Summer SAVY, Session 1 Day 4, Cryptology (3rd-4th)
The Eleventh Hour Mystery is heating up, with lots of new reflections and evidence to consider. Today we did some live debate, using the four corners method and accountable talk to listen to other people’s ideas about who stole the feast and reflect orally about those new ideas. Following that, we found a series of clues and determined that Kilroy the mouse was definitely involved; however, we don’t yet know the whole story! It’s a privilege to watch their wheels turn as they hear their classmates’ ideas and build on their prior knowledge with new evidence. They are becoming proficient codebreakers as they decipher what the author has left behind. Be careful of red herrings, especially on the final pages of the book!
Mathematically, by this point, we have learned about the Egyptian Numeral System, Roman Numerals, Base Ten, and today, Base Two or the Binary System. We encouraged our students to look at the patterns emerging across these systems. How can we know whether or not they have a place value? What does that look like? We used our knowledge of those patterns to expand to Base Two and beyond. Using the analogy of party invitations, students were able to understand that they can use ANY number as a base and code numbers this way. The power of the pattern was our guide! Be prepared for the birthday magic card trick they will try to pull on you tonight! Hint: Patterns matter! The Binary system is key!
Our history minute took us back to touch on the Egyptian Code and the Rosetta Stone. We watched a short video clip on the stone and used hieroglyphics in the Karnak page of “The Eleventh Hour.” I encourage you to use the wealth of internet resources to continue studying more in-depth about the Rosetta Stone. Here are a few websites to explore:
https://kidskonnect.com/social-studies/rosetta-stone/
https://www.history.com/news/what-is-the-rosetta-stone
See you tomorrow for our final day of learning and reflection! I told the students that if they would like to bring in any codes or puzzle books from home to share tomorrow, I would love that! We will be creating an escape room tomorrow using all the different codes we’ve learned to solve.