Last week we finished up our propaganda posters. Then everyone came up with a design to decorate the door for the Winter Door Competition. There was a tie on 2 doors so our door is decorated on both sides! The 6th grade group has a little more work to do on theirs before it is complete. This week we are playing Pictionary and on Thursday we will have our winter party with both classes combined.

I hope each of you have a wonderful and safe holiday season!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving break!

This week we will be applying what we know about propaganda to vintage posters and use primary sources to look at Buster Brown advertisements through the years.

We have completed our unit on Engineering and Design of the Renaissance Period. Today we will start our second unit, " Going Commercial- Economics, Advertising, and Creative Productions for 21st Learners".

We are going to begin this unit with a set of activities based around developing background information by studying propaganda, vintage posters, and vintage advertisements.  The first activity is learning about the different propaganda terms.

Quote of the week "Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it." -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Last week we learned about Fibonacci's sequence, the golden mean, and the golden rectangle. We learned that many believe the golden rectangle is more appealing to humans than other shapes. Today we are going to test that theory. Each student will make a tessellation, then cut them into three different sized rectangles, one being a golden rectangle. We will see which size rectangle is more appealing.

If there is time we will also learn how to draw a Fibonacci spiral from a golden rectangle.

Our next unit is 'Going Commercial'- Economics, Advertising, and Creative Productions for 21st Century Learners. We will begin with propaganda and vintage posters.

Today and tomorrow we are finishing up our crane activity. We are going to demonstrate and discuss the power of a circle and how that relates to building. Starting Thursday/Friday we are beginning our next lesson 'Designing with the Golden Mean'. These activities are based on Fibonacci's Golden Rectangle.

Our cranes are complete! We will test them today and tomorrow and then do a self evaluation. I'm going to try to video everyone's and post them on here for you to see. Have a great week!

6th Grade Crane Building Day 3

Quote of the week- "You cannot solve a problem from the frame of mind that created the problem in the first place." Albert Einstein

We are continuing to work on our cranes this week. Some are getting closer to finishing than others. We will wait until all cranes are complete before we test them.

6th Grade Crane Building Day 2

3rd, 4th, 5th Grade Day 1 Building

Day 1 of Crane Building!

Quote of the Week "When we long for life without difficulties, remind us that oaks grows strong in contrary winds and diamonds are made under pressure." -Peter Marshall

Today we start building our cranes! At the end of last week they drew up plans on how to construct their crane. There are many ideas floating around. It will be interesting to see how they all turn out! I will try to post pictures throughout the process.

We are continuing our activities with the crane this week. We are going to explore simple machines, energy, and Newton's Law of Motion, then each student will design their own crane.

This week is a short week again due to meetings I had to attend today. Tomorrow with the 3rd-5th graders we are going to continue perspective drawing, but instead of 1 point perspective they will learn how to draw a 2 point perspective. Then on Thursday/Friday we will begin our next set of activities based around crane building. Students are going to use the engineering process to build a working crane model that is strong enough to lift a stapler.

Quote of the week- "One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar! -Helen Keller

Last week we were able to test our parachutes. We experimented with different heights and weight to find to perfect combination. Then on Thursday/Friday we started talking about perspective drawing. Both classes were able to start their own perspective drawing. This week we will continue with our drawings.

We will not have High Flyers this Thursday, Friday, our next Monday due to meetings I have to attend.

Today we FLY...

Finishing up the parachutes last week took longer than I had anticipated, so today and tomorrow we will put our parachutes to the test. With the weather hopefully on our side, we will take our parachutes to the football bleachers and test them out. We will experiment with different amounts of weight to see what flies best.

On Thursday/Friday we will start our next set of activities in this unit titled "Renaissance Design in Perspective". In this lesson we will understand linear perspective in drawing and painting as a mathematical and geometric relationship. Then try our hand at perspective drawing.

Since it just started pouring down rain as I type this, we may have to switch our beginning of the week and end of week activities!

Quote of the Week: "You must be the change you wish to see in the world." -Gandhi

This week we are continuing to work on our Da Vinci parachutes. By the end of the week we will be ready to test them!

Sorry this is not getting posted until today! I had a sick little boy I had to stay home with yesterday.

This week we are going to learn about Da Vinci's Parachute and then build our own prototype. Last week we started our first unit- Engineering and Design in the 16th Century. We started with an activity of falling objects. The objective was to learn about gravity and drag to explore how gravity acts upon an object. In this activity we learned that weight and mass of an object does not determine the speed an object is pulled to the ground by gravity, but the shape.

If your child has not brought their dowel rods to school yet, please remember to send them tomorrow (6th grade) and/or Friday (3-5th grade).

Supplies Needed

One of the first projects we will be working on is Da Vinci’s Parachute. For this project each student will need 4- 3ft in length by ⅛ inch in diameter dowel rods. Please bring these to class with you the week of September 2. Thank you.

High Flyers will begin today, even with the early out. Our time will just be short by about 10 minutes. Each day we meet we will begin with a quick warm-up. This will include a quote, math word problem, Greek or Latin roots, or a visual representation of vocabulary. This week our main focus is going to be getting to know ourselves by taking a color personality test. This will show us what type of personality we each have along with knowing which type of people we work best with.

Happy First Day of School! Thank you to everyone who stopped by my room last night. For those who didn't get a chance, I will send the brochure home with your child.

High Flyers will start Monday, August 25. Sixth grade will be on Mondays and Thursday from 10:00 to 11:30. Third through fifth will be on Tuesdays and Fridays at the same time.

Welcome back to another school year!