Flat Harry has a Round Dog

Harry finally made it home after the snowstorm, and he had to spend some time with their favorite dog, Maggie! She was really happy to see him, too. She greeted him and Amy at the door and licked both of their faces to say "hi!" 

 

Maggie looks small, but she's not a puppy. Maggie is 8 years old.Maggie is small because she's a mix between two breeds of dog known as a Chihuahua and a Feist. You can see from the pictures that both dogs have big ears and colored spots above their eyes just like Maggie does. 

 a Chihuahua and a Feist make...

MAGGIE!

After making sure that Amy and Harry were safe, Maggie quickly began sniffing to see if Amy or Harry had any treats in their pockets. Maggie loves food, especially alligator jerky and salmon chunks. Harry and Amy think the food she eats is kind of disgusting, but Maggie seems to think it's delicious. The only trick Maggie knows is how to sit, so anytime she wants to beg for food, she sits on the floor and stares at you with big puppy dog eyes. Harry couldn't resist giving her a treat. 

Harry and Amy hold a treat in their hands for Maggie. She can't see it, but she knows it's there.

 

Resources: 

http://lostdogrescue.org/dogs/41247/caroline-2

http://www.dogbreedinfo.com/chihuahua.htm

Flat Harry in the Snow!

On Tuesday, there was a "light dusting" of snow predicted for the Birmingham area, but the meteorologists' predictions were a little bit off. Birmingham got a couple of inches of snow, but it came down quickly and was very icy. Even though UAB cancelled classes at 12pm, by that time there were so many cars on the road that traffic was at a stand-still.

A lot of UAB students and staff became stranded at the University, and many more people became stuck in their cars on interstates and roads throughout Birmingham. Some people ran out of gas and had to walk in the frigid snow in order to get home or to get to a safe place like a gas station. With phone service being weak due to the storm and with the chaos of traffic and car wrecks, lots of people were worried and upset that day.

Harry watches the weather channel while newscasters report about cars getting stuck on the roads. 

Thankfully, Harry had friends who lived in the dorms at UAB, and he was able to stay overnight on campus. Alabama very rarely has snow, so Harry got to enjoy making snow angels, having snow ball fights, and catching snowflakes on his tongue. 

Harry is making a beautiful snow angel.

Harry enjoys playing in the snow! 

Harry loves being with friends and playing together.

Later in the day, Harry even got to sled down the side of a hill between Blazer Hall and Camp Hall. Many students were using cardboard boxes, laundry baskets, sign boards, and even "Wet Floor" signs to sled down the hill. Harry really liked the snow, but he hopes that in the future the storm will not be as bad.


Harry got to go sledding with his friend Shannon!

Flat Harry goes to Bible Study!

Baptist Campus Ministries (also known as BCM) is an organization on UAB's campus that has weekly worship and service meetings on Thursday nights at 8:30pm. Harry loves visiting each week as a group of UAB students come to hang out and learn more about God. 

On Monday night, Harry visited the Upperclassmen Women's Bible Study (honorarily). It was cold outside with snow being predicted for later in the week, so Harry bundled up in his Hogwarts sweater and walked to the BCM building behind CVS on campus. After he was buzzed into the building, he met up with his group of seven friends who were waiting for him in the meeting room. 

Harry is arriving at the BCM!

The group had been learning about the book of Esther and Harry was excited to listen as the next chapter was read. Shannon and Emily lead a discussion about making difficult decisions, being blessed, and following God's will. Fun fact: Esther is the only book of the Bible that doesn't have the word "God" in it! After the Bible study, the group went over their "positives" of the week and prayed for everyone's prayer request. Harry loved being able to meet friends and learn more about the Bible!

Courtney, Amy, Emily, Nia, Heidi, Brooke, and Shannon pose with Harry. 

If you ever want to learn more about the BCM, you can visit the website reachallblazers.com.

Flat Harry goes to a Potluck

Flat Harry has lots of friends who make delicious food, so every once in a while they have a big potluck. One Tuesday night, Harry and all of his 3-dimensional friends each made a dish and met together in his friend, Shefa's, dorm room in Denman Hall. All of the foods were "warm and fuzzy" with fresh baked chocolate chip cookies, steaming potato soup, enchiladas, casserole, and chili. It was the perfect menu of foods that make you feel cozy and full. 

