Hi Room 6 Parents,
I hope you had an excellent week 🙂 I know we did!
- On Monday we reread part of The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind that mentioned Archimedes. William talks about how we don’t typically think about scientists to protect us when we are under attack, but how Archimedes was able to use the math and science of mirrors to defeat the Roman ships! We listened to an NPR segment that reviewed the details of Archimedes’ story and how people today are running tests to see if it is possible to light ships on fire using just mirrors and the sun’s energy! We discussed what could be changed for further testing to be sure the tests are accurate in recreating what Archimedes did. We then created tableaux to retell either the story of Archimedes or one group chose to recreate the the scientists who are testing the validity of the story today. Then, on Wednesday, we played a game called Mirrors. In partners, one person was the leader and the other was the mirror. The mirror tried to follow everything the leader was doing in a way that we couldn’t tell who was leading the motions! It may sound complicated, but we had fun taking turns trying to figure out who the leader was in each pair 🙂
- After analyzing The Lion and The Mouse and The Elephants and The Mice last week, throughout this week we have read various folktales from around the world! It is fun to pick out the morals and notice similarities across stories from different places. We also read a book about the Chicago World’s Fair in preparation for our awesome field trip coming up on Monday! It turns out, there are many similarities between the invention of the Ferris wheel and William’s creation of his windmill.
- On Monday we learned about SCAMPER with Ms. Neethu. Ask your kids to explain what SCAMPER is! On Wednesday we taught Mr. Dan about SCAMPER by brainstorming solutions for a problem in our class. When going to recess, Paige often finds herself running right out of her shoes! 🙂 So we each took a turn substituting, or combining, or adapting, etc. Paige’s shoes to try to solve her problem. The ideas were excellent! Even better, our critical thinking skills were put to work as we questioned each other’s ideas too. For example, we asked: how do you plan to wash her shoes and socks if they’re sewn together? These conversations and experiences have helped us grow and analyze our own ideas as we continue to prepare for our invention fair in the spring.
- On Thursday we went to Cutting Hall to see Mytholomania! I know I was laughing the whole time and it was a great way to remember some of the stories we had read in the fall — especially the 12 minute version of The Odyssey!
- This morning’s Fitness Friday got us moving! We used our fitness alphabet to spell WILLIAM KAMKWAMBA (and do the matching exercises!). After warming up for the day, we were ready to revisit our fraction stations from a couple of weeks ago. We also read a news article about a man from Kenya who invented gloves that would translate sign language to speech through a phone app. It was so cool to be able to add to our map of Africa and also make connections to Eureka! We finished the day with a cubbie clean-out and a little classroom cleaning to wrap up the week.
Thank you to Paige and Hawk’s grandma (or Kiki!) who donated this engine-building kit that has been fun to figure out this week!
More Cornflake Yoga!
Fake food made to look like spaghetti and milk!