Tuesday and Wednesday was the last day for the first half of the architecture unit. We finished up with Art Deco, Modern, International, and Post-Modern styles of architecture. The kids had a great time exploring all the designs and possibilities of post-modern architecture by conducting some internet research. From here, Tuesday's class will be starting the World Peace Game unit, which is going to cover aspects of sustainable living, pollution, international rules and organizations, and high-stakes problem solving. Wednesday's class will continue with part 2 of architecture, where they will be building (hands on and digitally) a model house. At the conclusion of these units, they will switch, and Tuesday will finish their house models, while Wednesday works on World Peace Game. There will be separate blog posts for each class beginning after break. They worked hard solving algebraic equations and math puzzles. In fact Wednesday's class had such a good time that many of them worked past the timer, sacrificing Minecraft build time, to finish their equations. Tuesday's class did not start the Minecraft build, because it was my conversations with them that inspired this particular activity. So they will start it after break, I will probably send it to them in google classroom in case they want to work on it over the break.
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The 5th graders finished up our World Peace Game unit on Monday. They worked very hard to solve the last 5 crises, there was a great deal of negotiations, announcements, and meetings in "secret bunkers." There were 3 requirements for them to win the game; they had to solve all the crises, all nations had to be at peace, and all nations had to end the game with more money than they started. They were able to solve all the crises, however, unfortunately, 3 countries were poorer than when they started, and one nation declared war on another on the very last day. So they did not win the game. They also played a version of the "Stock Market Game" where we learned about probability and risk by investing money in the market and simulating ups and down by rolling dice. They continued to work through algebraic equations and read in the book "Trash Vortex" about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. They were also introduced to Minecraft Education Edition, which they will use more extensively when we come back from break when they begin their Architecture unit. NSE 4th graders solved algebraic equations utilizing the strategy of making a list, the isolated the most simple equation in the set, made a list of possible solutions, then cross checked that list to see which of the solutions fit the variables in the other equations. They also explored the strength of shapes with exploragons. They made squares, pentagons, and hexagons and were able to move them at the vertices and change them into other shapes. (these shapes were not very strong at staying the original shape) When they made triangles and tried the same thing, they realized the triangles didn't change shape easily, they stayed strong in their shape. This concept is going to be very important as we move into designing and building their model building. Wednesday's class organized shapes by rules into venn diagrams. At first some of them thought I should give them more information, since the venn diagrams were set up differently than they are used to seeing. However, after a few of them made attempts, other kids started noticing patterns and they were able to work together to figure out the pattern structure. |