Grade 3 and 4 Summer School Week 1

Our SIS students have been very busy during the first week of Summer School. Here are some activities that we have worked on from July 5th to the 9th. First, we began with some Sudoku in Math class. This challenged the students to look for patterns, observe clues and to become thinkers. 

In Art, we used popsicle sticks to make exquisite baskets. Some of us added our initials for personalization! The design incorporated the same construction principles as a stadium.

We studied about a Swiss mathematician and scientist named Euler. He was responsible for traffic control in a city named Königsberg in Prussia. This city was renamed Kaliningrad and it is now a part of Russia. Euler wanted to make sure that the people only went across a bridge once and therefore congestion would be halted. Engineers had traffic jams in the 1700's similar to modern times. 

The above is a video of a path that doesn't cross all the bridges twice by Elif Studio Productions and friends. 

The children tried their hands at different combinations with river configurations to see if it was possible to pass over the bridge once. They also created their own bridges and painstakingly measured the dimensions on construction paper. 

Our students did some cartography and made the Pregel River, surrounding landscape and bridges. Here is a bird's eye view of their work. The bridges were strong enough to hold a pair of scissors. 

We wrote postcards to Grade 1 and 2 to help them learn some Science concepts about corks and the Aurora Borealis. We pretended that we were the Aurora and corks and wrote from these perspectives. The properties about corks that were trying to drive home is that they have a low density, are light, waterproof, recyclable, resistant to friction, higroscopic, and are good for sound insulation. The aurora borealis attributes that we were trying to drive home was that it is unpredictable, it can be seen in the northern and southern Hemispheres as well as the planets and that it is caused by particles and magnetic forces. 

Dear G1 and 2,

The doctor says that I am porous. What does she mean? I am anxiously awaiting your reply. 

Best Regards

Ms. Cork

Dear G1 and G2,

I am really light. That means that I don't need to go on a diet. I can't figure out one word that the scientist said to me. The word is density. Can you help me? 

Cheerio,

Puzzled Cork

We played a couple of online games in Mathematics to help secure some foundations in fractions. The converted fractions to decimals and reduced them to their lowest common denominator. 

We played a math game that required us to use the least amount of building supplies and pay a fraction of the cost to build a bridge across a river. Our lowest amount was $300. 

The first place winner received a gold Olympic keychain. 

The students participated in some STEM activities by doing some camera work. 

Our class has been reading chapter 1 of the book The Watsons go to Birmingham by Christopher Paul Curtis. This is a Newberry Honor book which distinguishes it as being one of the best books in Children's Literature. The story is about segregation and prejudice in America in 1963. We are doing some cross media inquiry by using videos and books. 

We also read a story about two brothers that didn't get along. They fixed a bridge so that they could bridge the gap between their differences. Moral: There is no shame in accepting your mistake or forgiving each other. We should be kind and humble. We should try to stay together as a family and not break away from it over the petty arguments.