The Finished Products!

Spontaneous Problem: How many different words can you create using the letters from EXPLORATION?

Boundary Breaker: Pretend you are an archaeologist and you come across this artifact.  How do you explain what you see?

Our hard work has paid off and we have some lovely writing pieces and artifacts to show for it, along with a little ancient civilizations expertise I hope.  We edited, we sculpted, we painted, we cleaned... We were triumphant!

We also introduced the logic of the Sudoku puzzle for our brain stretching today.

We wrapped up chapter 2 and our study of base 3 with a Race in Base game played in both base 3 and 10. Students were able to elaborate on their understanding as they compared the systems.

Artifacts Underway!

For our Morphic Thinking routine today, I pulled out my favorite game, Balderdash, and with a twist on the rules we turned it into our morning warm-up.
Spontaneous Problem:  Define the word zamouse.  Students shared their list of ideas and although it really means a West-African buffalo, we adopted the special ALERT meaning of "Hurry Up!"
Boundary Breaker:  Students were given the movie title Feet First and challenged to come up with a convincing plot line.  With the actual one hidden in the mix we shared the responses and voted on the most likely (and most entertaining!).

Our project progress was great!  Many moved past design onto the creation of their artifacts, a few are finishing editing their writing, and notes are almost completed all around.  If your student hasn't finished their notes or writing I would be happy for them to spend some time getting caught up at home if possible.

We revisited the critical thinker today, focusing on the standards of critical thinking and its parts. This knowledge will hopefully give them a base for reflecting on their own thinking practices.

We wrapped up with our Land of Treble math, as students took some time to explain their regrouping practices in the base 3 system and compare and contrast it from our Base 10 system.

Persisting and Base 3 Subtraction

Spontaneous Problem:  Name things that work upside down.

   Boundary Breaker:  What does the author of this quote mean?

Today we made great progress on our projects.  Most all of our research is complete and we are drafting our museum placards.  We even have some artifact design going on!  I can't wait to see the final products!

We  looked at the Habit of Mind, persisting today.  Students watched a short video describing the learning journey as having dips.  We discussed positive mindsets for those dips and did the T puzzle challenge which certainly allowed students to experience the struggle, as well as the feeling of accomplishment on the other side of it!

We had fun working on deductive reasoning logic puzzles and revisited base 3 and the Land of Treble, this time focusing on regrouping to subtract. 

The Furious Note Takers

Spontaneous Problem: Name place you could find a quarter.
Boundary Breaker: What is the best gift you've ever given. Explain.

For research, we worked on using our sources to write notes highlighting our discoveries about our cultural universals in the civilization of our choice.  These notes were recorded in our interactive notebooks in our own words to lay the foundation for our research placards.  Next week we plan to begin on some artifact design!

We wrapped up our base 3 lesson in the Land of Treble as students practiced communicating their ideas and understandings by writing their responses to some problem solving prompts brought up in the lesson.

We finished off by doing some logic challenges from our brain stretcher packets.  See if your student can give you some this for this one!