The Friday kid's math work lately has really had me step up the level of work we've been doing. Their math variable equations this week went from easy, to medium, to hard, to master level. The first two they solved in under 5 minutes total. The hard one took about 5-8, but the master level one stumped everyone. They worked on it for about 15-20 minutes. The 4th graders wanted to keep going, but were out of time and the 5th graders tried to tap out before time was up. We will continue to work on persevering through problem solving, they will see this again in a week or so. They also put a lot of time into scale measuring their houses they chose for their architecture project. Most of them are finished, the ones that aren't are very close, you can see some pictures of their work below. Conder ALERT students had an extremely fun and produtive day today. After the last few Friday's of weather and workdays it felt like I hadn't seen them in forever. They solved tons of a new type of math puzzle - that most of them took one look at and were sure they didn't understand - it took one kid to get up and explain what she thought was the right way to solve the problem and pretty much everyone was off and rolling from there. They were asking to race each other, some of them even wanted to race me. I did not go undefeated, one of the fifth graders finished 1 question ahead of me. They explored the nets of triangular prisms and what those had to do with roof shapes in architecture. They decided on a final house for their project build, created their door ruler (scaling ruler), and did the final octile scaling for their building sketch. ALERT students at Conder began their exploration of nets (the 2D version of 3D shapes). They started with a few shapes to cut, fold, and tape, over the next 2 weeks they will see more nets - then will have an opportunity to use these shapes to build buildings that reflect different styles of architecture. They spent some time researching different styles of architecture, to help them make a more informed decision about the building that they will choose for their final ALERT architecture project that will begin soon. Their Minecraft structure build challenge is going extremely well, they are showing a great deal of thought and creativity in their designs and reasonings behind why they built it the way that they did. We will hopefully have some final builds to showcase in the next few weeks as they finish that up. Conder students worked hard solving algebraic equations and number puzzles. We learned about 4 new styles of architecture; Art Deco, Modern, International, and Post-Modern. They were not as excited about Post-Modern style as I expected, they thought it was weird and most of them didn't like it. Which led to a great conversation about why there are so many different styles of architecture, because people like different things. The kind of house you want to live in may not be the same style your best friend wants when they grow up. They also started a new Minecraft build, this one is in an ocean biome, and they have a list of requirements that their structure has to have. They have freedom of creativity as long as it meets each of the items on the list. So far they have some really interesting builds going, I showed them how to get it off their chromebooks and into google drive in case they want to work on it over break. But they will have time after break in class to finish it. Conder ALERT students solved math puzzles and algebraic equations today. Due to a virtual field trip and a strings performance for the 5th graders, the 4th graders ended up being the "math coaches" for the 5th graders on the math puzzles today. We introduced Spanish and Mediterranean style architecture today. After my introduction; which included a little review of Spanish colonies and explorers from 4th grade social studies, looking at a few maps, and a quick overview of a few house examples: I barely had to teach anymore because they started teaching each other. They immediately started making connections and asking/answering each others questions. With very minimal help from me. They included the weather/climate of regions near the equator, geographic concepts like Central America and the Phillipines being on the opposide sides of the world, (therefore it took the Spanish longer to get to the Phillipines) how the American's took over the Phillipines after the Spanish-American War, air pressure - which came up when we were talking about the air vents in the attics, and arches from our arch experiment way back a month or so ago. Later in the day they tried their hand at line style sketches, a few examples are included in the pictures below. Then we explored shape strength, they figured out that while squares and rectangles are popular shapes for construction, they aren't very stable. They tend to sway and bend at the corners. They discovered the triangles are super strong and humans can make squares and rectangles stronger by building triangles inside them. ALERT students at Conder worked hard on math puzzles, algebraic equations, and shape venn diagrams. After successfully solving an "expert" level problem a few weeks ago, 5th grade stalled out on one that was a level below that this week. We are going back to the strategy drawing board so we can identify patterns and strategies to help us solve all types of problems. I introduced them to Pablo Picasso and Cubism art, which became popular right around the same time as the new styles of architecture we learned about. They had a few minutes to create a cubism face sketch, which turned out very creatively. At the end of the day we introduced area and volume using a Minecraft assignment, they had to analyze 3D shapes, mostly rectangular prisms, but they also had to figure out the volume of a pool full of water. Some of them counted blocks and used the forumlas for area and volume, others went in and cleared the water from the pool and refilled it with blocks. ALERT students at Conder spent a lot of time working on strategies to solve a variety of math problems/puzzles. Even though all of our puzzles were based in addition and subtraction, several students were able to verbalize that even though the operations were simple there was a lot of thinking that had to go on because of the structure of the assignment. Often times adults (parents/teachers) think that making things "harder" or giving students topics from higher grade levels is the only way to challenge kids. Sometimes the best way to challenge them is to create a "depth" of thinking that involves some skill they already know. We also spent a good deal of time working on our architecture sketches. Art and drawing are sometimes under appreciated skills in terms of school and mathematics. However, students who can visualize a 3D shape well enough to create a good drawing are going to be able to use that visualization when they have to analyze the shape for faces, edges, and vertices later in geometry. Students also learned about Frank Lloyd Wright and some of his famous works. They were really impressed with Falling Water, since there is literally a stream/waterfall running under the house. ALERT students at Conder participated in a virtual lesson by Dr. Greg Tang. Dr. Tang is a the author of many children's books about math and also the author of entire sets of mathematics curriculum that are used in many school across the country. We use many of his puzzles and problems for our regular math instruction. Students worked on several shape activities to determine if a new picture of a different type of shape would get them to change their mind about an answer to a question they had already answered. They had to look back at their previous work to figure out whether the new shape was one they had already considered as part of the answer. We also worked on our first official Minecraft build treehouse assignment. They have had about 30 minutes to work so far, we will pick this up again next week. |
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May 2022
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