Video chat from Africa!

Today we had the opportunity to video chat live with Angola, Africa. My father is pictured on the left, along with Derek the medic (from Portugal).

They gave us a tour of the medical lab, discussed malaria, and told us all about the animals of Africa.

The students were surprised to learn that hippos are considered one of the most deadly animals in Africa, due to the aggressive nature in which they protect their young.

Elephants are apparently big pests that have no regard for property, and they love to stomp in gardens!
Students were also amazed that when you go camping in Africa, you have to pitch your tent on top of the vehicle so the elephants won't step on you!

We learned about snakes, monkeys, monitor, crocodiles and more!

Mystery Number Google Hangouts

Our class has had the opportunity to connect with other classes from around the United States with video chat.  While we meetup online, we have a fun math challenge for the other class: guess our mystery number!

Today our largest number went up to the billions in place value!
We have played the game with two variations.  The first time we played Mrs. __ class from Forest City, Iowa.  We challenged her fourth grade class by answering yes or no questions to discover the mystery number.
We had great problem solvers ask questions like:

• Is your number greater than 50?
• Is your number a multiple of 10?
• Is your number even?

Today we challenged Mrs. Naugle's fourth grade class in Louisiana.  In this game, the students wrote down clues that the other class had to solve in order to find out the mystery number.

Clues included questions like:

• It is a seven digit number.
• The number in the tens place is 2.  The number in the thousands place is 3 times this number.
• The number in the ones place is an even number less than three.