UV Index Awareness

UV Awareness is a very helpful and interesting website I found online. There are daily charts that show hourly UV Index scores for locations all over the world. Here in Portland, Oregon, I can view the chart that shows when I am at risk for greatest ultraviolet radiation from the sun. I have always thought that the hottest time of the day (typically late afternoon) is when I am more likely to get a sunburn. However, according to the UV Index chart, the highest risk is usually when the sun is highest in the sky, around 1pm.

This can help me by giving me an idea when the best time to go jogging outside is, or when I might need to put on sunscreen. I am especially aware of it now, with children of my own who enjoy playing outside.

The site also provides tips about how to protect yourself based on the specific UV Index score, the risks, and other additional information as well.

Stay safe out there in the electromagnetic radiation!

Google Voice Search for Toddlers

I have been having fun with my family so far this summer, and a highlight is a video I made with my daughter, Delaney. She babble talks all day long, so I thought it would be awesome if Google had a product to translate what she is saying! I couldn't get the idea out of my head, so I turned it into a video. Enjoy!
--Mr. Riedl

Google Voice Search for Toddlers - Mr. Riedl

Portland Stags: Western Conference Finals on Saturday!

I have mentioned the Portland Stags to my students a few times throughout the past year. For those who haven't heard, they are the newest professional sports team in the Portland area. It's also a brand new professional sport: Ultimate!

My love for ultimate (a.k.a. Ultimate Frisbee) grew in college when I played with buddies almost every day. It is definitely my favorite sport (tied with baseball) because of the beauty of the disc flying through the air, the amazing layouts, and the great exercise and athleticism needed to play well.

Major League Ultimate (MLU) was introduced in 2012. There is also a competing professional ultimate league called the American Ultimate Disc League (AUDL), which originated on the East Coast. The Portland Stags is the only ultimate team in the Portland area, so naturally, the MLU is better than the AUDL in my book. :-) Time will tell which league comes out on top with popularity in the future.

Anyway, back to the Portland Stags. Last year, they were a league-worst with 1 win and 9 losses. This year, however, they have done a complete 180 with 8 wins and 2 losses. This has allowed them to play in the Western Conference Finals this Saturday, against the Vancouver Nighthawks. Read more about the Stags' journey here.

It's definitely going to be a great game. It will be the first time I attend an ultimate game in person that I'm not actually playing in. :-) Usually I play in a weekly pick-up game with other men and women at Duniway Park in downtown Portland. On Saturday, though, I'll be going with my wife, Jen, to see an amazing match up of the best ultimate players in the Northwest!

If you want to join us and come cheer them on, you can buy tickets here. The game is on Saturday, June 28, at 7pm. You can also watch a live stream of the game online at mlultimate.com.

Go Stags!!!

Fifth Grade Happy Music Video!

Both fifth grade classes joined forces to bring you these end-of-the-year videos for the 2013-2014 school year!

The fifth graders had a lot of fun filming, and they gave up a lot of recess time! About 100% of the filming took place during recesses over the past two months. What a great way to remember the school year! All of our students were filmed for the main video, and there was so much footage I had to spill it over into a bonus video as well. And, of course, the bloopers were classic!

A large majority of the ideas for each of the scenes also came from the students. Usually I just told them, "Alright, what do you want to do? Where are we going to go?" Without their ideas and help, it would not have been such a success! Great job, you guys!! :-)

The three videos are embedded below. Enjoy!

Happy - 5th Grade at West Hills Christian School - YouTube

Happy BONUS FOOTAGE - 5th Grade at West Hills Christian School - YouTube

Happy BLOOPERS - 5th Grade at West Hills Christian School - YouTube

My trek to school through the snow and ice

Quite a lot of snow and freezing rain fell in Portland this weekend. Needing to go back to school to pick up a few things and to do some grading, I decided to document my trek through the snow and ice. Enjoy!

My trek to school through the snow and ice - Mr. Riedl

Destroying a Prince Rupert's Drop in Slow Motion = AWESOME

I often show clips from Smarter Every Day to my students and have linked to Destin's other videos on my blog in the past. This recent episode literally caused my jaw to drop to the floor (Okay, not literally... but it is seriously amazing! Keep reading!).

A Prince Rupert's Drop is a glass object created by dripping molten glass into cold water. It looks something like a tadpole with a long squiggly tail. Because of it's amazing physical structure, it can withstand high amounts of pressure on the larger end without breaking, but if the tail is even slightly damaged, it EXPLODES!!!

