SAGE Riddle of the week.
This fun and challenging brainteaser was given to us by Sophia J. in the Grand Ridge 3rd Grade. E-mail your answers to Mr. Ciraulo at ciraulor@issaquah.wednet.edu.
What do the following words have in common?
1. Banana
2. Assess
3. Grammar
4. Dresser
Thursday, May 3, 2012
Monday, February 13, 2012
SAGE Update February 13, 2012
Doodle 4 Google
Doodle 4 Google is a national competition for students K-12 (divided into 5 different age brackets) where students design a creative logo for Google. THIS IS AN OPTIONAL ACTIVITY FOR STUDENTS THAT IS DONE OUTSIDE OF SAGE, AND IT REQUIRES PARENT PERMISSION. There are 50 winners in each state, with the overall national winner receiving a $30,000 scholarship. Let your creative and artistic juices flow!
Here are links to the pages related to the contest.
Once again, the Pacific Science Center is hosting a special Camp-In for Issaquah School District's SAGE and MERLIN students. Your children should be bringing home a flyer with the details. Since this is not a district sponsored event, any questions you may have about the event need to be addressed to the PSC.
I am happy to put a sheet up in my room where participating (or even interested) students can put their contact information, so they can see who else might be attending in order to corrdinate rides, chaperones, etc.
4th Grade
Our Polyhedraville crews have been working hard to learn about city planners and city planning, in anticipation of our need to design the city of Polyhedraville. Below are photos of the "30 minute projects" teams completed to help the rest of their classes understand their section of the City of Sammamish's Comprehensive Plan. In addition, you see pictures of Senior Planner for the City of Sammamish, Emily Arteche, as she talks about her responsibilities as a planner and shares with the students how the Comprehensive Plan is carried out in the city.
Emily is instrumental in getting us on the agenda of the June 12, 2012 City Council Meeting, where we'll be presenting Polyhedraville to the City Council for the second year in a row. Stay tuned.
Doodle 4 Google is a national competition for students K-12 (divided into 5 different age brackets) where students design a creative logo for Google. THIS IS AN OPTIONAL ACTIVITY FOR STUDENTS THAT IS DONE OUTSIDE OF SAGE, AND IT REQUIRES PARENT PERMISSION. There are 50 winners in each state, with the overall national winner receiving a $30,000 scholarship. Let your creative and artistic juices flow!
Here are links to the pages related to the contest.
- D4G: Meet Matte Lopez (2011 National Winner)
Once again, the Pacific Science Center is hosting a special Camp-In for Issaquah School District's SAGE and MERLIN students. Your children should be bringing home a flyer with the details. Since this is not a district sponsored event, any questions you may have about the event need to be addressed to the PSC.
3rd Grade
The 3rd grade classes are wrapping up their Mr. Bear unit by sharing their memos. In their memos, they are telling Chief Investigator Ciraulo their theories for who borrowed the bear. As they share their work, their classmates will be using the rubric we created to assess one another's work.
Our Polyhedraville crews have been working hard to learn about city planners and city planning, in anticipation of our need to design the city of Polyhedraville. Below are photos of the "30 minute projects" teams completed to help the rest of their classes understand their section of the City of Sammamish's Comprehensive Plan. In addition, you see pictures of Senior Planner for the City of Sammamish, Emily Arteche, as she talks about her responsibilities as a planner and shares with the students how the Comprehensive Plan is carried out in the city.
5th Grade
Ruth Roy Scholarship - for the last several years, Issaquah students in the 5th-7th gifted programs have had an amazing opportunity to stretch themselves during the summer by receiving the Ruth Roy Scholarship. Your children received a flyer about the scholarship, and more information can be found on the Issaquah Schools Foundation website. Ruth taught MERLIN at Apollo for several years, and found out she had ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease) toward the end of her career. It was her inspiration to see students challenged and given opportunities to excel both in and out of the classroom that sparked her family and friends to offer the scholarship in her name.
