letters to my class

December 12, 2012

December 12th, 2012

Dear Time Dwellers,

Today the calendar will be full of twelves. At 12:12, both clock and calendar will show only twelves–the twelfth minute of the twelfth hour of the twelfth day of the twelfth month of the twelfth year of the second millenium. That’s a lot of twelves, and it naturally gets us wondering: when was the last time the clock and calendar were full of twelves? When was the last time they were full of any number? When will it happen again?

The answers to these questions don’t really matter (unless you’re a doomsday-er), but by going through the process of figuring them out (and then coming up with more questions), we might just learn something fundamental about the clock, the calendar, and maybe even about time itself.

Also, the number twelve is awesome. Check out twelfths on your fraction-stick chart and revel in all of its equivalent fractions!

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck
December 11, 2012

December 11th, 2012

Dear Number Crunchers,

Today we’ll continue to convert between fractions and decimals. One of the most important things you will learn in math is that there are many meaningful ways to express a number. Depending on what we want to do with that number determines how we express it. Do we want it as a fraction, a decimal, a percent, a sum of prime numbers, prime factorization, etc? Our number system is an amazing thing, and we’re lucky that we get to spend the entire school year learning how it works.

When we play around with numbers and express them in different ways, we start to notice some wild and crazy patterns. In the world of math, those patterns never stop and often reveal even more intricate patterns. We learn about math by playing around with those patterns, trying to find new ones, and thinking about how we can apply those patterns to other parts of life.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck
December 10, 2012

December 9th, 2012

Dear Historians,

Through its exploration and conquest of the Americas following Columbus’s journey, Spain became the most powerful country in the world. Soon, other European countries competed with Spain for power and wealth. This was a time of great change and great opportunity. European settlements began to sprout in the Americas, and the British became a world power. All of these events would shape forever shape American history.

Today, we’ll read about the defeat of the Spanish Armada, one of the most important events in World history. What made it important and how do we still feel its effects today? What important events in our lifetime will students be talking about 300 years from now?

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck
December 6, 2012

December 5th, 2012

Dear Exchangers,

Movement is the way of the world. Currents, prevailing winds, train tracks, roads, flight routes–these are the things that define our world. When things move around our world, they forever change it. We’ve been reading about how radically the world changed following Columbus’s trip to the New World. Both the New World and the Old World changed in ways that we’re still feeling today.

The story of humankind is the story of unknown people meeting, trading goods and ideas (sometimes by force), and then adapting their lives to the new world that their encounters created. That was the story Columbus and the Tainos lived, the story Cortes and Montezuma lived, and it’s the story we’re still living today.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck
December 5, 2012

December 4th, 2012

Dear Performers,

I love playing guitar and singing for people. I like doing it way more than people like listening to it, but I’ve been lucky enough in my life that people put up with it. Even though I’ve spent a lot of time playing my guitar in front of people, I’ve spent way more time practicing it by myself. Performances are just the icing on the cake. The cake is actually baked through practice, practice, practice.

I had a lot of fun watching the choir concert last week. I could tell the choir members worked hard to learn their songs and perform them to the best of their ability. I know the band and orchestra concerts coming up will be just as good. But remember, all you can do on the night of the performance is put the frosting on the cake. If there isn’t much cake, then no amount of frosting can make it satisfying.

Today, we’ll take our Unit 4 test. If you’ve been working hard in class, doing your homework, and taking responsibility for your learning, you just have to put on the frosting today.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck
December 4, 2012

December 3rd, 2012

Dear Historians,

How did we get where we are today? That’s the big question that historians try to answer. As historians we’re not too interested in the why questions. Those questions are too complex and elusive. Many times, we don’t really know why things happened, but with research, insight, and hard work, we can piece together how things happened, even things that happened hundreds or thousands of years ago.

History is never a simple story. The story of Cortes and the Spanish conquest of the Aztec empire isn’t the simple story of Spanish power overwhelming the Aztecs. As we read yesterday, some Aztecs joined the Spanish because they were unhappy with Aztec rule. Similarly, not all Spaniards approved of Spain’s conquest of the Americas. Today we’ll read about Bartolome de las Casas, a Spaniard who spoke out against the enslavement and mistreatment of native peoples.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck
December 3, 2012

December 3rd, 2012

Dear Reckoners,
Based on what we know, we figure out new things. That’s kind of the foundation of math. First humans started counting things. Perhaps it was how many stone tools they had. In that case, they only had to count up to five or six. Then, they started living in larger groups, and to count people, they needed larger numbers. Then, they started planting wheat, harvesting it, and giving it out to people in their group. This mean that had to take numbers and break them up into parts. Eventually, they decided that just counting numbers didn’t represent everything they needed to represent, so they came up with in-between numbers. We call those fractions, decimals, and percents.

Numbers are powerful things. They run our world. If you want to have a voice in how the world runs, you need to learn how to do things with numbers. It’s really that simple.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck
November 27, 2012

November 26th, 2012

Dear Explorers,
Imagine you’re on a ship that’s sailing into unknown waters. Sailors who have gone this way before have never returned, and there’s a good chance that you won’t either. If you do, however, great riches and fame await. You expect to see things that people from your culture have never seen before. You expect to be amazed (or to die).

What kind of courage does it require to do something that’s never been done before? What kind of person chooses to leave the comfort of their home to explore the dangers on the blank parts of the map? What would tempt a person to risk so much? We’ll read about these explorers’ thirst for riches and fame, but we’ll also learn about the uniquely human urge to do things that were previously thought impossible and to reveal truths about the world that were never imagined.

Happy Exploring,

Mr. Heimbuck
November 26, 2012

November 25th, 2012

Dear Writers,

When author Kevin O’Malley visited Meadow two years ago, he said that he writes because he likes to “control people’s minds.” When you put words on a page, you create a new reality. If your words are inviting enough, readers will enter it and never want to leave. You don’t have to be a professional writer to do this. If you can write clearly and powerfully, you too can “control people’s minds.”

Writing clearly doesn’t require a magic gift or special powers. It mostly requires practice and hard work. Writers are people who write everyday. Writers are people who spend a lot of time writing and even more time rewriting and even more time thinking about what they’ve written and ways they can make it better. Writers are people who care about language. And writers are people who are always starving for the food that is other writers’ words.

We’re all writers, and we all have stories to tell. I can’t wait to hear yours.
Sincerely,
Mr. Heimbuck
November 15, 2012

November 14th, 2012

Dear Knuckleballers,

R.A. Dickey just won the Cy Young award. That means he was honored as the best pitcher in the National League. Dickey has been around the league a long time and for most of it, he wasn’t a very successful pitcher. He never threw the ball very hard, so a few years ago he decided to reinvent himself as a knuckleball pitcher.

A knuckleball is a type of pitch that moves slower than other pitches but that moves in unpredictable ways because of the way the pitcher grips it. The only way you can become a good knuckleball pitcher is by throwing the pitch over and over and over and over. In R.A. Dickey’s first game throwing the knuckleball, he gave up 6 home runs. But he didn’t give up. He kept throwing it, over and over and over and over. Slowly, he got better, but he never stopped he never stopped practicing. Now, he’s the best pitcher in the league. He didn’t get there because he was more gifted than the other pitchers. He got there because he persevered.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck