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Touch the Sky

Students can win a visit from children's book author, Ann Malaspina.  Read the excerpt from the "Missourian" to find out how your students can earn a visit from this author.
 
"Touch the Sky" is an inspirational children's book about Olympic High Jumper Alice Coachman, the first African American woman to win a gold medal in the Olympic Games. The author of the book, Ann Malaspina, will be in Washington Oct. 13 to share her inspirational story about Coachman at the annual Run to Read, organized by The Missourian and the Four Rivers Area Family YMCA.

Local students have the opportunity to win a school visit from Malaspina on Oct. 12 by entering a writing contest sponsored by the Missourian In Education program. To enter, children in kindergarten through high school are invited to write a letter to the Olympian, who turns 90 in November.
Taking the line from Malaspina's book, "But a dream is a beginning and as Alice grew older, her dream was to soar," the students should tell Coachman why her story is inspiring and share their own dreams and aspirations.

Letters may be handwritten or typed and children may include hand-drawn pictures. To enter, submit letters to "Alice Coachman Dreams to Soar Contest," Missourian In Education, P.O. Box 336, Washington, Mo., 63090. Letters may be hand-delivered to any Missourian office, but should be labeled for the contest.

The winner of Malaspina's school author presentation will be selected from a random drawing from all letters received on or before 5 p.m., Wednesday, Sept. 26. The drawing will be held during the Book Buzz birthday celebration for Newsbee, "10 Years -- 10,000 Books," at 1 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 30 at the Washington Public Library. The public is invited to this event.

For more information, contact Chris Stuckenschneider at cstucky@me.com or (636)239-7272.\

http://www.emissourian.com/features_people/newspapers_in_education/missourian_in_education/article_25c1c768-fbb9-11e1-9f4d-001a4bcf887a.html

Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally

I have always thought that the "PEMDAS" rule was a tad confusing.  Because, technically it should be written like this to make sense. 

P

E

MD

AS 

P: Parenthesis first
E: Exponents next
MD: Multiplication and Division next
AS: Addition and Subtraction last

The acronym PEMDAS can be deceptive, because students think they should do their multiplication before division and addition before subtraction, but that is not the case.  Notice that the M and D are grouped together, as are the A and S. This is because Multiplication and Division are at the same priority level, and should be done in left to right order. Likewise, Addition and Subtraction are at the same priority level, and should be done in left to right order. This is a great video to illustrate using the ORDER OF OPERATIONS.

Ad-O-Matic Campaign Commercials

 

      This is a quick way to make funny presidential campaign commercials. With the upcoming election, it might be fun to have your students create their own videos when they complete their classwork.  All you need to do is upload their pictures and have them answer a few questions.  I would suggest using only first names for your students. 

The National Constitution Center Ad-O-Matic:  http://adomatic.us/