Harry helped his friend Julia make a special recipe of bread pudding using Krispy Kreme donuts that were left over from a fundraising sale. Julia and Harry chopped up the donuts, added milk, eggs, and cinnamon, and then baked the sweet dessert for thirty minutes. Everyone loved it!

Harry did a great job cooking the Krispy Kreme pudding!

Harry also helped stir the chili for Shefa. 

Harry loves eating raw cookie dough, but he gets angry if anyone else tries to share!

A great app to use while cooking, especially with children, is Nicolas' Garden. This app works on iPhones and iPads and provides an easy-to-understand list of ingredients and utensils needed to cook many different dishes as well as a step-by-step recipe to help children cook. 

This app is free and very simple to use. The design is child-friendly with larger text and areas check off ingredients that are used as they are added to the dish.  The search function is straightforward and the content has been reviewed and approved for students. 

This app is a great connection to talking about chemical changes that happen while cooking. The class can find a recipe that would require a chemical change like baking a cake and find a recipe where there is only a physical change like cutting a vegetable. 

Recipes and cooking can also be used as an approach to teaching fractions. Students may be assigned to find a recipe that uses fractions and find out how many ingredients they would need if they doubled or halved the recipe. 

A note of caution for this app is that there is a lot of pages and connections to a "review" area for each recipe that is public information. As a solution, the teacher may want to only use the app for whole group instruction, or the teacher may turn off the wi-fi and posting ability once the students have the iPad. 

Science 3rd grade : 2.) Identify physical and chemical changes of matter.

Math Fractions: 

3rd grade - 13.) Understand a fraction ¹/b as the quantity formed by 1 part when a whole is partitioned into b equal parts; understand a fraction a/b as the quantity formed by a parts and size ¹/b. [3-NF1]

4th grade - 15.) Apply and extend previous understandings of multiplication to multiply a fraction by a whole number. [4-NF4]

5th grade - 14.) Apply and extend previous understandings of multiplication to multiply a fraction or whole number by a fraction. [5-NF4]

Flat Harry goes to Sloss Furnace!

Harry wanted to learn more about Birmingham history while he was staying with Amy, so he decided to take a virtual tour of some local landmarks. He was really interested in an old factory area that he heard was popular during Halloween. There are lots of youtube videos, picture slideshows, and other information online about Sloss Furnaces. By visiting the Sloss Furnace website, Harry found lots of pictures and a history of when the furnace began and when the museum officially opened. By searching on youtube, there was a great video that showed pictures of the different areas of Sloss Furnace along with pictures from the past. This video was narrated with information about why the Furnace was important to Birmingham, how each area of the furnaces does, and the process/steps of the furnace. There was also another walkthrough video that is silent but shows what it feels like to walk around the big metal areas of the furnace.

It would be great to use this virtual fieldtrip in place of a full-scale field trip because it's free, takes less time and resources, and it can be done inside regardless of the weather. In my classroom, I could choose certain parts of the 13 minute video that I wanted to focus on or highlight, and I could pause and restart areas as needed. We could also split the virtual field trip into multiple days as we focus on different parts of Alabama history or learning about factories. Although it would be wonderful to have students visit in person so they could understand the scale of the factory, having a virtual visit is still effective.



Resources:
Sloss Furnace website: http://slossfurnaces.com/history/years-following-the-civil-war/
walkthrough: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAE1rQJoWPA
narrated history: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWigNVMMLdQ&feature=youtu.be

Flat Harry spends a day in the life of Amy

Since Harry is new in town after starting his blog, he spent the day traveling with Amy everywhere she went. Amy has a very busy schedule, so they started off early in the morning to go to classes at UAB. Amy takes four classes each day to learn about how to teach students Social Studies, Science, Math, and Reading. During Amy's study break, Flat Harry met up with Flat Fiona to do some studying of his own.  

Harry and Fiona are nervous about the upcoming test!

After finishing up the last class of the day, Amy and Harry headed off to work. Amy works at a desk where she makes phone calls to YMCA members to welcome them to the Y and do surveys to make sure they are enjoying their memberships. Harry explored Amy's desk, took a nice relaxing nap by her desk-sized bamboo plant, and even got to make a phone call!

Later in the afternoon, the duo went home to unwind and finish up some homework. It was a long day filled with lots of work, but Harry is loving his new life!