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Summer SAVY 2017, Session 4/Day 1- Theory, Criticism, and The Force (Rising 6th/7th)
Jul. 10, 2017—Students of Theory, Criticism, and The Force: Friends, thank you for an exciting and content-packed first day! I’m thrilled by your enthusiasm – both for Star Wars, which is near and dear to my heart, but also to learn new ways of reading and interpreting content. The tools you’ll acquire by week’s end will not...
Summer SAVY 2017, Session 4/Day 1- Intro to Programming and Computer Science (Rising 6th/7th)
Jul. 10, 2017—We have had a fast-paced day in Intro to Programming! In the morning, students considered the qualities of good programmers, naming determination, persistence, confidence, perseverance, imagination, and collaboration as the most import characteristics of programmers. We are excited to see our students engage in those practices during the week! After that, we practiced literal and...
Summer SAVY 2017, Session 4/Day 1- Business Basics (Rising 4th/5th)
Jul. 10, 2017—Today we embarked on our journey into the world of Wall Street. Most students began the day having never heard the phrase “strategic investing” so we started by answering the following questions by first using the words “investment” and “market” as they are typically used to hearing them. What is an investment? Students came up...
Summer SAVY 2017, Session 4/Day 1- Looking into Language (Rising 4th/5th)
Jul. 10, 2017—Welcome to Looking into Language! Today we began our work as linguists and delved into the world of language. After creating our own definitions of the word “language”, we started our day discussing how babies learn language. We watched a short TED talk by Patricia Kuhl, The Linguistic Genius of Babies, in order to better...
Summer SAVY 2017, Session 4/Day 1- Measuring Matters (Rising 2nd/3rd)
Jul. 10, 2017—We got off to a great start today in our Measurement Matters class. We began by having the kids create a concept map about themselves. This had the dual purpose of getting them comfortable with concept maps and allowing them to tell all of us a little about themselves. We then completed our “Pre-Test” concept...
Summer SAVY 2017, Session 4/Day 1- Telling Tales (Rising 2nd/3rd)
Jul. 10, 2017—We had a great first day of Telling Tales at SAVY. After our Concept Map Pre-Test, students told their first Two-Minute Tales. We heard about trips to Holiday World, Florida, and Las Vegas, and about a new tube at the lake and a Disney cruise. And we heard tall tales about alligators and a trip...
Summer SAVY 2017, Session 4/Day 1- Dive into Design (Rising 1st)
Jul. 10, 2017—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...
Summer SAVY 2017, Session 4/Day 1- Beyond the Pyramids (Rising 1st)
Jul. 10, 2017—Dear SAVY Parents, Wow – what a great day we had in Ancient Egypt today! I am so grateful for the opportunity to work with your child this week, and I think they are pretty excited as well! Right off the bat we explored the culture of ancient Egypt by hearing the story of Rhodopis...
Summer SAVY 2017, Session 3/Day 4- Computational Astrophysics (Rising 6th/7th)
Jun. 29, 2017—We’ve finally reached our goal in Computational Astrophysics – everyone now has a working model of the Solar System! During the first part of the day, the students added in all of the planets and made them orbit our sun. They quickly pointed out that the way we were writing our code was inefficient. The...
Summer SAVY 2017, Session 3/Day 4- Truth vs. Perception (Rising 6th/7th)
Jun. 29, 2017—Today was all about art! To me, personal interpretations of art are a great way to discuss how one perceive the work in front of them. So I started students off with a question: what counts as art? What qualifications must something have to be considered art? And who gets to decide? As you can...