 6

Here are 5 helicopters.

Each helicopter has 6 blades.

Because each helicopter has an equal number of propeller blades, we can say that this is 5 groups of 6. You can figure out how many blades there are altogether by adding 6 together 5 times:

6 + 6 + 6 + 6 + 6 = 30

There are 30 propeller blades in all.

Multiplication makes it easier than adding up each 6. You can skip-count by the equal groups (6, 12, 18, 24, 30), or better still, memorize the multiplication facts. We also call multiplication “times” because you are adding the same number a certain amount of times. So, 5 groups of 6 also means:

5 x 6 = 30

Here are more examples of turning equal groups of things into multiplication:

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With multiplication you can quickly find the total amount of equal groups of things.  We will use this a lot in math when we start doing serious skip counting, figuring out arrays, and then division.

Here are a couple of multiplication picture-problems for you to solve:

17 groups of…

Here are 17 radical red students. 

1. Each radical red student has 10 fingers.

How many fingers are there in all? 

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2. Each radical red student has 4 books in their book boxes.

How many books do they have in all?

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Can you solve the equal groups questions above?

What did you think of our multiplication pictures and sentences?

Can you think of other problems from everyday life that we can use multiplication to solve?

Last month we used lots of the math skills we have been learning to build our own kites.

This is part of a project we are participating in called Kites Around The World.

Click on the image to visit the wiki

Schools from around the world have shared their experiences making and flying kites. Now it’s our turn!

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We built sled kites in math class. We had to use fractions, division, and careful measuring to build them accurately.

Here is a video showing how we worked together to plan and design our sled kites:

(If you would like to try making your own sled kite, here is a video tutorial.)

Making the kites was lots of fun, but it was even more fun flying them! Stay tuned for a post about our flying experience.

A finished kite!

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What did you think of our video?

Have you ever made a kite? If so, what was fun about it and what was challenging?

Do you know any facts about kites in history, or kites from around the world?

Last month we learned about ARRAYS in math. An array is a group of objects arranged in rows and columns. Each row has the same number of objects.

Equal Rows

Arrays are useful for skip counting and solving multiplication problems. The array above has 3 rows of 4 blocks. That is 3 groups of 4, or 3 x 4.

We can find out how many blocks there are by skip counting by 4′s:  4, 8, 12 – or by doing repeated addition: 4 + 4 + 4 = 12. There are 12 blocks.

So, 3 x 4 = 12.

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We have also been learning about FACTORS. Factors are the numbers you can count by to get to a certain number. They are also the numbers you multiply together to get another number (called the product).

To get better at factors and arrays, we have been thinking about all the different ways that you can arrange a set of chairs into equal rows.

Here is a video with our friend Perezoso the sloth to give you an example:

(Thanks to Mrs. Castodio for letting us use the gym, and to our book buddy in kindergarten, Mikey, for being the voice of Perezoso.)

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What array would you have picked for a speech?

Can you find all the factors of 24? How about 36?

What are the factors of 20? How about 48?

Here is one final challenge: What are the factors of 72?

Do you think Perezoso will ever deliver his speech?

We have been learning about multiplication and skip counting in math. It has been a lot of fun solving the questions people have left in our comments on the Groups of Things post!

Another thing that has been fun for some of us is following the football playoffs in the NFL. Two of our local teams, The New England Patriots and the New York Giants, have made it to the final four teams. 

Perezoso says, "Go Patriots!"

Even Perezoso the sloth is excited, and he never gets excited about anything (except sleep).

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We decided to use what we have been learning about multiplication to figure out how many points the two teams got from touchdowns and field goals.

Touchdowns are usually worth 7 points and field goals are worth 3 points.

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Here is a “Mathlete Show” video showing how we used repeated addition, skip counting, and multiplication to solve some football questions. The hosts of this episode are “Oreo” and “Billy Bob.”

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The Giants and Patriots will play separate games this Sunday, and if they both win they will face each other in the Super Bowl!

Who do you think will win the Super Bowl? Vote on our poll below and leave a comment with your choice.

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Here are some football multiplication questions for you to answer:

1. If a team scores 24 points, how many touchdowns and field goals would that be?

2. What would 6 touchdowns and 4 field goals equal?

3. Can a team score 42 points without scoring a touchdown? 

We are starting to learn about multiplication in math.

Multiplication is really just a faster way to add together equal groups of things. Here’s an example from Jennifer:

7 groups of 3

Here are 7 Pikachus.

Each Pikachu has 3 bowls of food.

Because each Pikachu (a type of Pokemon) has an equal number of bowls, we can say that this is 7 groups of 3. You can figure out how many bowls there are altogether by adding 3 together 7 times:

3 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 3 = 21

There are 21 bowls of food in all.

Multiplication makes it easier than adding up each 3. You can skip-count by the equal groups (3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21), or better still, memorize the multiplication facts. We also call multiplication “times” because you are adding the same number a certain amount of times. So, 7 groups of 3 also means:

7 x 3 = 21

Here are more examples of turning equal groups of things into multiplication:

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With multiplication you can quickly find the total amount of equal groups of things.  We will use this a lot in math when we start doing serious skip counting, figuring out arrays, and then division.

Here is a multiplication picture-problem for you to solve:

20 groups of 10

Here are 20 wacky students. 

Each wacky student has 10 fingers.

How many fingers are there in all?

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Can you solve the equal groups question above?

What did you think of our multiplication pictures and sentences?

Can you think of other problems from everyday life that we can use multiplication to solve?