Tuesday, March 03, 2009

Brief Reprieve

It snowed three inches in Seattle last Thursday, and today I'm sunbathing on the porch with Ichi and Watson. I stayed up until 4am last night working on my literacy projects. I should probably be napping, but the sun feels amazing, especially with the weight of those literacy papers off of my scrawny shoulders.

This morning I woke up to my second alarm clock (my phone), which I rarely ever set. I have no recollection of a first alarm clock or subsequent snooze attempts, but the cell phone blare definitely woke me up. I stumbled downstairs and while walking down the stairs, I heard a slight commotion coming from the kitchen. There wasn't meowing going on, so I hesitated before opening the door. When I peaked my head into the kitchen, I saw what looked like a blue jay (or a blue bird) flapping its wings and trying to fly out of the closed windows. Watson was inside, sitting on the kitchen table staring up at the bird, and Ichi was outside on the hot tub cover pawing at the bird from the other side of the window.

I opened the back door and tried shooing the bird outside, but it, and its eye-ball piercing beak had other ideas. Eventually, I grabbed a towel and covered the bird, and carried it outside and placed it on a branch. It flew/hopped into the interior of the tree, with a damaged wing. I had wondered if our cats might go after bigger birds one of these days, and that question was answered this morning. The bird this morning was about the size of my hand, and could probably do some damage to our cats, if our cats weren't such good hunters!

I've got a resume to start on, and an observed lesson plan I need to start writing for Thursday afternoon. I also need to head inside and not get a March 3rd sun burn. Mom pointed out to me that today is square root day, 3/3/9. She said the next square root day will not happen until 4/4/16. Why doesn't 9/9/09 count? Does it have to be the whole equation, or does each number just need to be a square number? 4/4/09?

Speaking of math, Dr. Chako responded quickly with an answer to Math Question #2. He got the same answer I got quickly, until the math teacher said there are more boxes. "Try to create a square with an area of two," she said. "If you can create a square with an area of two, you will see how to create additional squares with areas of more than just 1, 4, 9, and 16."

The questions remain, from a 5x5 dot drawing, by connecting dots with a straight line:
1) How many different-sized squares can you make?
2) How many total squares can you make?

Labels: ,

3 Comments:

Blogger DrChako said...

I'm reminded of an old Star Trek movie - it may have been The Wrath of Khan - where they defeated the enemy because he was a linear thinker and they came at him from below.

Of course, I did not consider rotating the box 45 degrees. With this addition, you can add (to my previous totals):

2 units - 9 boxes
4 units - 1 box

-DrC

3:57 PM  
Blogger MHG said...

I concur with your 9 boxes of two units, but you have already said you can make 9 boxes that have an area of four units (2x2 squares). Are you certain the area of this new box is four units?

4:30 PM  
Blogger DrChako said...

Oops - meant to say that the one large 45 degree box is 8 units (a central 2x2 box and 8 peripheral 1/2 boxes).

Clever.

-DrC

6:53 PM  

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home