More Than ABC is a informative, fun, creative blog dedicated to share what is going in in our classroom. Using technology, creativity, and quality materials keeps us busy! If your in my class or just a visitor, I'm glad you stopped in!
Our continued Rendezvous day included an economics lesson in bartering. We discussed early money systems, and how trade worked in the early days in Colorado history.
Students were to bring a few items to trade among the classes. Some made very creative and interesting projects, while others opted to find treasures they were finally ready to part with in the hopes of finding new treasures.
Students were also required to decide about some advertising strategies including descriptions of their goods, storefronts with persuasive twist, and strategies to talk about their goods while trying to make a sale.
Many students contributed their information and we're IN PROGRESS in making a presentations. Check it out!
Prezi is free, so log in and try your own at home.
Posts on More Than the ABC’s may include links to external websites which are not under the editing control of the author of More Than the ABC’s. Please ask that children use adult supervision when visiting websites outside of this blog, especially YouTube. While there are many great videos, please considering the ability for the public to post and comment on videos on YouTube.
As a continuation of our Colorado Rendezvous day on Friday we made Pretzel Log Cabins. We discussed the trials early settlers would have finding supplies, building, upkeep, and the tough conditions.
We also talked about the Homestead act which allowed settlers who lived and farmed land for 5 years to get 160 acres for free! Talk about a good deal, if you could last! Follow the link to read the original text of the act.
To build all we used was chocolate frosting, stick pretzels and the option of a small, empty, juice container. Some students opted to make the stacking (Lincoln Log) style cabin, while others opted for the box structure.
Some houses had flat topped roof systems while others built the peak systems. Other cabins were of a brand new variety of construction!
Now we just need to figure out how to make cute, simple pine trees and the scenes would be complete!
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We continue our Rendezvous today with a bartering experience. Students should have brought small items to trade with among the 4th grade classes.
Here's some history about bartering:
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We are studying fur trappers and traders in our Colorado history unit. Part of a trapper’s or trader’s life was the annual Rendezvous where they celebrated, relaxed, socialized and traded their furs for supplies for the coming year. The students will be participating in activities on Thursday April 28th related to the outdoor, trapper, and pioneer life.
In order for the kids to experience trading goods for goods rather than using money, we will be continuing our Rendezvous day on Friday April 29th , On that day each student must bring in something he or she can trade. You DO NOT need to go out and buy anything. The item could be a craft, art, or food they have made. In the past, some students have brought some old, small toys or decorative items they and their families no longer want. It should not be anything expensive or of personal value. Once the items are traded they will not be returned to the original owner. If your child brings in food, the items must be individually wrapped (things get passed around!).
Since the purpose of the activity is to experience trading, students who do not bring in anything to trade will not be permitted to participate in the Rendezvous, which will ultimately affect their grade. Students will be responding to the experience for a writing, history, and economics grade. We will discuss the pros and cons of the bartering experience and real world applications.
Thanks in advance for your support of this experiential learning opportunity.
Our most recent issue of Time for Kids included an article about the tragedy in Japan.
We looked at a few additional resources that discussed earthquakes, tsunamies, and did a brief overview of some vocabulary before reading the magazine article.
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The first 43 presidents with sillouette outlines. Certainly a song that could be memorized!
Starts at :15 seconds.
This video includes all 44 presidents with their presidential portraits but could be harder to memorize!
Posts on More Than the ABC’s may include links to external websites. Links to external sites are not under the editing control of the author of More Than the ABC’s. Please ask that children use adult supervision when visiting websites outside of this blog, especially YouTube. While there are many great videos, please considering the ability for the public to post and comment on videos on YouTube.
As silly as some of these songs are, it is amazing how well (once learned) they can stick!
The title : Nations of the World is not to be misconstrued as listing ALL the nations, or the most current. The song was released in 1993, and since many political country changes have occured!
Beware, you are about to be frustrated (kids and adults alike) at not being able to read, talk, or sing fast enough.
United States, Canada,
Mexico, Panama,
Haiti, Jamaica, Peru;
Republic Dominican,
Cuba, Carribean,
Greenland, El Salvador too.
Puerto Rico, Columbia,
Venezuela,
Honduras, Guyana, and still;
Guatemala, Bolivia,
then Argentina,
and Ecuador, Chile, Brazil.
Costa Rica, Belize,
Nicaragua, Bermuda,
Bahamas, Tobago, San Juan;
Paraguay, Uruguay,
Suriname, and
French Guiana, Barbados, and Guam.
Norway, and Sweden,
and Iceland, and Finland,
and Germany now one piece;
Switzerland, Austria,
Czechoslovakia,
Italy, Turkey, and Greece.
Poland, Romania,
Scotland, Albania,
Ireland, Russia, Oman;
Bulgaria, Saudi Arabia,
Hungary,
Cyprus, Iraq, and Iran.
There's Syria, Lebanon,
Israel, Jordan,
both Yemens, Kuwait, and Bahrain,
the Netherlands, Luxembourg,
Belgium, and Portugal,
France, England, Denmark, and Spain.
