Connecting Math to Our Lives Math Introductions 2003-2004   Ohio, United States of América: Class introduction from teacher Mrs. Patti Burwinkel and students (ages 9-10) in her two 4th grade math classes. Greetings from Cincinnati, Ohio USA! Hello! We are the 4th graders from Nativity School in Cincinnati, Ohio U.S.A. Cincinnati is located in the southwestern corner of the state of Ohio. Ohio is one of the 50 states in the United States. Ohio is just south of Lake Erie, one of the 5 Great Lakes. We are at 39 degrees 8 minutes North latitude, and 84 degrees 30 minutes West longitude. There are 24 girls and 25 boys in Grade 4 this year, for a total of 49 students. We are split into 2 classes. Mrs. Burwinkel is our Math teacher. We range in age from 9 to 10 years old. Our school is 90 years old and has grades Kindergarten to Grade 8. We are a private Catholic school and our church is right next door to our school. Our name, Nativity, is taken from the birth of Jesus Christ. We get 7 classes (Math, Social Studies, Language Arts, Religion, Reading, Science and Health) every day and 5 special classes (Art, Physical Education, Library, Band, and Choir) once or twice a week. We go to school from 8 am to 3 pm. We have 13 computers in our classroom so we can work on them almost every day. Our school motto is "Nativity- A Great Place to Be". We think it is! We do lots of neat things. We have buddies in other grade levels, a variety show, a foreign exchange program, community service projects, field trips and so much more we can hardly count. We also have an outdoor land lab and bird feeding station where we can do science experiments. We have a large play structure that we call Natropolis for recess time. This February there is a group coming to Nativity called "The Young Americans". They will conduct a 3 day program teaching students in grades 4 to high school all about the performing arts of singing, dancing, and acting. At the end of their time with us, they will direct us in a show demonstrating all they have taught us. We are really looking forward to them coming. 31 of the 49 4th graders have signed up to be in the program so far. Cincinnati is on the Ohio River. The Ohio is a working river and you can see barges there all the time. The barges haul coal to Cincinnati for us to use as fuel for heat in the winter months. There are 4 bridges that cross the Ohio River in Cincinnati. Our city is also building a new museum near the riverfront. It is dedicated to the Underground Railroad, a secret system that helped slaves in the south escape during our country's Civil War. We have 2 stadiums on the riverfront - a new one for our football team (the Bengals) and a brand new one for our baseball team (the Reds). We also have 2 college basketball teams that many students cheer for. Our climate is seasonal. We have 4 seasons. It is hot and humid in the summer, cool and wet in the fall, cold and snowy in the winter, and warm and wet in the spring. The class voted that fall is the most beautiful season of the year because the leaves change colors and fall off the trees. Fall got 21 votes to win. Lots of the other people voted for winter because of the snow. Our class is really looking forward to working with the other schools that are a part of this program. We want to use latitude and longitude numbers of all the schools to pinpoint your location on the world map in our classroom. Be sure to send your numbers to us. We hope that a class somewhere would want to partner with us. Last year we had a wonderful exchange with a group from Argentina which we just finished in December. Now we'd like to work with someone else. We have made collages and paragraphs of what Math means to us and have done interviews of adults to find out how they use Math in their lives. We'd like to send our work to a partner and have a partner send something back to us. We'd also like to exchange a culture box with that partner school. Please feel free to write us anytime. We love to learn about other countries and what it is like to live in them. Maybe you could even visit us someday!! We will have an exchange delegation to and from Finland this year and there is a possibility of a exchange with a school in Malaysia next year. Nativity is a very busy place. We hope you have enjoyed hearing from us. We look forward to hearing from you.