4th Grade Starts a Mathematical Art Project

The 4th graders made some improvements to their mandala projects so we can finally get them all printed.  They also had time to work on their 3d designs for new playground equipment.  Then they started a new project, which will be a math-inspired work of art.  In order to do they project they will be using our Sphero robots, so they first had to learn how to program the Spheros to “draw” different shapes.  Once they have that mastered and a sketch approved, the Spheros will be dipped in paint and used to create their geometric designs on poster board.

2nd Grade Builds Sphero Bridges

The 2nd graders were challenged to make bridges that spanned 14 inches between the ends of 2 tables, and would allow for a Sphero to cross.  They were allowed to use different materials, but there were “costs” for each material.  The challenge was to keep the cost low while still making a usable bridge.  There was a lot of planning, measuring, weighing, and calculating going on in our classroom!  Two out of 4 teams were able to complete the challenge during our GT time.  One of the finished teams had materials costs that were over $1000 and the other had costs of around $500. Can you tell which one was the least expensive finished bridge?

4th Grade Paints with Sphero

We have a new blogger this week, Nathan.  Our new photographer is Katie. Alex also contributed some of the video. You can see a video of the Spheros painting at the end of this post.

GT highlights  of the day!

We got back together with our spheros Newton and Einstein which were ready for a fun new challenge. All 6 GT kids were split into teams of 3.Challenge 1  was to brainstorm a shape or a shape pattern. Team one chose a triforce and team 2 chose the 6 pointed star. Challenge 2 was to slather paint all over the sphero and let it draw the shape your team programed. Both did not turn out as planned but were art in the eyes of both teams. To finish the day we worked on our virtual  math museums. Finally we looked at the  com.google and pacman on google maps!

4th Grade Learns How to Program Sphero

Twin brothers, Trent and Nathan, were this week’s blogger and photographer for 4th grade.

Hello readers, I am here to tell you about the wonders of fourth grade G/T. The first thing that happened was that we all wrote comments about teachers we have met. The next thing we did was that we read about two chapters of Chasing Vermeer a mathematical masterpiece. Then we got the laptops and started to work on our virtual math museums. After we worked on our math museums we all watched a 25 minute video about patterns, symmetry, and beauty. Last and certainly not least we were divided into groups of three to work with SPHERO. We programed him to do a triangle a square and a pentagon. My group called our SPHERO Einstein the not so bright one. Anyway that pretty much wraps it up. Thanks for reading.