Dry Ice Investigations - We're nearing the final phase of our investigations into the value of our various paper towel brands. Last week, we did "dry run-throughs" of our small team wet strength testing to show each other the various experiments teams did to test wet strength. From there, we decided on the best experiment to conduct as an entire class to get the definitive results as to the ranking of each towel according to its wet strength.
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| Here, a team describes the process they went through to test each towel for wet strength. |
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| Here are the procedures developed by the Friday class at Grand Ridge to do the final testing for wet strength |
Friday, January 27, 2012
SAGE Update 1/27/12
5th Grade
This week, the 5th graders conducted the first phase of their wet strength testing of paper towels. This phase has students working in pairs to devise fair and accurate experiments that test the strength of each towel using 1 sq. in. ceramic tiles as the unit of measure.
At this point of our experimenting, students have created and conducted enough experiments that their work is producing quite reliable results - so much so, that even as teams create a variety of experiments to test the wet strength, their rankings of paper towels is pleasingly consistent from team to team.
Our next steps will be for each team to do a "dry run-through of their experiment for the class, and we'll take be best ideas and create one experiment for the entire class to conduct in order to determine the wet strength rankings for the towels.
4th Grade
One of the considerations students need to keep in mind as they continue to develop Polyhedraville is the organization of our city. In actuality, cities usually have planners to oversee the development of their city. To get a more developed understanding of what this entails, we spent this week learning about what city planners do, and beginning to become familiar with the City of Sammamish's Comprehensive Plan.
Next week, we are fortunate to have Emily Arteche', a Senior Planner for the City of Sammamish, visiting our two classes to tell us about her responsibilities as a city planner, and to give us some specific examples of how the city's Comprehensive Plan influences the growth and development of the city. The informatioin is not only quite intresting, it is ultimately pretty useful when we move into the overall design of our community.
3rd Grade
Our wonderful third graders are finalizing their Mr. Bear Memos in order to present them to their classmates next week. We will be scoring each other using a Rubric that fits the different aspects we've been talking about all along through the entire investigation and write-up process. It is always fun to listen to each other's write-ups, and then to hear the account of what actually happened to Mr. Bear. Stay tuned!
This week, the 5th graders conducted the first phase of their wet strength testing of paper towels. This phase has students working in pairs to devise fair and accurate experiments that test the strength of each towel using 1 sq. in. ceramic tiles as the unit of measure.
At this point of our experimenting, students have created and conducted enough experiments that their work is producing quite reliable results - so much so, that even as teams create a variety of experiments to test the wet strength, their rankings of paper towels is pleasingly consistent from team to team.
Our next steps will be for each team to do a "dry run-through of their experiment for the class, and we'll take be best ideas and create one experiment for the entire class to conduct in order to determine the wet strength rankings for the towels.
ABOVE AND TO THE RIGHT: Students at Creekside and Grand Ridge conduct their initial experiments to test the wet strength of the 4 different paper towel brands.
4th Grade
One of the considerations students need to keep in mind as they continue to develop Polyhedraville is the organization of our city. In actuality, cities usually have planners to oversee the development of their city. To get a more developed understanding of what this entails, we spent this week learning about what city planners do, and beginning to become familiar with the City of Sammamish's Comprehensive Plan.
Next week, we are fortunate to have Emily Arteche', a Senior Planner for the City of Sammamish, visiting our two classes to tell us about her responsibilities as a city planner, and to give us some specific examples of how the city's Comprehensive Plan influences the growth and development of the city. The informatioin is not only quite intresting, it is ultimately pretty useful when we move into the overall design of our community.
