Mitchell+L's+Journal

15 March 2010 W.A.L.T calculate times in different time zones arond the world using greenwich mean time. Time zones are little imaginary lines running down sections of the world map so different places have different times as you may have to take the sun into account as it can't be 3pm and the sky is dark and the moon is out. Time is counted from greenwich as there is a nuclear powered clock therte and it does not lose nearly as much time as normal clocks. It doesn't lose time - that's the point! A good explanation though - it would've been good to give an example of how far behind NZ another country is.

18 March 2010 W.A.L.T We are learning about exchange rates for currency. Exchange rates are a way of being able to convert dollars to pounds and so on. What happens is that thereis a rate to convert one type of currency to another,EG: NZD to AUD could be .7708 which means you would have to tnmes how many NZD you have by.7708. If you wanted to go the other way and convert ASD to NZD then you would divide how many ASD you have by.7708. This works for all currencies but you divide the one that is worth more and times the one that is worth less. The exhenge rates also change all the ime so that means you would have to look at currency converter or something similar to get updated exchange rates. I'm not sure what you mean by your last sentence? Sometimes the exchange rate is higher.

19 March 2010 W.AL.T We are learning about the difference between Celcius and Fahrenheit for temperature. To convert Fahrenheit to celcius you have to -32 off the number of fahrenhiet as 32 =0 degrees, then you x the number you get by 5, then you divide that number by 9. So simply put C=(F-32) X 5 ÷ 9. Fahrenheit is the old imperial measurment and celcius is the newer one. Some countries, such as the U.S.Av still use Fahrenheit. Great explanation.

21 March 2010 W.A.L.T We are learning to find out what we know, what we think we know and what we dont know.

26 April 2010 W.A.L.T Be able to use a variety of graphs to show different data. I learnt to use graphs such as histograms, scatterplots, back to back dot plots etc. . A dot graph is used for counting tallies. . A back to back dot graph is used to count two tallies. . A stem and leaf graph is a graph that has a stem in the middle with the tens numbers or higher in it. It has leaves on the side for the one numbers. . A scatter plot is like a line graph without lines. Good definitions Mitchell. Remember that a dot plot can be used for displaying and collecting data. A scatter plot shows the relationship between two variables while a line graph shows trends.

5 May 2010 W.A.L.T Use and read box and whisker graphs. Box and whisker graphs are very useful for calculating the median and first and third quartiles. At first I found it hard to read this type of graph but after doing it a few times it became easier. I would definitely use a box and whisker graph in the future. Are you confident with the interpretation of these. They are great for showing large amounts of data.

20 May 2010 We did the first olympiad of the year yesterday. I did ok and got 4/5. I think after I have answered each question, I should go back and check them until the time runs out.

27 May 2010 Today I did the second Otago problem solving test. I did quite well and got 4/5. I should have checked my answers again as I had got 1 wrong by not checking again. I am setting a goal to get into the mathletics team and to also be able to do the final challenge for Otago maths. Awesome result Mitchell - you are being hard on yourself. What I would like you to do is to give yourself the opportunity to get the 5/5 by being able to use all the time that is available to you. I think you can pretty safely say that you will be in the mathletics team.

31 May 2010 Last week when we did a online knowledge test in the form of a slideshow, I found that I need to practice on being able to quickly remember fractions as I could have got another question right if I had been able to do it quickly. i also need to improve on my basic facts knowledge as I got two of the basic facts questions wrong, 1 on stage 7 and 1 on stage 8. You achieved an excellent result Mitchell. What the activity did show was whether or not peoples knowledge was instant which it should be if we are calling it knowledge. It is liek your mastery of basic facts!