Author
Summer SAVY 2018: Session 3, Day 1 – The Makings of America (Rising 3rd/4th)
Jun. 25, 2018—Dear SAVY Parents, What a great start to our week! The student’s jumped right in with the existing knowledge they had of some unrelated people, places, dates, and events, but they showed their readiness for new knowledge and deeper understandings of the events leading up to the American Revolution. Our essential question that we continue...
Summer SAVY 2018: Session 3, Day 1 – Environmental Explorers (Rising 2nd)
Jun. 25, 2018—Happy First Day! Our Explorers are off to great start! We dove in with investigating our prior knowledge of “erosion” using a concept map. Students were introduced to a problem at the beach in which the plans for building a children’s camp at the beach town of Dunesville are on hold because the town council...
Summer SAVY 2018: Session 3, Day 1 – Engineering Solutions (Rising 1st)
Jun. 25, 2018—We had a wonderful first day. After getting to know each other, we began with a pre-assessment concept map on “System” to understand the pre-existing depth of knowledge our students have regarding the concept of system. This will help gauge what students already know and guide the course. Since we are designing solutions to problems...
Summer SAVY 2018: Session 2, Day 5 – Archetypes and Literature (Rising 5th and 6th)
Jun. 22, 2018—Hello and Happy Friday! Today was our day to try to pull together a week’s worth of learning. Over the last couple of days we’ve done a more focused exploration of a single archetype in order to set up our final projects: student-led presentations on selected archetypes, from water to the jester to the fall. ...
Summer SAVY 2018: Session 2, Day 5 – Puzzles and Problem Solving (Rising 5th and 6th)
Jun. 22, 2018—On our final day in Puzzles and Problem Solving, we looked at a couple of gold coin problems where students had a certain number of weighings on a balance scale to try to determine which coins were fake. Students quickly solved the nine-coin problem and set to work on the five-coin version. You would think...
Summer SAVY 2018: Session 2, Day 5 – Story Gardening (Rising 3rd and 4th)
Jun. 22, 2018—We wrapped up a wonderful week today, finishing works-in-progress and beginning new ones! Students discussed present and past point of view and shared memories with the group. They wrote pieces based on their memories incorporating sensory details and transposed them into the present tense to give immediacy to their writing. Next, they took time to...
Summer SAVY 2018: Session 2, Day 5 – Animal Communications (Rising 3rd and 4th)
Jun. 22, 2018—For our last day of Secret Worlds: Intro to Animal Communication, our students jumped into action, designing two science communication products to showcase at the parent open house. These projects convey unique impacts of manmade noise on animal communication through flyers, posters, and videos. Groups had deadlines for making draft versions of flyers and either...
Summer SAVY 2018: Session 2, Day 5 – Investigations in Forensic Science (Rising 2nd)
Jun. 22, 2018—What a great week! I can’t believe our week has already ended here at SAVY Session 2. I want to express how thankful I am for the opportunity to work with your children this week. We had so much fun solving the case and seeing how science is used to prove the guilt or innocence...
Summer SAVY 2018: Session 2, Day 5 – Animal Adaptations (Rising 1st)
Jun. 22, 2018—Happy Last Day! Today was a very fun day for our young scientists. We would like to thank all the parents who were able to visit our classroom. The students spent the rest of their day reviewing what they had learned about food chains/webs, survive/thrive, and animal adaptations. For example, during one activity the students...
Summer SAVY 2018: Session 2, Day 4 – Archetypes and Literature (Rising 5th and 6th)
Jun. 21, 2018—Hello all, Today we continued on with our quest for a deeper understanding of specific archetypes. Our focus was – of course — the quest. To start, the students were asked to develop images they associate with the word quest. Students drew swords, and treasure, and heroic types of all sorts. From there we shifted...