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| Students study and discuss Sammamish's Comprehensive Plan vision statement as their initial investigation of the document that serves to direct the city's development. |
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| Senior City Planner for the City of Sammamish, Emily Arteche', will be in class next week to discuss her job and to help students understand how the city's comprehensive plan serves to direct and define its development. (She's pictured here sharing with the 2010-11 Polyhedraville team at Grand Ridge. |
3rd Grade
Our wonderful third graders are finalizing their Mr. Bear Memos in order to present them to their classmates next week. We will be scoring each other using a Rubric that fits the different aspects we've been talking about all along through the entire investigation and write-up process. It is always fun to listen to each other's write-ups, and then to hear the account of what actually happened to Mr. Bear. Stay tuned!
Monday, January 9, 2012
SAGE Update 1/13/12
Goal Setting
In every class, we have begun the yearly process of goal setting. In SAGE, each student is required to write at least one (2 in 5th grade) goal to work on for the next few months. The goals must come from the eight SAGE program goals that focus on helping students develop academically and intellectually as well as socially and emotionally. For more on the program goals and objects, you can watch the curriculum night PowerPoint, here. Be on the lookout for your child's goals over the next several weeks.
Here's a preview of some quotes I'll be using to inspire and challenge our students as we work on writing goals.
5th Grade
Paper Towel Investigations
In 5th Grade, we're in the midst of our first round of the second phase of our paper towel testing - wet strength testing. Teams of 2 students each are designing and conducting initial rounds of testing to determine relative strengths of each of the 4 brands of paper towels.
Prior to the testing, each class reviewed a list of qualities of "great scientists" to see how we'd been doing to date in our quest to be good scientists ourselves. This also gave us some reminders of what we can continue to do to become better scientists as we move through the paper towel unit. Below is Creekside's list where we put check marks beside those qualities we'd exhibited and been growing in during our absorbency testing.
Ruby Bridges
All of the 5th graders at both Grand Ridge and Creekside viewed the movie, Ruby Bridges, this week. Ruby Bridges was one of the first black children integrated into the white schools of New Orleans in 1960. Written and performed in a way to portray the difficulty and injustice faced by Ruby's family, the movie is very appropriate for our 5th graders, and is a poignant reminder (introduction?) of the realities of life in the South only 50 years ago.
Our SAGE students will go a step beyond their classmates to have an indepth discussion (Socratic Seminar) of the different aspects of Ruby's life when we come back to class next week. Each year, I have found this discussion to be one of the highlights of our 5th grade SAGE year.
4th Grade
Along with our work on goal writing, 4th graders continue to pursue their work in Polyhedraville. Their most recent work has been centered around constructing and understanding the definition of "polyhedron." We played a game to assist us in that process.
3rd Grade
the 3rd graders are in the final stages of their investigation into who borrowed Mr. Bear. This phase involves creating a written memo to the Chief Investigator describing who they think borrowed Mr. Bear. Students use a PowerPoint template to gather the information for the paragraph, and then copy that informaton into a Word memo template, where they edit and finalize their work. In two weeks, students will present their memos to their classmates where they will assess one anothers' work.
In every class, we have begun the yearly process of goal setting. In SAGE, each student is required to write at least one (2 in 5th grade) goal to work on for the next few months. The goals must come from the eight SAGE program goals that focus on helping students develop academically and intellectually as well as socially and emotionally. For more on the program goals and objects, you can watch the curriculum night PowerPoint, here. Be on the lookout for your child's goals over the next several weeks.
Here's a preview of some quotes I'll be using to inspire and challenge our students as we work on writing goals.
5th Grade
Paper Towel Investigations
In 5th Grade, we're in the midst of our first round of the second phase of our paper towel testing - wet strength testing. Teams of 2 students each are designing and conducting initial rounds of testing to determine relative strengths of each of the 4 brands of paper towels.
Prior to the testing, each class reviewed a list of qualities of "great scientists" to see how we'd been doing to date in our quest to be good scientists ourselves. This also gave us some reminders of what we can continue to do to become better scientists as we move through the paper towel unit. Below is Creekside's list where we put check marks beside those qualities we'd exhibited and been growing in during our absorbency testing.