India, Pakistan,
Burma, Afghanistan,
Thailand, Nepal, and Bhutan;
Kampuchea, Malaysia,
then Bangladesh, Asia,
and China, Korea, Japan.
Mongolia, Laos,
and Tibet, Indonesia,
the Philippine Islands, Taiwan;
Sri Lanka, New Guinea,
Sumatra, New Zealand,
then Borneo, and Vietnam.
Tunisia, Morocco,
Uganda, Angola,
Zimbabwe, Djibouti, Botswana;
Mozambique, Zambia,
Swaziland, Gambia,
Guinea, Algeria, Ghana.
Burundi, Lesotho,
and Malawi, Togo,
The Spanish Sahara is gone;
Niger, Nigeria,
Chad, and Liberia,
Egypt, Benin, and Gabon.
Tanzania, Somalia,
Kenya, and Mali,
Sierra Leone, and Algier;
Dahomey, Namibia,
Senegal, Libya,
Cameroon, Congo, Zaire.
Ethiopia, Guinea_
Bissau, Madagascar,
Rwanda, Mahore[?], and Cayman;
Hong Kong, Abu Dhabi,
Qatar, Yugoslavia,
Crete, Mauritania,
then Transylvania,
Monaco, Liechtenstein,
Malta, and Palestine,
Fiji, Australia, Sudan!
Curious about the flags?
Posts on More Than the ABC’s may include links to external websites. Links to external sites are not under the editing control of the author of More Than the ABC’s. Please ask that children use adult supervision when visiting websites outside of this blog, especially YouTube. While there are many great videos, please considering the ability for the public to post and comment on videos on YouTube.
In a continued effort to keep bordom at bay and keep learning happening, can you learn all 50 state capitals? I bet you can? Sing along!
WAKKO'S AMERICA (Episode 21)
Music traditional (Turkey in the Straw). Lyrics by Randy Rogel.
Wakko:
Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Indianapolis, Indiana
And Columbus is the capital of Ohio
There's Montgomery, Alabama, south of Helena, Montana
Then there's Denver, Colorado, under Boise, Idaho.
Texas has Austin, then we go north
To Massachusetts' Boston, and Albany, New York
Tallahassee, Florida, and Washington, D.C.
Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Nashville, Tennessee.
Elvis used to hang out there a lot, ya know.
Trenton's in New Jersey, north of Jefferson, Missouri
You've got Richmond in Virginia; South Dakota has Pierre
Harrisburg's in Pennsylvania and Augusta's up in Maine
And here is Providence, Rhode Island, next to Dover, Delaware.
Concord, New Hampshire, just a quick jaunt
To Montpelier, which is up in Vermont
Hartford's in Connecticut, so pretty in the fall
And Kansas has Topeka; Minnesota has St Paul.
Juneau's in Alaska and there's Lincoln in Nebraska
And it's Raleigh out in North Carolina and then
There's Madison, Wisconsin, and Olympia in Washington
Phoenix, Arizona, and Lansing, Michigan.
Here's Honolulu; Hawaii's a joy
Jackson, Mississippi, and Springfield, Illinois
South Carolina with Columbia down the way
And Annapolis in Maryland on Chesapeake Bay.
They have wonderful clam chowder.
Cheyenne is in Wyomin' and perhaps you make your home in
Salt Lake City out in Utah, where the Buffalo roam
Atlanta's down in Georgia, and there's Bismarck, North Dakota
And you can live in Frankfort in your old Kentucky home.
Salem in Oregon; from there we join
Little Rock in Arkansas; Iowa's got Des Moines
Sacramento, California; Oklahoma and its city
Charleston, West Virginia, and Nevada, Carson City.
That's all the capitals there are!
Posts on More Than the ABC’s may include links to external websites. Links to external sites are not under the editing control of the author of More Than the ABC’s. Please ask that children use adult supervision when visiting websites outside of this blog, especially YouTube. While there are many great videos, please considering the ability for the public to post and comment on videos on YouTube.
This video lists all 50 US states in alphabetical order. Need something to get stuck in your head? Here it is!
Alabama (AL)
Alaska (AK)
Arizona (AZ)
Arkansas (AR)
California (CA)
Colorado (CO)
Connecticut (CT)
Delaware (DE)
Florida (FL)
Georgia (GA)
Hawaii (HI)
Idaho (ID)
Illinois (IL)
Indiana (IN)
Iowa (IA)
Kansas (KS)
Kentucky (KY)
Louisiana (LA)
Maine (ME)
Maryland (MD)
Massachusetts (MA)
Michigan (MI)
Minnesota (MN)
Mississippi (MS)
Missouri (MO)
Montana (MT)
Nebraska (NE)
Nevada (NV)
New Hampshire (NH)
New Jersey (NJ)
New Mexico (NM)
New York (NY)
North Carolina (NC)
North Dakota (ND)
Ohio (OH)
Oklahoma (OK)
Oregon (OR)
Pennsylvania (PA)
Rhode Island (RI)
South Carolina (SC)
South Dakota (SD)
Tennessee (TN)
Texas (TX)
Utah (UT)
Vermont (VT)
Virginia (VA)
Washington (WA)
West Virginia (WV)
Wisconsin (WI)
Wyoming (WY)
Posts on More Than the ABC’s may include links to external websites. Links to external sites are not under the editing control of the author of More Than the ABC’s. Please ask that children use adult supervision when visiting websites outside of this blog, especially YouTube. While there are many great videos, please considering the ability for the public to post and comment on videos on YouTube.
