4th Grade Geometry & Origami

Today's lesson was chopped up a bit by having all three classes at different points in the scope of the class and a morning safety drill.  This means that each class did a little something different, but each class had time for a little geometry taught through origami.  I have a link below to an origami website with a lot of models you can make with your child.  Be sure to ask them about congruent vs. similar triangles, bisecting angles, and quadrilaterals.  You'll enjoy making the models and talking with your child about what they've been learning.

 

Origami of all Kinds! 

5th grade Coding

Today I showed the students the "Featured Programmer" page and it turned out that many hadn't seen it yet so make sure you go back and check out the entry for last week featuring his great work.

This week's Featured Programmer is...

Jaden M.

Jaden is programming what appears to be a pretty straight forward game of Tic-Tac-Toe.  However he is finding out that getting the programming to work when playing against the computer is VERY involved.  If you think about it the program needs to know what spaces are already taken, which are still available, when it's the computer's turn, and more!  If you want to program the computer to play with a strategy then the programmer needs to understand both the strategy and how to program it as well.  This all equals a lot of logic and hard work.  For that reason alone Jaden has been chosen as our Featured Programmer of the week!

4th grade Geometry & Origami

Today 2nd hour Geometry class finished a little early with the lesson and I had an opportunity to share something I really enjoy - Origami.  How do origami and geometry fit together in one class you ask...

I also shared the work of Robert Lang and I think he does a great job of explaining how the two are very good fit for one-another.  Check it out!

Robert Lang TED Talk

http://www.langorigami.com/ 

5th grade Coding

Today everyone was working on their Scratch projects and doing many different kinds of things within those programs.

I'm going to start to highlight a student or two each week and the project they are working on.   

This week's featured programmer is Noah A.!

Noah is creating "The Game of Science" that will help people to learn about the scientific method.  He has this great little frog that snatches flies out of the air.  The flies are tied to terms and ideas that you would need to know about when planning an experiment in Science class.  The goal is to "catch" all the flies by answering the games questions correctly.  

Noah's game is:

• challenging to code
• a fun idea
• educational
• unique
• AWESOME!

2nd grade Sculpture - Looking ahead

Today all the students finished their "Favorite Place" sculpture book!  They were all ready to take it home today too... but not so fast!  Next week we have conferences and these will be on display during that time.  

Wednesday conferences run from 4:00 - 5:00 & 5:30 -7:30.  

Thursday they run all day - 9:00 - 12:00, 12:30 - 5:00, & 5:30 -7:30

We even have a book fair!

Any of the 2nd grade Sculpture students that come to conferences can take home the two finished pieces they have to show.  Please join us and have the kids take you to all their classes and share the great work they are doing here each week. 

The next sculpture lesson will be a collaborative work like the ones shown below.  These go on display every year and every year we get so many compliments.  They make our building look really neat.

3rd grade Scratch Coding

Here is a link to some projects I am sharing to help you begin creating your own Scratch game or animation.  The program we worked on together in class is also here for you to look at to remember what we did.

Some of my programs are basic and some are pretty complicated.  Check them out and figure out what kinds of features you'd like to include in your project and I'll teach those in class.

4th grade Geometry - Area of Triangles

Today in class we extended last week's lesson on are to include the area of triangles.  One powerful moment for most of the students was the demonstration shown below.  This example visually shows how the formula makes sense and makes it more tangible for the students.

An extension you can try at home is to cut up some rectangles and rearrange the leftover pieces to make the triangle.