I did not do a very good job taking pictures of their classwork this week, so there are no pictures for this post.
4th grade students were introduced to Frank Lloyd Wright and many of his architectural designs, they were particularly impressed by "Falling Water" since there is literally a stream and waterfall running under the house. They learned about Prairie, Craftsman, Colonial Revival, and Tudor Revival style architecture. We watched several short video clips and analyzed houses in the videos for different architectural elements. It was a good review for the kids who have been here a while and a good introduction to element analysis for the new students. Upon returning from break they will start to analyze houses on their own and in groups. We also did a great deal of work on algebraic equations, working on specific strategies to help students work their way through ever more difficult problems. The 5th graders finished up our study of 2D shapes by organizing shapes into various venn diagrams based on properties. When we come back from break we will start with 3D shapes and continue working on that for a large portion of the rest of the school year. During gameday #8 of the World Peace Games there was a lot of debate and money moving, several countries started monetizing different aspects of their economy by starting farms and fishing ventures. We did not solve any crises today, there are two gamedays left for them to solve about 10 of the remaining issues. At the end of the day students were "paid" and were able to take the time to research and buy more stock if they chose to spend their money. Students also worked independently and in groups to work on a variety of activities related to finances. The 4th graders were super busy this week catching up on Victorian architecture reviews, before we go into the more modern styles starting next week. We also spent a great deal of time working through strategies to solve complex problems - they definitely remembered the struggle from the equations last week. However, this week they got a little help from some of their 5th grade friends in other classes who sent them some work samples and explanations to help them along the way. Tuesday's class worked through a 4 part set of addition puzzles, which, even though it was addition, caused them to do some serious thinking. After a while they realized that each time one answer needed to be adjusted, it caused a domino affect, sometimes with multiple other answers needing to be adjusted as well. These types of interconnected problems, even with small numbers and simple operations, can become complex (and frustrating) quickly if they work under the "guess and check" model instead of applying a reliable strategy. NSE 4th graders learned about "struggle" this week. They had a set of variable equations to solve. We worked on a variety of strategies for solving these problems, including isolating key variables and how to narrow down the possibilities for what numbers work in each equation. Tuesday's class took about an hour to solve the set. Wednesday's class chugged away on it for a little over an hour, but weren't able to successfully solve it yet. Next week we will see about applying those strategies with some smaller numbers and see if we increase our speed of solving the equations. Tuesday's class worked on a 1-point perspective sketch, which was new learning for our new kids. Wednesday's class got a great deal closer to finishing their house sketches. Both classes turned in some excellent work for the haunted house contest, I am putting together the voting form and we should have winners to announce next week during class. There will be a winner for "most realistic" and "most creative." Both classes did something a little different with our Proverb for the week. Instead of giving a response of their own, they analyzed and categorized responses from other students. We had a mini-debate about which answer qualified into certain categories, students gave evidence by pointing out sections of information that matched and how answers did or did not fit with what the proverb was trying to say. This served as a great introduction for the new kids and will hopefully raise the level of thinking that the kids show during this activity each week. 5th graders finally got to "purchase" stock for their portfolio. This lead to a lot of discussions, kids had a hard time understanding how Dollar General stock could be so much more expensive than Nissan, American Airlines, or even Porshe'. Several of them figured out how to find the total profits made by a company in the past year, which helped them make decisions about what to buy. Many also came to the conclusion that if the stock goes up, they might sell it and use the money to buy something else. They will be getting "paid" every month, so there will be more chances to buy as the year goes along. Some of them may have chosen dividend stock, so they may also be seeing dividend payments. We also solved crisis #13, just in time. One of the pictures in the slideshow shows a grey ribbon draped over sections of land, the land on the inside of the ribbon would have been lost to rising ocean water if we had not been able to come to an agreement about the development and funding of new energy technology. Students also met with their partner to discuss whether certain mathematical statements about shapes were true or false. This week was an interesting week for the 4th graders. We welcomed two new students into Tuesday's class and seven new students into Wednesday's class. On top of that it was benchmark testing week, so each day's lessons were cut by about 2 hours. We spent most of that time getting our new kids introduced to ALERT, got people caught up on house sketches, and got Minecraft Education Edition downloaded. Tuesday's class worked on a build challenge, which took us way past schedule, so Wednesday's class will work on it when they come back on the 3rd. |