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| Students at Creekside preview their team's wet strength testing plan by trying it out on the school's paper towels. One indication that our students have grown as scientists is that they are much more thoughtful about how they've designed their experiment now than when we began the unit. "Will it be a fair test?", "Can we control the variables we said we would?", and, "Can we conduct the same exact test each time?", are all questions they are seriously considering at this stage of their work. |
All of the 5th graders at both Grand Ridge and Creekside viewed the movie, Ruby Bridges, this week. Ruby Bridges was one of the first black children integrated into the white schools of New Orleans in 1960. Written and performed in a way to portray the difficulty and injustice faced by Ruby's family, the movie is very appropriate for our 5th graders, and is a poignant reminder (introduction?) of the realities of life in the South only 50 years ago.
Our SAGE students will go a step beyond their classmates to have an indepth discussion (Socratic Seminar) of the different aspects of Ruby's life when we come back to class next week. Each year, I have found this discussion to be one of the highlights of our 5th grade SAGE year.
4th Grade
Along with our work on goal writing, 4th graders continue to pursue their work in Polyhedraville. Their most recent work has been centered around constructing and understanding the definition of "polyhedron." We played a game to assist us in that process.
3rd Grade
the 3rd graders are in the final stages of their investigation into who borrowed Mr. Bear. This phase involves creating a written memo to the Chief Investigator describing who they think borrowed Mr. Bear. Students use a PowerPoint template to gather the information for the paragraph, and then copy that informaton into a Word memo template, where they edit and finalize their work. In two weeks, students will present their memos to their classmates where they will assess one anothers' work.
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| An example of one student's 2nd reason for who she thinks borrowed Mr. Bear. |
Monday, December 12, 2011
SAGE Update December 16, 2011
5th Grade SAGE
We are developing as scientists! After working in pairs, then designing and conducting a whole class experiment, AND THEN redesigning the experiment to conduct it one last time, WE HAVE FINALLY GOTTEN SOME COSISTENT and DEFENDABLE RESULTS in our paper towel absorbency experiments. Below are copies of the data from each class's "Take 2" of the whole class absorbency experimentation. (Ask your child what it has taken for us to get these results . . . it's taken a lot of persistence, thoughtfulness, and precision.
As we saw a consistent pattern emerge from our data, we began to get a clear picture of how our 4 brands stacked up against each other for absorbency. In the weeks after the break, we'll be examining the wet strength of our products on our way to determining an overall "best value" recommendation. The final recommendation will also take into consideration the products' cost and how much paper towel comes on each roll. Stay tuned, we're moving into the exciting part of the unit, but we've still got a lot of hard work ahead of us.
4th Grade SAGE
The 4th graders are gaining a good handle on the attributes and costs of the 6 polygons we're using to construct our cities. Each class determined the areas of each polygon, and from that information has determined the cost of each one. The equilateral triangle and the regular pentagon were the trickiest to determine area for.
The cost of each square unit is $26.25. Students used this figure to determine the costs of each polygon. This is the first time they've been able to get an idea of how big they can build their buildings, since they now know the cost of each piece. The budget of $50,000 per student for two buildings just came into a better focus for many of our students.
3rd Grade SAGE
Our third graders are well on their way to telling the Chief Investigator (me) their theories for who they believed borrowed Mr. Bear. Their final project is a memo from themselves to me outlining the reasons they believe one or more people borrowed the bear.
To help them organized their thinking, they are using a PowerPoint template. To finalize their memo, they will transfew their thoughts to the memo and then edit them for grammar, spelling, and transitions. Here's a few samples of student writing.
We are developing as scientists! After working in pairs, then designing and conducting a whole class experiment, AND THEN redesigning the experiment to conduct it one last time, WE HAVE FINALLY GOTTEN SOME COSISTENT and DEFENDABLE RESULTS in our paper towel absorbency experiments. Below are copies of the data from each class's "Take 2" of the whole class absorbency experimentation. (Ask your child what it has taken for us to get these results . . . it's taken a lot of persistence, thoughtfulness, and precision.
