Roller Coaster Mania

My wife and I in front of our favorite roller coaster from our honeymoon, Expedition Everest!

I have a room full of roller coaster engineers. Today we learned how to calculate speed, velocity, and acceleration. I decided that instead of just giving them a bunch of problems to do I would have them create their own. The students had to design a roller coaster. Let me tell you, I will need a vomit bag and a helmet to ride some of them. Then they had to decide how long their track was and how long it would take the coaster to travel the track. From this information they then have to work out the speed, acceleration, and velocity. I can’t wait to see the finished products on Monday. I plan to post pictures on here of their work.

Thinking

I did a horrendous thing today. I made the kids think. The fifth grade team of teachers recently planned out our new science unit. We planned several activities and experiments and one of the things that we planned was reading from the science book. I know that this reading can get complicated and a little dry at times so I try to spice it up a little. For example, tomorrow the kids are designing roller coasters. Today, however, I created an activity guide (fancy name for a worksheet) that guided them through the reading. It had a series of questions on it that were not directly in the text, they required the kids to actually read and understand what they had read in order to answer the questions. We went over part of it in class and the kids did great on the first question and everyone missed the second one we went over. The reason they missed the second one was because they didn’t go back and use what they had learned in the first question to answer the second. I was really happy with the effort the kids put in and I can’t wait to see their finished work tomorrow. I also can’t wait to see their roller coasters.

Another Eggsilerating Day

Okay, I will spare you the egg jokes today. We did finish up our Eggsperament (not a joke, the actual name of the lesson). The biggest thing that we worked on today was graphing. Remember when you were in school, or for your job, when you make a graph you color in the little bars. Apparently the people that wrote the MAP test didn’t like that part of graphing so the kids will actually be counted off if they color in the bars and go even slightly outside the lines. So to eliminate any chance of a kid loosing a point for something silly like shading we are practicing drawing graphs without the shading. This makes for odd looking graphs but if it helps us on the MAP test, I’m all for it.

Today we also finished taking notes on our second explorer. The kids are choosing two explorers and eventually will write a compare and contrast essay about them. The last two days we have been taking notes. Tomorrow we will begin to work on the compare and contrast part and if time allows we will even begin writing our introductory paragraphs. Be watching for drafts of this essay to be coming home soon!

An Eggstra Eggciting Day in Room 42!

You guessed it. Today we did an eggsperament involving eggs. We had to be eggstremely careful not to break them. The students eggsuded confidence as we eggstended our science knowledge. I started the lesson by eggsplaining the rules and safety reggulations for the day. I didn’t want anyone to eggsploit their opportunity to use the eggs. I also didn’t want anyone to drop an egg, say an eggspletive, and get sent into eggsile (safe spot) for not following direggtions. There was no eggscuse for not handling the eggs properly. I know that the kids were eggsausted from the holiday break but we all need to just eggshale and get ready for our eggscursion into the wonderful world of science. The actual eggsperament involved the kids using their eggstremeties to take a hard boiled egg and spin it. They then had to eggsamine what happened when they stopped the egg. After that, they eggschanged the hard boiled egg for a raw egg. They then repeated the process being sure to be eggsact in their measurements. The entire process today was absolutely eggsilerating, and that’s no yolk!

What did you do over the break?

I hope that everyone had a great break. I know I was able to get caught up on some stuff here at school, plan some new lessons, spend some time with family and even go on a camp out. Yes, that is right, I camped out Thanksgiving night at Nebraska Furniture Mart. I didn’t even really have anything big on my list. My best friend wanted two of the big TV’s that were on sale so I camped overnight to help him get one. There is just one word that sums up the opening of the store. ZOO! It was absolutely crazy. After that, I don’t care if I ever go shopping again. Not for groceries, clothes, anything.

Today I stressed with the class that we have four full weeks of school left and that we have to be productive every day. No taking time off because we are tired, the room is hot, it is a Monday, or the day after a break. Also, just a hint about tomorrow, it will be a very Egg-citing day in Room 42.

Weather Changes

With a big weather change heading in and a break coming up, things have been a little kooky here at school. We have been going on business as usual but some of the behaviors have been a little off. We had a discussion today that just because Turkey Day is coming up that is no reason to quit early. These are two valuable days of school that we will be using this week.

