Sunday, November 7, 2010

Fractional Concepts

Dear Parents & Students,

This week we'll work on our math!  One math concept that is difficult for many students is fractions. Learning how to split something in two in order to share with some else is the easiest fraction to learn, but that's just the beginning.  Here are some games that will help you visualize and practice working with fractions.


Tony Fraction's Pizza Shop

From a customer's order, make a pizza!  Be sure to put the right amount of toppings on the pizza or you'll lose the sale.  This is a great game, but be careful - it's going to make you hungry!

Melvin's Make a Match

Can you put Melvin's potions back in place on the shelf?  This animated game with great sound effects will help you find equivalent parts of potions. Help Melvin - he needs it!

Fraction Frenzy

Match the equivalent fractions before the timer runs out. Each level gets harder.  Good luck and have fun!


That's all for now, and we'll see you next week.

Monday, November 1, 2010

Malapropisms & Mondegreens

Dear Parents,


This week we will visit with malapropisms and mondegreens. 


A character from Sheridan's play 'The Rivals', Mrs. Malaprop would misuse words by substituting a similar sounding but wrong word in its place - hence malapropism. A malapropism is a verbal blunder - an inappropriate or unsuitable use of word(s) because of its similarity to the correct word.  A mondegreen is a sort of aural malapropism. Instead of saying the wrong word, one hears the wrong word. Mondegreens are usually misheard song lyrics.


Here are some online games that will give your student practice with using the correct word.  Have fun and watch out for those malapropisms and mondegreens!

Malapropisms - The Pineapple of Word Quizzes
In this quiz, select the word that should have been used in place of the 'malapropism'."  Once you finish this little quiz, several other similar quizzes are available.


Here are some funny malapropisms, and even the original ones from Mrs. Malaprop. The mondegreens are from some popular songs.  Do you know any of these songs?



Here is a very long list of mondegreens from many popular songs. How many of these mondegreens did you hear in your head as you sang along with the radio?

That's all for now.  Have fun with it!