The Start of Math Town...

A few weeks ago we started our math towns. We discuss how math is everywhere. We ask students to build a town that includes buildings with measured area, volume, and perimeter. They need to include 3D designs and polygons. They also need to create angles; right, obtuse, and acute angles somewhere on their town. The first stage is to look at their "building codes" and design their city. Once their plan gets approved by the teacher, they move on to making their 3D templates for their town. This is step one in the process for Math Town. Stay posted for pictures from stage 2 where the kids will start to make their templates on construction paper and affix them to the board.

Roman Mosaics

The floors of Roman buildings were often richly decorated with mosaics- tiny colored stones called tesserae. Rich Romans decorated the floors of their main rooms with mosaics. Students were asked to make a mosaic using colored paper to cover their "tile" a rectangle of white paper. They were told they could use any design they wanted to. Look how colorful they turned out! They are currently posted on our Think Tank bulletin board outside of our room. Come check them out!
Below are some close up examples. They are the work of Luke T, Kiyomi, and Hays.

Ancient Greece crafts

We are loving our ancient civilizations unit! This week we learned about Ancient Greece and made hoplite shields that soldiers used, drama masks, since drama was something Greeks were famous for, and constructed catapults with partners. We had a blast!

Biography projects

Our April project was to do a biography project. Students were asked to read a biography chapter book and then do a report on their person. Our options for reports were a monologue, a scrapbook, or a Power Point. We were amazed that 2/3 of our class chose to do a Power Point. We learned so much about so many people ranging from Joan of Arc to Jackie Robinson!

Whirlygigs gone wild!

We are working on gravity in science. We constructed whirly gigs, which are contraptions that fall to the ground and twirl as they fall. Here are Luke and Analiese making their whirly gigs. Here are Luke, Kiyomi, and Maxine trying out their whirly gigs. After they were done seeing how they worked, they had to come up with a testable question if they changed one variable on their whirly gig.

Teacher Appreciation week

Happy Teacher Appreciation week to us!! Look at the poster our fabulous parents made! We are so lucky to have such a great class this year!