Today we continued our focus on note taking in social studies as well as kept working our way through fractions in math. I am dead serious when I say that this group is picking up on fractions faster than any group I have had before. A great example was today. Instead of me teaching the class how to convert between fractions and mixed numbers, most of them figured it out on their own. I then had a student review it with the class. I think we have fractions down.

Math Party Day

What an awesome day of math games! Thanks to all of the parents who came in today to play math games with us. I think it is awesome that as a school we had over 150 parents show up to play math games with their kids. What a great message to kids that math is important enough for my parents to come to school during the day. Below are some pictures of the day!

Veterans Day and the Chiefs

As everyone knows, I am a Broncos fan. I have been since I was in kindergarten. My best friend moved to Denver and brought me back a Broncos shirt and ever since then I have been a fan. I had an opportunity to go to the game yesterday. I have included a few pictures I took. The reason I mention this is actually to complement the Chiefs. Not on their play (the Broncos pretty much beat them up) but for what they did at halftime. Yesterday was Veterans Day and they had several really cool things going on. First, there were a ton of soldiers that watched the game from the sideline which I thought was cool. There was a fly over by the Stealth Bomber. Way cool! The biggest cheer of the day was for a WWII veteran that had been shot down over Germany, captured and was a prisoner of war. Everyone stood up even though they made no announcement asking everyone to stand. It was by far the loudest cheer of the day. At half time they unfurled a big flag on the field and had a tribute to fallen soldiers. It was really moving. As the players came back onto the field, almost all of the Chiefs stopped at the sideline and watched, rather than warming up. I was really impressed by this. Like I told the kids today in class, take a minute to thank a veteran for what they have done, give them a hug, buy a buddy poppy. They didn’t do what they did for recognition but what they did was a huge sacrifice and should be honored. Happy Veterans Day.

My wife and I at the game. Notice, she didn't wear Broncos gear. She is a Chiefs fan.

Giant flag unfurled at half time.

Hat I got signed before the game. Two coolest autographs John Lynch (Big J toward the right side) and Pat Bowlen the owner of the Broncos (upper left part of the bill)

Photo Update

Here are some pictures of things that have happened in Room 42 in the last couple of weeks!

Mayor Steinkamp with KMH


Dan Mears AKA: KC Wolf with KMH

KMH preparing to interview KC Wolf

Interviewing the Mayor of Liberty

Happy Halloween - no, this is not our normal school atire.

Mummy in the making

Little Red Goldie Hood

Our Udderly-Amazing room mother who put together our Halloween Party

Mr. Cool Guy hanging out at the St. Louis Arch two weeks ago.

Slacker Part 2

Wow, I did so good for so long and the last two weeks have not been good for updating the blog and a lot of stuff has been going on. I will work backward starting today with a quick run down of events.

Thursday – Today we had the Mayor of Liberty come in to do an interview with KMH. He was incredibly nice and was great with the kids. I always think it is amazing when people take the time out of their busy schedule to come in and talk to the kids. Today we also finally finished our oil and water experiment. I found the video online of oil and water in microgravity. Drum roll please . . . They MIX! They do not separate in zero gravity. That really surprised the kids today. We watched the video and finished up our experiment pages.

Wednesday – I was gone for a meeting in the afternoon and in the morning we worked in the computer lab and the library learning about our visiting author, Roland Smith.

Tuesday – We held small meetings to discuss writing. We also worked on classifying monsters in a dichotomous key.

Monday – My birthday and I had a meeting in the afternoon. The meetings I was in this week were to evaluate companies for a new attendance and grade book programs for the district.

Slacker

Okay so I have been slacking this week and have not updated the blog. Not to make excuses (but here they are) Monday I was worn slick after CHAMPS, Tuesday I was sick, Wednesday was Halloween and I forgot, so here is the post on Thursday. It has been a busy week. First, let me say that we had an outstanding day of CHAMPS, one of my all-time favorites. The kids followed directions, we had a great drug awareness assembly at the end and in general I think the kids got a lot out of the day. Second, I want to thank Mrs. Callstrom for hosting the Halloween party. Parties are always hectic but this one ran really smoothly. I will post pictures later. Today I was gone half a day for a meeting, and I missed half a day on Tuesday because I was sick. The kids did a great job for both subs. That is always a great sign of how good a class is, by how well they do for a sub. So far we haven’t had any problems. Keep up the good work. I also finally found the oil and water video that I have been looking for. I am planning on finishing editing it tomorrow and bringing it in so we can finish our experiment.