As we saw a consistent pattern emerge from our data, we began to get a clear picture of how our 4 brands stacked up against each other for absorbency. In the weeks after the break, we'll be examining the wet strength of our products on our way to determining an overall "best value" recommendation. The final recommendation will also take into consideration the products' cost and how much paper towel comes on each roll. Stay tuned, we're moving into the exciting part of the unit, but we've still got a lot of hard work ahead of us.
4th Grade SAGE
The 4th graders are gaining a good handle on the attributes and costs of the 6 polygons we're using to construct our cities. Each class determined the areas of each polygon, and from that information has determined the cost of each one. The equilateral triangle and the regular pentagon were the trickiest to determine area for.
The cost of each square unit is $26.25. Students used this figure to determine the costs of each polygon. This is the first time they've been able to get an idea of how big they can build their buildings, since they now know the cost of each piece. The budget of $50,000 per student for two buildings just came into a better focus for many of our students.
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| We determined the formula for determining the area of triangles. |
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| The regular pentagon |
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| Can you figure the area of the equilateral triangle? |
Our third graders are well on their way to telling the Chief Investigator (me) their theories for who they believed borrowed Mr. Bear. Their final project is a memo from themselves to me outlining the reasons they believe one or more people borrowed the bear.
To help them organized their thinking, they are using a PowerPoint template. To finalize their memo, they will transfew their thoughts to the memo and then edit them for grammar, spelling, and transitions. Here's a few samples of student writing.
Monday, November 21, 2011
SAGE Update - November 23, 2011
5th Grade SAGE
Over the last two weeks, each of the classes has been working to design and conduct an experiment that the entire class would use to determine the ranking of the 4 paper towel brands based on absorbency. This is part of our quest to evaluate the overall value of our 4 brands in order to recommend the brand to our friends and families.
As we've discovered rather quickly, being good scientists takes a lot of hard work. Each step in our experimentation has to be scrutinized for its effectiveness and for how it keeps to our standards for creating a fair and accurate test. We've exercised perseverance, creativity, and problem solving skills to create tests that we'd confidently stand behind as people looked into our scientific methods. Interestingly, no class has created "the perfect experiment" that would do away with every possible error, and no class has been able to perfectly control every one of our controlled variables. We've decided that we'd need pretty sophisticated equipment to be able to do that.
Given our limitations, we're forging forward with our investigations. As we go on, I will post pictures of each class's investigation, and will have the students from each class evaluate the different experiments for their effectiveness. I'm looking forward to the experiments!
UPDATE: Creekside's experimentation went pretty well, but in a quick check of our results, we realized we do not have a finding that we could confidently present to the public yet. (You can find our data, and questions the Creekside students need to answer regarding the testing.)
(Here's Part of Creekside's Writeup)
Over the last two weeks, each of the classes has been working to design and conduct an experiment that the entire class would use to determine the ranking of the 4 paper towel brands based on absorbency. This is part of our quest to evaluate the overall value of our 4 brands in order to recommend the brand to our friends and families.
As we've discovered rather quickly, being good scientists takes a lot of hard work. Each step in our experimentation has to be scrutinized for its effectiveness and for how it keeps to our standards for creating a fair and accurate test. We've exercised perseverance, creativity, and problem solving skills to create tests that we'd confidently stand behind as people looked into our scientific methods. Interestingly, no class has created "the perfect experiment" that would do away with every possible error, and no class has been able to perfectly control every one of our controlled variables. We've decided that we'd need pretty sophisticated equipment to be able to do that.
Given our limitations, we're forging forward with our investigations. As we go on, I will post pictures of each class's investigation, and will have the students from each class evaluate the different experiments for their effectiveness. I'm looking forward to the experiments!