Here is Lincoln's Thanksgiving Proclamation from 1863. Even in the midst of a civil war Lincoln remembered and was thankful for everything the country, people, and he still had.
I'm thankful for the creativity, interest, insight, and enthusiasm of young learners.
I'm thankful for the well behaved, knowledgeable and respectful students at our school.
I'm thankful that even through setbacks students continue to learn, grow, and succeed.
I'm thankful for the privilege of teaching and watching your children grow into amazing people.
I'm thankful, well, for Lincoln's decree of a national holiday and a few days off!
By the President of the United States of America.
A Proclamation.
The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God.
In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.
Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consiousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.
No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People.
I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.
In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the Unites States the Eighty-eighth.
Check out this amazing performance the students were lucky enough to see last week! The Air Force Academy Brass Band visited and with just 6 members recreated a number of classic songs, patriotic songs, and toe tapping numbers for our enjoyment.
Make sure your speakers are on, but not too loud!!
If you didn't notice, I also have officially learned how to upload to YouTube and then embed in the blog. Teachers keep learning too!
Posts on More Than the ABC’s may include links to external websites. Links to external sites are not under the editing control of the author of More Than the ABC’s. Please ask that children use adult supervision when visiting websites outside of this blog, especially YouTube. While there are many great videos, please considering the ability for the public to post and comment on videos on YouTube.
Posts on More Than the ABC’s may include links to external websites. Links to external sites are not under the editing control of the author of More Than the ABC’s.
A cog, or rack, railroad uses a gear, "cog wheel", meshing into a special rack rail (mounted in the middle between the outer rails) to climb much steeper grades than those possible with a standard adhesion railroad.
See the middle part of the railroad track? Where there are 3 parallel lines instead of the standard two? That's where those cog's are. This helps climb the steep sections and keep a slow decent on the way down.
An adhesion railroad (regular train on flat distances) can only climb grades of 4 to 6%, with very short sections of up to 9%. This is measure as the number of feet in elevation gained for every 100 feet in distance. A "rack" railroad can climb grades of up to 48% (such as in Switzerland), depending upon the type of rack system employed.
Here is the explanation from the US Department of Transportation.
Q-2. What is the maximum grade hill a railcar can climb?
A. Railroad
grades are more or less determined by available locomotive horsepower and
traction efforts required to pull a specified number of railroad cars up a
grade, as well as the braking effort required to control the movement when going
down the grade.
Railroad grades are expressed in terms of the rise or fall of elevation
over distance. For instance, a 1 percent grade would be a one-foot rise or fall
of elevation over a distance of 100 feet.
The Manitou and Pikes Peak Railway Cog can travel at up to a 25% grade going up the mountain. It reaches a top speed of 9 miles per hour.
Above the clouds at the top of the mountain. There were 2 cog's running the day of our trip. There are sections where the two can pass on parallel tracks on the mountain.
Learn more by going to the Pikes Peak Cog Railway Site. Pssst! Did you see the new pictures in the slide show on the left side of the blog?
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Here is a video about the view from the Cog railway from the train during the spring and summer months. Hope you are ready for our trip!
Posts on More Than the ABC’s may include links to external websites. Links to external sites are not under the editing control of the author of More Than the ABC’s. Please ask that children use adult supervision when visiting websites outside of this blog, especially YouTube. While there are many great videos, please considering the ability for the public to post and comment on videos on YouTube.
Are you and your child excited about our trip up to 14,000 feet? Listen for some inspiration about the view from the top.
Posts on More Than the ABC’s may include links to external websites. Links to external sites are not under the editing control of the author of More Than the ABC’s. Please ask that children use adult supervision when visiting websites outside of this blog, especially YouTube. While there are many great videos, please considering the ability for the public to post and comment on videos on YouTube.
We are preparing to take a field trip up to the top of Pikes Peak via the Cog Railway.
This field trip is to support our social studies curriculum in learning the different life zones of Colorado. Students will be able to observe the differences in the areas as we gain elevation toward the peak.
While on the train and hopefully at the top students will spend time writing and reflecting about the trip and the view. We will also be referring to Katherine Lee Bates"America the Beautiful" which was penned on the top of Pikes Peak.
Please refer to the field trip permission slip, information sent home, and me for any questions!
Give your child a few minutes to prepare background knowledge by letting them search the Cog Railway site and their educational materials!
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Our continued Rendezvous day included an economics lesson in bartering. We discussed early money systems, and how trade worked in the early days in Colorado history. 
