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.
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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. What was originally supposed to be a half day of class due to field day turned into a full day of math and architecture projects.
We were so busy that I forgot to take any pictures. There continue to be model houses all over the room as glue dries on wooden braces and wall connections. The students working on their roof continue to attach pieces, none of them are ready to actually make their roof yet, and they are figuring out that the math and geometry side of roofing is harder than for the rest of the building. Rectangular houses give you right angles, so the walls are easier to attach. But in roofing, there aren't as many right angles, and as some parts change size, it automatically makes the other sides need to be readjusted. It was yet another shortened day for Tuesday's class due to the weather in the afternoon. They spent the whole time working on their architecture projects. Three of them now have houses that are cut - two are working on their roof. Everyone else is in the blueprinting or digital blueprinting phase and will hopefully finish that shortly after we return from spring break. After me being out sick last week the kids picked right back up with their architecture projects and continued to make speedy progress. Two classes had a field trip in the morning, but even with a very much shortened day most of them still managed to finish their scale measuring and start on their blueprints. For the kids that were here the whole day, nearly all of them finished scale measuring and started blueprints (there were several who got started on their digital blueprints) which is really nice progress in such a short amount of work time. They made significant progress on their architecture projects. There are construction projects all over the room as they find places to store their structures as the glue dries so they can start their next phase. Many are on to their roofs, so they are setting up a graph paper template over their existing structure to make sure everything fits. Earlier this year they learned the flat roofs tend to leak a lot, now some of them are finding the answer to the question, "If the flat roof leaks, why would anyone make a flat roof?" A flat roof is much easier to model and figure out than a gable or gambrel roof. |