Student Reference Book

This is just a quick reminder that the Student Reference Books need to be taken home every single night (except for most Fridays). The reason behind this is that almost every single night the kids will have homework in math. It will either be math boxes, or journal pages. Either way, we want them to have this great resource right at their finger tips if it is needed. 98% of what is in the math journal is covered in the Student Reference Book. The reason I mention this today is because right now there are four student reference books setting on student’s desks that didn’t take them home. There was even a notebook left here at school. I can’t even begin to imagine how this student will do their homework without their notebook. Also, remember that if your child ever forgets something feel free to bring them back up to school. There are janitors here until 9:00. You may have to knock on a door to get their attention and they might grumble a little bit but the bottom line is they will let you into the classroom.

More Pictures

Here are a few more pictures. The first group is of the kids riding a rolling chair to simulate what it was like to be in zero gravity. It works as a very basic simulation because the kids were able to see how hard it was to control yourself in two directions. It also worked on showing the kids what it was like to try to catch the mass of someone else when they were flying-rolling toward you. The last picture is my attemp to recreate our tennis ball experiment with snowballs. When I woke up Saturday morning to an inch of snow on the ground.

Microgravity Pictures

Just a quick post today with the pictures from Colorado. They were finally published online today. You can check out the entire album at http://www.gozerog.com/photos . I am in the Colorado Springs flight. Click on the galary in the middle of the page. The video should get here in the next 2-3 weeks.

KMH: Patriot News

Yesterday I briefly mentioned that KMH: Patriot News, the broadcast club that I sponsor won first place in a video competition that we entered. I just want to say how proud I am of the students in KMH from last year. They did a phenomenal job all year long but especially on their entry into the Reel Spirit Awards. My goal last year when we entered that contest was to touch nothing. The winning broadcast, which you can see by going to: http://www.liberty.k12.mo.us/~mkelsey/KMH , was completely done by the kids. They wrote the scripts, filmed the segments, edited the video, and did all of the green screen effects. I didn’t do anything on that broadcast. Sometimes, especially at the beginning of the year I will center a camera shot for the kids, or do a green screen effect but for that broadcast, it was all the kids. They did an outstanding job. I am super excited for those kids. I can gauruntee that we will be entering again this year. I am typing this on the airplane coming back from Colorado Springs and I can’t wait to get back to school on Monday and see the trophy.

More thoughts about zero G. Our coach told us that for the next couple of days we would feel a little odd after having been weightless. He isn’t kidding. It hits at odd times and doesn’t last long but every once in a while I have a feeling that makes me think about floating around. It isn’t so strong that I feel like I’m floating but it feels like that first second of weightlessness when you just feel like you are getting lighter. Flying today hasn’t been a big deal, I haven’t had the urge to yell, “Feet down – coming out” and I haven’t grabbed onto anything to hold on. But I’m also not on the ground yet. I know that the kids are wondering about something and yes, I will be wearing the flight suit to school tomorrow!

Way Too Short

Flight Path we took over North Dakota

My team!

I just got back a little while ago from the microgravity flight. What an amazing experience! It was unbelievable but WAY too short. It felt like we had barely gotten into the air when it was over. When we got to the hotel this morning, we had a light breakfast (2 small muffins and a banana) then we got into our flight suits. They are really cool with a Weightless Flight of Discovery Patch, and the Zero G logo as well as a name tag. The tag was upside down. From what I was told this is a Navy tradition that Navy pilots do not get to turn their wings upside down until after they have landed successfully on an aircraft carrier. After the flight, the commander met us at the bottom of the steps and turned our name tag and we got a picture taken. After getting cameras stowed away, experiments put away, and got briefed we watched a short movie about all the stuff we would be doing. It was really heavy on safety. I probably heard a hundred times that safety was the number one concern. I was a member of the gold team. We got gold bracelets (like the live strong ones) and gold socks. We put those into a pocket for later. We then made a final pit stop (no bathrooms on the plane) and headed out to the bus. Before we got on, we got wanded with metal detectors and the bus took us straight up to the airplane. Once we got off, we took a bunch of pictures, both of the whole group and just the gold team. It was really cool because almost all of the gold team knew each other from summer classes through the Space Foundation.