UPDATE: Creekside's experimentation went pretty well, but in a quick check of our results, we realized we do not have a finding that we could confidently present to the public yet. (You can find our data, and questions the Creekside students need to answer regarding the testing.)
(Here's Part of Creekside's Writeup)
4th Grade
In 4th grade, we're in the midst of our first 90 minutes of experimental building with our 6 polygons. One of the best ways to enhance creativity is just to give someone the gift of time . . . Generally, the more time someone spends exploring and experimenting, the more creative they are in their investigation and in their productivity. I discovered that the buildings students created was enhanced quite a bit by simply giving them time to try different ideas out.
At the same time, we're working as a class to determine the areas of each of our different polygons. Squares and rectangles are fairly easy to deterine, but the three triangles and the regular pentagon present more of a challenge. Once we determine the areas of each shape, we'll then be able to calculate the cost of each piece. This will allow each student to begin to get a sense for how far $50,000 budget will take them in their process of building a home and a public building.
In 4th grade, we're in the midst of our first 90 minutes of experimental building with our 6 polygons. One of the best ways to enhance creativity is just to give someone the gift of time . . . Generally, the more time someone spends exploring and experimenting, the more creative they are in their investigation and in their productivity. I discovered that the buildings students created was enhanced quite a bit by simply giving them time to try different ideas out.
At the same time, we're working as a class to determine the areas of each of our different polygons. Squares and rectangles are fairly easy to deterine, but the three triangles and the regular pentagon present more of a challenge. Once we determine the areas of each shape, we'll then be able to calculate the cost of each piece. This will allow each student to begin to get a sense for how far $50,000 budget will take them in their process of building a home and a public building.
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| Partners determining the areas of each of the 6 polygons. |
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| Each team records their finding for the area. Eventually, we must all agree on the area of each piece based on "good math" and with precision. |
3rd Grade
With the Thanksgiving break and with conferences, our 3rd grade classes have separated a bit in their progress through the Mr. Bear Unit.
Creekside students were able to visit the "State Crime Lab" on Monday to do 10 different experiments related to the evidence found at the scene of the mystery. Students gathered this newest information and compared it with the information they'd gathered through visiting the mystery scene and through tracking the account of what took place leading up to the mystery. With all of the different pieces of information at hand, students entered the final stages of deciding who borrowed Mr. Bear. In the upcoming weeks, they will be creating a memo to send to the Chief Investigator - me - to lay out their evidence for who they believed borrowed Mr. Bear. At the end of the unit, they will read their memos to me and all their fellow investigators. At that time, we will assess the investigative efforts of each member of the team.
Grand Ridge has not met for the last two weeks. In our last two classes, we had been investigating fingerprints. We've learned the three main types of fingerprints - loops, whorls, and arches. And, we've discovered the "normal" percentages of each type that are found in the world. After doing a check of fingerprints for each person in our class, with the help of jeweler's loupes, we took a gathered the data for our entire class. Students finished up the investigation by analyzing their own fingerprint types to those of our entire class as well as to the overall percentages for the world. Maybe you can get your fingerprints analyzed by your child!
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Monday, November 7, 2011
SAGE Update - November 10, 2011
Google Sketch-up (CONTINUED ANOTHER WEEK)
Many students have begun to experiment with Google Sketch-up, the CAD program that allows users to create 3-D objects online. Experimenting with Sketch-up is this week's optional activity for SAGE students.
Sketch-up can be used for activities as simple as creating a 3-D box, and for complex activities such as recreating 3-D depictions of historic buildings or streets scenes. Some high school teachers are actually having their students create a building from their community's past as they learn state and local history. Amazingly, people who create the buildings can have them added to Google Earth.
You will need to download the application onto your computer. If your children create drawings, they can e-mail me a picture of whatever they create.
