Getting to Know You

Yipee, classes are finally under way!  It was wonderful meeting students who I'd not worked with before and to reconnect with those I already know.  The goals of the first week of classes were to get to know each other, and to start encrypting and decrypting messages.  We also talked about this year's theme; Top Secret Communication!  We will be looking at communication in general, as well as investigating codes and ciphers.  We will also be creating our own virtual radio station.  Students in all the classes had some great ideas for the virtual radio station; I'm really looking forward to that coming together later on in the year.  

For the first part of the year we will be spending time learning about different ciphers and codes.  In week 1 we learned about the Caesar shift cipher (try saying that 10 times fast!)  Students encrypted and decrypted messages using this cipher.  Here's another message to decrypt (it has a Caesar shift of 3--use the alphabet strip below to help you solve it):

Question:  Why didn't the teddy bear eat his lunch? 

Answer:  EHFDXVH KH ZDV VWXIIHG!

I know, it's a groaner.

That's all for now, thanks for checking in.

Classes Start Right After Thanksgiving!

It's finally almost time for classes to start up!  I prepared the video below to introduce myself and this year's theme; I encourage students to watch it with their parents.  Hopefully the video will get students curious and/or excited about the theme.  And for those students who don't know me, perhaps after watching the video they will feel like they know me at least a little bit.

I will be e-mailing reminders home to families with their child's class time and day later in the week.  Classes start right after Thanksgiving Monday; I can't wait!