May 20th was our last ALERT class for this school year, students spent much of their day presenting their architecture projects. Between keeping to all of the schedules I was too busy to take a ton of pictures. But the last one on the slideshow is the "Hall of Quotes" board that this class started way back in September and continually added to as the year went along. This was it's last update before I had to erase it for summer cleaning. I truely enjoyed this year with your children, have a safe and happy summer!
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1 Week to presentations and nearly everyone is finished with their house model. Today was mostly about finishing touches, going over presentation do's and don't's, as well as well as discussing scheduling and some last minute practice. Next week they present to two different classes and it will also mark their last ALERT class for this school year. Countdown - 2 weeks to project presentations here at Conder. The kids were busy solving math puzzles first thing in the morning and then spent the rest of the day finalizing Mincraft builds, adding walls and roof pieces to houses, and practicing for their presentations. They absolutely rocked it out in math today, solving several "expert" level problems and a "mastery" level problem in addition to several hard and medium level ones. The fourth graders left fifth grade with the mastery level once they ran out of time, then skipped one because "the numbers looked too big." Well, 5th grade took those challenges and ran with them, solving both problems. As they finish up their house projects they started deciding about presentations. They will have a choice of people to present to, they started their preparations today by answering some guiding questions about the process of completing their project. They will smooth these out, organize notecards, make additional notes for themselves, and practice possible questions in the coming weeks. Today was a super busy day in ALERT as the kids worked really hard to get the majority of their houses put together. Our math lesson today was a continuation of using algebric equations to determine future payouts of stock dividends, they asked a lot of really good questions about money, stocks, and how businesses work. We had a great Thursday class this week due to some scheduling conflicts, the kids did well with the change. We solved a bunch of complex math equations, they had the choice of what type of math to do today and they took turns choosing which equations the class should solve. We got so involved with our architecture projects that I forgot to take pictures. There was a ton of problem solving and adjustments made today as several students putting the walls of their houses together realized that they put the wooden braces on the wrong side, so part of their house was correct but the other side was either backwards or had the braces exposed. Between that and a lot of roof modeling, there was a great deal of thinking going on as to how exactle we solve these problems without destroying what has been built so far. It was a good learning experience and took us back to one of our proverbs from a few weeks ago - "You can either use an eraser on the drafting table or a sledgehammer on the construction site." Friday was a big day in ALERT at Conder as we spent a huge portion of the day working on our architecture projects, besides solving a few math puzzles. The majority of students have their houses cut and have started working on their roof structures. In the beginning several of them only wanted to make the facade of their house, now that they have the hang of the measuring and creation, they've decided to make the rest of it. Since most of them don't actually have a side or back view of their building, it is an exercise in estimation and what make sense, both mathematically and architecturally as they make their other walls. The only pictures this week are from out math lesson, except for one of house construction. We got so busy creating blueprints, cutting out houses, and setting up interior supports that I forgot to take pictures. Four students had their blueprints finished and starting work on their support beams. Two others finished this week and will receive their cut pieces next class. There is no class on the 18th, since it's a teacher workday, class will resume on the 25th. ALERT students at Conder worked really hard solving a bunch of math puzzles today. After they struggled the last few weeks with the Master level problem, we back tracked and worked through some easier ones, both to help with their confidence and to focus on some specific strategies and ideas when it comes to solving variable equations. We also spent a ton of time working on blueprints and digital blueprints. Most of them should be finished with blueprints in the next week or so. Several kids should have the front section of their house cut out shortly, then they can start the process of making braces (framing) and working on their roof. |
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May 2022
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