Once we got onto the plane, we set in regular seats for takeoff. I was really glad because it was a very turbulent takeoff. Our airspace was over North Dakota. Once we got past the turbulence we got out of our seats and took a few more pictures, then all of a sudden they said we had ten minutes, just enough for a safety meeting, getting out the cameras and planning what we were going to do during the Martian and lunar parabolas. We decided just to enjoy those and we did. We then got the call to lay down and we started pulling Gs. My head was toward the cockpit and my feet toward the tail. Laying down, it wasn’t too bad and you could not tell at all that we were going up at a 50 degree angle. That was one of the really odd things. During take off every time we hit turbulence we could tell the plane was moving and shaking. It was actually pretty disorienting. Then once we got to our area (we were at the front of the plane) I never could tell if we were going up or down. When we first got to Martian gravity, it was awesome. I was doing one handed pushups and just kind of bouncing all over the place. And then we got the call, “feet down coming out” and we scurried back to laying down. Then we pulled more Gs and got the call of Lunar 1 coming up. Again, we got into push up position and you could push yourself up so high that you could almost stand up. Really an odd feeling and very hard to describe. We also did some frog kind of leaps. We couldn’t really jump because we would have smashed our heads but we could king of frog/superman jump toward the camera, loads of fun. Then we had the second Lunar parabola and we all tried to pile on to Kim’s back and let her do pushups, that wasn’t very successful because it becomes so hard to control your body even in 1/8 gravity.

Next, we had a few minutes to prepare for our first zero gravity parabolas. We decided to just enjoy those and man did we. It is really an odd sensation to just float up off of the ground. You kind of have to help yourself get up with a little push. When I say little, I mean with a finger, not all of your fingers but a finger. I made the mistake later of pushing up very slightly with my feet. I went crashing into the ceiling.

Our next parabola we decided to play catch. We had brought some tennis balls for an experiment but the ball we used was cooler. Me. I folded up into a little ball and Bobby and Brian pushed me around the cabin. Then for the next three loops we played catch literally with each other.

Video and picture note. I did not get very many pictures, or much video. It was so hard to steady the camera that it just didn’t work. In 4-6 weeks I will be getting a video from Zero G with all the footage and the pictures should be online by tomorrow.

Next, we got out our experiments. I got out the higher mass ball and the lower mass ball. We did that for one loop and let me tell you, an object in motion really does stay in motion. When we hit the first balls together, they did something (Don’t want to give it away yet) but then Bryan got the tennis ball and completely missed the other ball and it sailed off and I still don’t know where it went.

Kim did a flying pig experiment that didn’t work very well because of technical difficulties and Bobby had a Jacobs’s ladder toy that did some crazy things. After those parabolas, we were down to four and did a few group things like linking arms and flying like superman. We also tried to crawl around the cabin. I really stunk at that. I made it about half way up one wall and then just kind of floated off. Spiderman has nothing to worry about.

Probably the coolest part was the second to last parabola. I didn’t do anything than just kind of push myself around but at one point I ended up spinning upside down and got totally disoriented. I had absolutely no idea which way was up. I thought I was grabbing onto the ceiling and it was the floor, then I thought I had the wall and it was the ceiling. I absolutely know why they say that there is no up or down in space.

Overall it was a phenomenal experience that I would do again in a minute but it was too short. It was one of those things that was amazing but if I had it to do over again, I would do some things differently. I can’t wait to see the video and still pictures. Sorry that mine aren’t very good but when you are floating around and have absolutely no control over which way your body is going, it is tough to focus on taking a picture.

These were the only two pictures I took while actually floating! That is not a sweat stain on Kim, someone had water that got loose.

Group photo, I will post a better picture later when I get them. I'm the tall guy in the middle, right under the o in zero.

Micro-gravity Update

This is Mrs. Kelsey. Mr. Kelsey just called me and told me that their airspace is over North Dakota. He doesn't have flight number but he said that you can go and look for the COS airport code. Then you will have to look for a flight that is departing and landing from Colorado Springs. It is the only flight that does that this morning. Have a great weekend and Mr. Kelsey can't wait to share all his excitement and pictures with you on Monday.

