Summer SAVY 2017, Session 4/Day 1- Dive into Design (Rising 1st)
Dear Parents,
Today was a fabulous first day for our Dive into Design class! It was a lovely surprise to welcome back three students I had taught during fall SAVY! We began our morning by discussing what a concept map is so that students could create a concept map that shows their background knowledge regarding measurement. This type of pre-assessment helps us decide where to begin instruction for our course and how to differentiate to meet each student’s needs. Next, I read a book called, Iggy Peck Architect, and students identified what architects do and what tools they use to do their jobs. We also talked about how much fun it is to create things from everyday materials students have at home, just like Iggy Peck.
After this, students were asked to evaluate a group of “toys” to identify similarities, and assign a concept name that fits the entire group. These toys included an airplane, a jet, a car, a truck and a solar moving toy with a monkey, palm trees and other island decorations. Students quickly moved from saying that all the items were toys, or that they were different colors to greater depth of thinking such as, they look like real things; but they are fake, they are representations of real things but they can only be used as toys. etc. Then, students were asked if they could come up with a concept name that could be used to describe all of the items based on their similarities, and after some fantastic brainstorming, a student came up with the concept word: model. This was the concept we were hoping that students would discover and they did! Next, students created our class definition of a model, what a model is, and examples and non-examples of models. Following this, I showed students models of dollhouses and swimming pools as well as house blueprints. Then students created their own blueprints of their dream pool. I can’t wait until you see them at the open house on Friday!
Then, students rotated through three centers (we will finish tomorrow) which included, designing the look of the base of their swimming pool model, exploring different measurement with different sized boxes using tape measures and rulers including length, width and height, and focusing on accuracy; and attributes of 2-D and 3-D items as well as turning 2-D models into 3-D models, and making their own cube from a 2-D model. Tomorrow we will explore the meaning of volume as well as comparing and ordering objects. We will also discover what it means to partition lengths from whole to equal parts.
If you have time for dinner table discussion tonight, here is a question students will respond to tomorrow. A swimming pool is about to a built in your neighborhood. The architect and construction workers need your help to figure out how to build it. The community has had several meetings to decide how to design the pool, but everyone seems to have different ideas about how deep the pool should be, what shape it should have, and what special features would be important. The adults cannot seem to agree on a design, so now the architect has decided to ask for your ideas! What suggestions do you have for the architect?
More diving in tomorrow!
Mrs. Karen Tyson
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