5th Grade
Next week, we'll pool all of our knowledge and wisdom to create one experiment for the entire class to perform that we believe will help us to accurately determine the absorbency ability of each paper towel brand.
4th Grade
The 4th graders at Creekside worked to determine theirclass's top 30 buildings. They made it through their top 25 so far. Here's their results. (Grand Ridge will be working next week to do the same thing, since Friday was a holiday this week. What do you think of our list? Are there any buildings you can think of that should be there that aren't?
3rd Grade
Along with the Mr. Bear activities this week, our 3rd Graders are learning the value of PERSISTENCE and CREATIVITY as they tackle a tough set of Toothpick Puzzles. These puzzles exercise their spatial problem solving "muscles" by asking them to rearrange a set of toothpicks to certain specified designs. The persistence comes in with the "fish problem" when the students realize that the obvious strategy for rearranging them doesn't work. Most students find this very disheartening and a huge obstacle to overcome. (Many of them are used to things coming to them easily, and it's not a fun experience when a problem doesn't.)
Here's the fish problem. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don't help your students solve it. You'll take away the main part of the challenge that the problem represents for them. (If you'd like to give it a try yourself, make sure he or she isn't around to peek. They're very tempted to peek at others' solutions for this one!
Many students have begun to experiment with Google Sketch-up, the CAD program that allows users to create 3-D objects online. Experimenting with Sketch-up is this week's optional activity for SAGE students.
Sketch-up can be used for activities as simple as creating a 3-D box, and for complex activities such as recreating 3-D depictions of historic buildings or streets scenes. Some high school teachers are actually having their students create a building from their community's past as they learn state and local history. Amazingly, people who create the buildings can have them added to Google Earth.
You will need to download the application onto your computer. If your children create drawings, they can e-mail me a picture of whatever they create.
5th Grade
This week was a time for us to demonstrate our abilities as thinkers. Our time was dominated by the demonstration and explanation of our first absorbency experiments to one another. Each team took their turn to do a "dry run-through" of their experiment, with the rest of the class giving them feedback in the form of "Aha's," "Questions," and "Red Flags." Here's what each of these entailed.
- Aha's – Something you saw or learned that you'd like to add to your own experiment (ing.)
- Questions – Something you'd like to ask the presenters about. It could be a "why" question, a "how" question, a "what would you do" question, or a "did you think about" question.
- Red Flags – This is a "caution" or "warning" you have about some aspect of the experiment. It respectfully points out an error in written procedure or in the experimenting itself.
Next week, we'll pool all of our knowledge and wisdom to create one experiment for the entire class to perform that we believe will help us to accurately determine the absorbency ability of each paper towel brand.
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| Anish and Ashley explain their absorbency experiment. |
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| Sammy and Angela share their experiment with the Thursday class. |
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| Aliya and Zoe listen to a question a student has about their experiment.
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The 4th graders at Creekside worked to determine theirclass's top 30 buildings. They made it through their top 25 so far. Here's their results. (Grand Ridge will be working next week to do the same thing, since Friday was a holiday this week. What do you think of our list? Are there any buildings you can think of that should be there that aren't?
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| Creekside 4th grade top 30 buildings (so far.) |
Along with the Mr. Bear activities this week, our 3rd Graders are learning the value of PERSISTENCE and CREATIVITY as they tackle a tough set of Toothpick Puzzles. These puzzles exercise their spatial problem solving "muscles" by asking them to rearrange a set of toothpicks to certain specified designs. The persistence comes in with the "fish problem" when the students realize that the obvious strategy for rearranging them doesn't work. Most students find this very disheartening and a huge obstacle to overcome. (Many of them are used to things coming to them easily, and it's not a fun experience when a problem doesn't.)
Here's the fish problem. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don't help your students solve it. You'll take away the main part of the challenge that the problem represents for them. (If you'd like to give it a try yourself, make sure he or she isn't around to peek. They're very tempted to peek at others' solutions for this one!
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