Dallas

I've made it half way to my destination of Colorado Springs. I'm just putting a short post up now to put this picture up that I thought was cool. This is the flight path that my plane took. I don't have much time because they moved my gate and I only have a few minutes. Also, if you are in my class, or not, and want to send me an email, I would love to hear from you. Probably won't check things until after the flight tomorrow since it will be late when I get in and an early day tomorrow.

Microgravity Hodge Podge

Okay, here it goes. I am going to attempt to give out all of the information that I know about my upcoming flight. I think I have touched on a few of these things in previous posts but I have found some really cool pictures in the last couple of days to go with it. First, the picture below is the plane I will be flying in on Saturday. This is not a doctored photo, this is actually the angle that it will go up on. A normal airplane takes off at a 20 degree angle. We will be going up at a 50 degree angle.

I don’t know my flight number yet. I will try to call my wife and have her post it to the blog on Saturday morning so that you can follow along if you want. The web site is http://www.flightaware.com/ . Basically you can go into the site and enter whatever information you know (tale number, flight number, airport, etc.) and follow along with the flight. Even if you don’t follow along in real time, you can go back in later and see the path that we took. I’m really interested to see where we fly. My guess is that it won’t be over the mountains. I would guess that we will actually be over western Kansas for most of the flight but I don’t know. Some of the other flights from California and Washington D.C. have flown out over the ocean. They try to put us away from all other aircraft because in the past when other pilots have seen a plane going down at a 45 or 50 degree angle they have put in distress calls.

I meet up with everyone at a hotel in Colorado Springs at 7:00 on Saturday morning. We then have a briefing and a light breakfast. We are supposed to avoid milk and eggs but instead have more bread type foods. Fine with me, I don’t like eggs and love cinnamon rolls. Then we have the TSA screening. I thought this was kind of odd that it was at the hotel rather than the airport. After that we get on a bus and head to the airport. We actually go out on the runway to load up on the plane. I think they will be taking some group pictures out there. We are supposed to take off at 10:30 Colorado Springs time. That is 11:30 Kansas City time.

When we load up onto the plane there are 35 seats at the back that we will set in for takeoff and landing. Once we get up to cruising altitude we will get out of our seats take off our shoes and put on colored socks. The socks tell us what part of the cabin we are supposed to be in. The main part of the plane is a padded room. (insert your own joke here). In each of the three areas, there are two video cameras. We are also allowed to bring cameras and video cameras. I am bringing both.

Once we start flying our parabolas, we will go out and lay down in the cabin. We do this to help us pull the G forces. In the bottom of the parabolas we will be pulling almost 2 G’s. It shouldn’t be too bad but when you get 2 G’s right after being weightless it might be a little disorienting. That is why we lay down. The first parabola will be a little shallower and will simulate the gravity on Mars (1/3). The second two parabolas simulate lunar gravity (1/8) and the remaining 12 parabolas will be zero gravity. They come in sets of three. The first three we have no experiments planned. Each of the last sets of parabolas we have some simple experiments planned. I’m not going go into those too much since I have already done that.

While I don't know my flight information yet for the microgravity flight, I do know my flight information for Friday and Sunday. These are just normal flights but if you want to practice or see "Where in the World is Mr. Kelsey," the information is below:

Friday, October 19

Leaving KCI (MCI is the airport code) flying to Dallas (DFW) - 6:00

American Airlines 1069

Leavign Dallas flying to Colorado Springs (COS) - 8:25

American Airlines 829

Sunday, October 21

Leaving Colorado Springs flying to Dallas - 11:15

American Airlines 1882

Leaving Dallas flying to Kansas City - 3:40

American Airlines 2036

I have a couple of main goals for the flight. Obviously I want to enjoy it. I don’t think I will be able to keep from having fun. Second, there are a couple of pictures that I want. One of me and my friend Bobby with one of us right side up and the other upside down. I also have a mystery picture I want. I will tell more about that later, after the flight). I also want to get good usable video of the experiments.

One of the kids asked me today what I am looking the most forward to on the trip. I wasn’t sure how to answer. There are so many things that I think will be amazing but probably what I really want to savor is the first sensations of being weightless, the first parabola of zero gravity where I will be laying on the floor and will just float off of the ground. I think that is the part I’m looking the most forward to.