We didn't have very many classes in May with testing and field day, however, the ones we did have were put to good use as students finished up their architecture projects and presented their work. We met in the cafeteria to present last Wednesday as teachers and classes walked through to listen to them talk about their projects and the process they went through and things they learned. It has been a great year in ALERT, I enjoyed working with your children and seeing them grow and mature. I hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable summer and I'll hopefully see you next year.
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Between testing and finished projects May was a VERY hectic month, as you can tell by how late I am attaching the blog post for the entire month. We basically spent all month finalizing architecture projects and practicing for presentations which went extremely well last Tuesday. Most of them seemed very excited about taking their projects home, hopefully they put them to good use - either as a display on a bookcase or shelf, as a fort, castle, or playhouse for their dolls or action figures. Have a great summer and I'll hopefully see you next year. The pictures in the slideshow are from the last two ALERT classes for this school year, as well as a few days in between when I was able to pull some of them for small group/one on one work for their architecture projects. They worked really hard on these this year and when they presented on Monday the 23rd they received rave reviews from the classes they presented. The teachers were very complimentary about how they shared their work with other students, not only the final products, their model house and Minecraft house, but also the process they took to get there, how much work was involved, and all the things they learned. Congratulations as you move into 6th grade, have a safe and happy summer! ALERT students this week spent all day building their model houses, working on their Minecraft house, and preparing for their oral presentations coming up at the end of May. They have made pretty quick progress, but not without having some hurdles to overcome. There have been plenty of support beams glued on the wrong sides of buildings, so front walls suddenly became back walls. As well as some misunderstandings of how walls actually look when they choose houses that aren't "typical." For instance, many chose modern houses thinking the square and rectangles would make things easier, but then having multi-layered side walls threw them for a loop. They have had to go back and re-look at many of our previous shape lessons to see who multiple 2D shapes come together to make certain 3D shapes, as well as how a 2D picture may show one measurement, but the 3D model may require some different modeling to actually make the pieces fit. We had a lot of creativity going on in the ALERT room on Wednesday. Kids with very complex houses had to figure out how to attach their support structure in a way that actually kept it from bending, many kids are now working on their roof - so unless it's flat - there is a ton of measuring, geometry, and folding/origami that goes with it. And in order to hold their walls in place while the glue dries some of them have been coming up with some very interesting ways to keep things still. We have been using a lot of dictionaries and other books, however, that wasn't working for one kid. So she literally put the wall inside the book to hold it still, you can see her thinking in two pictures on the slideshow. I will not see them for the next two weeks due to testing, if time allows I will try to pull a few of them who need some specific work on their houses, but that is not guaranteed to happen. Tuesday was so busy that I forgot to take pictures. Since so many of them were very close to finishing digital blueprints last week, they started finishing those off one after the other, so we spent a significant portion of the day cutting houses - then having them work on attaching their support structure.
I walked them through the whole process of what has to happen between them finishing digital blueprints and when their walls come out of the cutting machine. It takes me between 5 and 15 minutes per wall, depending on how accurate the kid's work is, and what kind of adjustments need to be made. Some of them did the math and decided that they would not want to be the teacher in charge of this project. Monday was a day full of accomplishment in the ALERT classroom at North Springs. 11 students finished either all or part of their digital blueprints and starting attaching their support structure. Next week about half the class should be ready to work on their roof. They are making quick progress, which is great, because they will be presenting their projects on May 23rd and will start the preparation process for that next week. There was a whole lot of construction going on in the ALERT room today. They were attaching supports to their walls, putting walls together, and modeling their roof shapes. A few more finished digital blueprints, so nearly everyone is done and has at least a section of their building cut out. We are down to 3 ALERT classes left, with their presentations coming up soon, so there will need to be a lot of focus to get these last few pieces done. Our first class back from spring break was a very productive one. Three more kids finished their digital blueprints and will have their first set of walls cut out next week. Several more are very close. Their projects are coming along nicely, which is great, seeing as how they only have 4 more ALERT classes left this school year. It took them a few minutes to shake off the rust in solving variable equations, they asked me why we started with an "easy" level problem, but when it took them a while to figure out the next few they realized that needed to get back to the proper thinking process. Welcome back to a super busy day after spring break, so busy in fact that I forgot to take pictures.
The majority of the class is making very nice progress on their buildings, we have 5 who are already either completely done or have a few small adjustments to make on their digital blueprints. 4 of them will have their front walls cut out when they return next week. After they put their braces on then they'll need to make some decisions about the rest of their building. About half of the rest of the class is already on digital blueprints and almost everyone has finished with their scale measurements. |