Leap Day!

All months of the year have 30 or 31 days, but February always has less than that. In most years, February has 28 days. But every fourth year (mostly), February gets an extra day, so it has 29 days. This year, 2012, is one of those years and is called a leap year. The last leap year was four years ago in 2008; the next leap year will be 2016. See the pattern?

Some people call that extra February day, the 29th, Leap Day. And that day is today! I wish we could be in school to talk about it, but since it's vacation week, this blog post will have to do.

The extra day every four years has to do with the amount of time it takes for the Earth to go all the way around the sun once. We know that's one year, and a year is 365 days. But it actually take the Earth just a few hours more than that to orbit the Sun - it's about 365 ¼ days. A quarter of a day is 24 divided by 4 or 6 hours. And 6 extra hours every year for 4 years equals 24 hours - and that's the extra day, the Leap Day.

If there were no Leap Day, the seasons would slowly shift over time and, in about 700 years, we'd have snow in June and beach weather in December! Whoever thought of Leap Day was a really good thinker and problem-solver!

December 31, 2010 - Happy New Year already???

Good morning! It's 7 o'clock on Friday, December 31, the last day of this year, 2010.  I just had breakfast and, while I was finishing my orange juice, I hopped on the computer to wish a Happy New Year to my brother Mark who is working in Antarctica. Because right this minute, while I'm still in slippers having my Friday breakfast, Mark has already started his new day - Saturday, January 1, 2011. It's already tomorrow and it's already the new year where he is! Isn't that odd? It's because my brother Mark is in a different time zone.

Time zones are man-made technology. Back in the old (old!) days, people measured time by noticing where the sun was: it appeared in the morning, it was overhead at noon, and it set in the evening. But then clocks were invented to tell time and that created a real problem. How could the sun be overhead at 12 o'clock noon in places like Danbury, California, Africa, Japan - all at the same time? It can't, because the our Big Blue Ball turns in space and the sun is overhead in different parts of the world at different times. So someone invented time zones so that it's 12 o'clock noon in whatever places on Earth the sun is overhead. And, because there are 24 hours in the day, there are 24 time zones on Earth - and 24 noontimes! That also means there are 24 midnights - which is why my brother Mark has already had his midnight and it's already tomorrow, January 1st!

This is pretty good technology but it can also be confusing. Here's a short video that tells about time zones. And click here for a world clock that will show you what time it is where you live and in other parts of the world.

So Happy New Year to all you kids in Danbury - in about 17 hours!

My brother in Antarctica -
that's a sleeping seal on the ice behind him!

A Gift for You!

Christmas week both second and third graders used TuxPaint, a free painting program, to draw a seasonal picture and make a label or a sentence about their work. You can have TuxPaint on your computer at home, too - download it here. Happy Holidays!!

Slideshow!

Using photographs taken at Riverday, fourth graders each compiled and narrated a short movie using iMovie. Then they used the same pictures to make an online slide show on Animoto, a free slideshow program on the internet. They chose music from freeplaymusic.com to accompany their brief show. After they downloaded and saved a copy of their work to their digital portfolios here at school, they embedded the slide show into their blogs. Here's an example of one student's work:

Veterans' Day

Students at DES performed their traditional Veterans' Day assembly not only for the invited local veterans but also live for members of the armed forces stationed in Baghdad. Using Skype, free videochat software, students were able to sing, recite poetry, and read original work to audiences both here and on the other side of the world! We even had a chance to ask the servicemen and women some questions about their work in Iraq.