Category Archives: by Mr Milloy

A good news for the future Friday story

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In all the good comeback stories, it seems like there is some morale boost that helps the team or the hero turn away from the prospect of loss or failure to instead focus on possibilities and finding a light at the end of the tunnel. So here are a couple of good news stories for the future for this Friday.

One is the recent birth of a bison, a species that was once nearing extinction.

While the bison have been reintroduced with some good success and can now be found in some protected parks and on some ranches, work goes on to try to save other species in much more immediate danger of disappearing.

So as you finish up working on other assigned tasks for this week (and even return to earlier posts to add a #CovidKindness joke or a line of verse), take a moment to look at these positive lights and bright prospects. Because focusing too much on what is not going well isn’t going to help us pick up steam and make progress whie the Fridays4Future movement to combat climate change does carry on.

A math game with its own theme song

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I saw this game a while ago from Dan Finkel’s Math4Love site. We’ve used other activities based on ideas presented there. Students may remember trying to guess my rule, playing Target Number, or playing the Prime Climb board game; these all came from Math4Love. The game I’d like to introduce to you here is called Horseshoes.

This game is great for many reasons, not least of which being that it now has its own theme song! Please check it out in the video here. It will help if you can do so before our meeting later today so we can play it together (even while we are working remotely online). You can record your thinking any way you like when we play; if you like, you can use this document, which is set up a little like the whiteboards seen in the video.

Of course you can try it out before we meet and bring any questions you might have. You can also play the game anytime with family or friends (even on your own, why not?).

I still hope you’ll find some jokes to add to the comments in the last blog post. (That Joy4All joke hotline I mentioned recently is still making the news, by the way). So with that in mind, here is another amusing image from @McKellarMath.

funny talking math symbols

(If you’ve looked at my copy of Math Doesn’t Suck, you’ll be familiar with Ms McKellar’s work. Anyone old enough may remember the character she played on TV’s The Wonder Years when she was about your age. She’s still living her double life as both actor and mathematician!)

…
How close can you get?
One, four and eight, nine, ten, yeah
You almost got it, try it a gain…

We could all use (another) laugh

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Updated May 27

I’m still hoping to see some of your jokes in the comments, and I’m hoping some (or some one) of you can tell the joke that goes with the picture at the end of this post (tweeted by Danica McKellar @McKellarMath). For now, here are a couple of to help get you started:

Question: What did the poet say to Luke Skywalker?
Answer: “Metaphors be with you.” (from Poetry Fountain)

Question: How long has Anakin Skywalker been evil?
Answer: Since the Sith Grade. (from Fatherly)

Our special guest at our recent class meeting brought some good stories, positive messages and more than a couple of good laughs. That is something we could all use: a regular healthy dose of smiles and laughter. That’s not news to six-year-old Callaghan McLaughlin from Saanich, B.C., whom we read about recently with his joke stand spreading #CovidKindness. And it made me smile again to read about how some Calgary high school students have started a joke telephone hotline.

Intending to give a little boost to the spirit and spread a little joy to seniors currently isolated at home, the teens have recorded jokes and stories along with positive messages and poems which folks can listen to over the phone. They’ve called it the Joy4ALL Project and included “JOY4ALL” in the toll-free phone number. What a wonderful idea! And it has gained some big-time attention and praise from big-time comedy. James Corden, the host of The Late Show on CBS, featured the teens’ Joy4All project in one of his segments. He also seems to have recruited comedy star Billy Crystal to lend his talents to the teens’ efforts by recording a couple of jokes for the hotline.

We are currently working on writing and recording some poetry, and it’s no surprise that the funnier verses tend to be our favourites. Why shouldn’t we record ourselves reading a few more of these? Members of our current class are hereby challenged to find a joke or funny poem to add to your recordings (scroll through some of our old favourite verses found on the poetry foundation site and you can search there for amusing work by Jack Prelutsky, Kenn Nesbitt, & Shel Silverstein for starters).

Have you got a good joke to share (or a real groaner)? Actor, author and mathematician, Danica McKellar, tweeted this image based on a well-worn math joke. Do you know it, or can you take a guess at what it is? Leave your guess or another joke or short humourous verse in a comment.