Destin from Smarter Every Day filmed this in slow motion (130,000 fps!) to show exactly how it breaks. This is such an amazing technological feat to be able to see something like this, you MUST watch this video below! Hopefully you are as in awe of science as I am right now. :-)
--Mr. Riedl

http://youtu.be/xe-f4gokRBs

End-of-the-Year Slideshow

Embedded below is the end-of-the-year slideshow that I showed my students on the last day of school. I edited a few things since they watched it, including added background music, no repeated pics, and a nice memorable video clip at the end.

Enjoy! I'll miss you all!
--Mr. Riedl

http://youtu.be/jt8lhaqzzcU

Lots of photos!

Here are a bunch of photos from the last few weeks that I finally found time to post on the website.
Enjoy!
--Mr. Riedl
instagram.com/mrriedl

Lip Dub video! - Books of the Old Testament

I finished editing the video! The 5th graders worked amazingly hard filming the video, and the final product is revealed below! We discovered the song on YouTube just a few weeks ago, memorized the books of the Old Testament, and decided to film a lip dub video. It seems like an easy task, but wow! What a lot of hard work. It definitely shows.

Thanks to everyone involved... enjoy!

--Mr. Riedl

http://youtu.be/PRbWEUpBl6g

P.S. - Bloopers coming soon! :-) Not likely, unless I have time in the summer. Sorry!

Serving Multnomah neighborhood, simple machines, recess, and more

instagram.com/mrriedl

Videos: Real beauty & shadow art dancing

Below are two viral videos currently being viewed across the globe. I wanted to share them both because of the depth and meaning behind each one.

In the first video, Dove shows a fascinating experiment they created, called Real Beauty Sketches. The idea is to have a professional sketch artist draw a person's own description of what the person looks like, and then a new sketch of another person's description of the same person. The differences are startling. "You are more beautiful than you think" is the tagline of the project. I hope to continually remind my wife and daughter that their beauty is deeper than the image reflected back in the mirror, and that we ought to ultimately look to Jesus' heart for beauty.

In the second video, Britain's Got Talent introduced Attraction Shadow Theatre, an artistic dancing group, telling a thoughtful, meaningful story to music in this clip. This is such a creative idea, with endless potential in communicating life and emotion.

http://youtu.be/XpaOjMXyJGk

http://youtu.be/a4Fv98jttYA

Science lab cupcakes, Reading buddies, and more

instagram.com/mrriedl

Señor Pez

Big news!

When we come back from Spring Break, we will be adopting a new class pet! One of our 5th graders and their family will be generously donating a Paradise fish to our classroom, and he will become a wonderful part of our community.

I decided to give him a name before he even entered our classroom because of how perfect it is. His name will be Señor Pez! The reason this is the perfect name is because the Spanish word for fish is Pez. I thought it was too good to be true, so I looked up the difference between two Spanish words for fish: Pez and Pescado. Pez refers to a fish swimming freely, while Pescado refers to a fish caught or to be caught for food. I think we should just stick to eating Pez candy rather than our new pet.

Additionally, I will be creating a new classroom job to shore up the responsibilities for feeding him. This new job will be called "Veterinarian" and will likely be a popular one. The responsibilities will include feeding him and helping clean his tank.

Feel free to visit Señor Pez's page, where you can feed his virtual counterpart and see a photo of him. You can also leave comments for him at the bottom of his page to give him warm greetings as he adjusts to his new home!

--Señor Riedl

Friday carpool, mosaics art, and Mr. Riedl might need glasses soon

Warrior Dash!

My Dad and I ran in the Warrior Dash this weekend. Whew, it was definitely exhausting, but so much fun! It is a 5K run (3.1 miles) over, under, and through obstacles along the way. A few of the obstacles we encountered were crawling under barbed wire, climbing a cargo net, jumping over fire, wading through a mud pit, and many more! The event raises money for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. I actually saw quite a few elementary-aged kids running the race too!

Here are a few photos that I'm sure my students will enjoy!

 

PEZ in my classroom

PEZ on the ceiling of my classroom. I still catch students looking up at them every day, and there's still a lot of room to put many more up there! Right now, there are about 60 dispensers hanging above our heads. I have about 400 left... how many should I put up?!

I just realized that I got this idea from a prank pulled on me when I was in high school. My friends came into my room and hung all of my PEZ dispensers from my ceiling to surprise me when I came home to find my collection above me. The photo below is of my room in high school. I remember leaving them up there until they started falling down. :-)

Dodgeball tourney

I was on Mr. Reardon's team, and we were unfortunately knocked out of the dodgeball tournament in the quarter-finals. So much fun, though! Sadly, there were a lot of poor sports when some of the high schoolers disagreed with the calls and they argued very disrespectfully. Hopefully my students will remember my rules in the future!

Mr. Riedl and his math monkey

I love finding drawings while grading! Not sure what inspired this one, though. It may look like I'm giving the monkey the finger, but I believe it is a "thumbs up!"

[*monkey]