Franklin 4/9-4/10

3rd Graders in Team Odyssey continue their Art & Geometry PBL Unit. Most students have selected the artist they will be studying and creating a biographical piece about. Today students begin sketching concepts and ideas for the art piece they will be creating that is inspired by their artist. Some of the artists selected were Piet Mondrian, Victor Vassily, Paul Klee, and Wassily Kandinsky. Students were excited to start exploring how they can use the geometric figures they are leaning about in their art. At the end of math workshop students were given the opportunity to volunteer to share their first sketch draft.

For our shared lesson we discussed attributes of triangles and how we can classify by angle measure (acute, abtuse, or right) and side length (equilateral, isosceles, and scalene). Students created diagrams and took notes on the attributes in their unit resource book.

Aidan, Henry, and Adele continued to prepare their 20% Projects as we approach the fair on April 25th. Today Aidan attempted to build the most challenging hydraulic design system provided in his kit.

Adele and Henry were running into challenges with a few components in their chain reaction. Tuesday Mr. Skurek, the intermediate GCT teacher, was visiting Franklin for a meeting and was able to offer his expertise and suggestions. They discussed how adding length to a lever provides more force and also explored the option of adding weights to the parts that were not working as desired. He showed them a video of a real world trebuchet and the force created by the length and weight of the components. Thanks Mr. Skurek! (His middle schoolers have competed in Rube Goldberg machine competitions so he has had lots of experience in this department).