We could all use a laugh

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Our special guest at our recent class meeting brought some good stories, positive messages and more than a couple of good laughs. That is something we could all use: a regular healthy dose of smiles and laughter. That’s not news to six-year-old Callaghan McLaughlin from Saanich, B.C., whom we read about recently with his joke stand spreading #CovidKindness. And it made me smile again to read about how some Calgary high school students have started a joke telephone hotline.

Intending to give a little boost to the spirit and spread a little joy to seniors currently isolated at home, the teens have recorded jokes and stories along with positive messages and poems which folks can listen to over the phone. They’ve called it the Joy4ALL Project and included “JOY4ALL” in the toll-free phone number. What a wonderful idea! And it has gained some big-time attention and praise from big-time comedy. James Corden, the host of The Late Show on CBS, featured the teens’ Joy4All project in one of his segments. He also seems to have recruited comedy star Billy Crystal to lend his talents to the teens’ efforts by recording a couple of jokes for the hotline.

We are currently working on writing and recording some poetry, and it’s no surprise that the funnier verses tend to be our favourites. Why shouldn’t we record ourselves reading a few more of these? Members of our current class are hereby challenged to find a joke or funny poem to add to your recordings (scroll through some of our old favourite verses found on the poetry foundation site and you can search there for amusing work by Jack Prelutsky, Kenn Nesbitt, & Shel Silverstein for starters).

Have you got a good joke to share (or a real groaner)? Actor, author and mathematician, Danica McKellar, tweeted this image based on a well-worn math joke. Do you know it, or can you take a guess at what it is? Leave your guess or another joke or short humourous verse in a comment.

Blast from the past

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I hope that everyone will be able to make it to our class meeting, even with its move to MONDAY MORNING this week. I am especially looking forward to this meeting because we will be joined by special guest and Dvision 3 alumnus, Roshen Jaswal, who was in grade 6 when he was last a student in our room. Roshen has kindly kept in touch over the years since and has agreed to join us to share some memories and a little of his story of what life has been like for him after surviving Division 3.

As you continue working on various activities (some new and some extending from last week), I also want to draw your attention to a couple of stories that I have come across in the news this week about two of the most notable and most inspiring individuals from our province who set out to bring attention to how we can overcome our own challenges and can help improve the lives of others when we join together.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of Terry Fox’s Marathon of Hope. You may have heard how Addidas, the company who helped sponsor Terry’s run 40 years ago by providing him with shoes (he needed a lot of shoes!) released a special, limited edition shoe last week modelled after the runners Terry wore with all proceeds going to the Terry Fox Foundation. The shoes sold out online in mere minutes. These photos tell the story well, check them out.

Rick Hansen
Rick Hanson is marking the 35th anniversary of his Man in Motion tour (when he travelled all the way around the world in his wheelchair to raise funds and awareness for accessibility and spinal cord injury research) by donating almost 2000 pieces of memorabilia from his tour to the Canadian History Museum. In his interview with CBC’s On the Coast, Rick talks about memories of the tour, his friendship with Terry Fox and their wheelchair basketball games together and how he carried a small statue of Terry with him on his tour to help him maintain his spirits and determination.

As we continue working through our current situation and conquering all our collective and individual obstacles, I hope we might be once again inspired by these individuals, and maybe not just because their challenges and their successes seem so great (which they were and are) but because their determination and ultimately their success came out of the desire to do good for others. We CAN get there faster if we all move together.

Friday Finish

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I’m hoping now that Friday’s come
You’ve found all that you seek
And did what needed to get done
To wrap up this (short) week

We read of more than just one kid
Inspired to create
Some #CovidKindness acts they did
To make these days feel great

In games of chance you used your skill
And calculated odds
Your bingo play made buckets fill
Creating smiles and nods

The words of poets whom you’ve read
To help with writing verse
Word play, you’ll see (What’s that you said?)
It’s FUN! (or could be worse).

That video not finished yet?
There’s time left on the clock
Shoot a few seconds: Ready. Set.
And send me (not TikTok).

Let’s wrap this up; it’s going fine
One more request from me
In comments, YOU write the next line
____ ______ ____ ______ ____ ______