Spring Saturday SAVY, Week 3, Spatial Smarts: Diving into Dimensions (1st-2nd)
Dear SAVY Families,
We had another fantastic day of SAVY Spring 2024: Spatial Smarts. The mathematicians once again blew me away with their knowledge, curiosity, and creativity. I am confident that each one is walking away from this course with an increased spatial awareness.
We started our day reviewing the concepts from week 2. Many of our mathematicians did not get to finish their nets activity, so we started this week finishing up last week’s work. Our mathematicians were reminded to first predict if the net would make an open box. Then they were instructed to cut out and fold the net to test their prediction. Many students were surprised to see that more of the pentominoes made open boxes than they predicted!
After this, we moved on to the final major concept of our class: projections and cross-sections. A projection is another example of a two-dimensional view of a three-dimensional object. We started by looking at shadows of unknown objects, as shadows are common examples of projections. Our mathematicians had fun predicting the object that I was holding up based only on the shadow. Many object reveals came as a surprise! This prompted a discussion about what shadows can truly tell us about the object that is being projected. We then looked at cross-sections. The mathematicians used their math journals to draw predictions about what the cross-sections of a hard-boiled egg and an apple look like. Will all of the cross-sections look the same? Will they be symmetrical? Our mathematicians used new Play-Doh and dental floss to practice making their own cross-sections. The dental floss was used to make a clean cut so that they could examine the polygon that would be created because of the cross-section. This was definitely a highlight of the day!
To end our time at SAVY, students worked on a final project that brought together all of the skills learned in our class. Our mathematicians were instructed to create a map, as maps require a great deal of spatial awareness to be able to create. I challenged students to use their own neighborhood or a familiar neighborhood as inspiration so that they could ensure the scale of their map was correct. If they finished drawing their map, the mathematicians were challenged to create a net, mat plan, and lines of symmetry for one of the buildings they drew. Students were able to use blocks to create their building using the mat plan that they drew. To end the day, our mathematicians had the chance to present their maps to their peers. Each map was unique and showed each mathematician’s skills within their creations. We finished our SAVY class by returning to one of the first questions that was asked: What does it mean to be spatially aware? Our mathematicians’ new knowledge of dimensions, shapes, and more certainly helped to expand our thinking from our week one answers.
Thank you for letting me learn alongside your child for the last three Saturdays. It has been incredibly rewarding to work with such bright minds. I hope to see some of the mathematicians back at SAVY this summer!
Sincerely,
Miss Gruchot
