Jefferson 3/22

This week students at Jefferson were working hard at Forward testing. Most groups were able to meet at some point, thought some students will need to resume GCT work next week when we meet.

Kayla has completed her fictional story, "Wonder World", about two sisters that find themselves traveling through a portal to a different world that is facing destruction at the hands of the villain, Pando. She is using book creator to publish her story. This week she begin her illustration, starting with hand drawing then using Adobe Pixlr Editor to digitally color and enhance her pictures. She is getting the hang of the program and the illustrations are coming along well!

Katlyn continues working to illustrate her re-imagined tiger zoo habitat. She is using the 3-D Modeling program, TinkerCad to share her version. She is trying to identify how she can use advanced technology to enhance habitats.

Levi has spent his past several sessions of 20% work time delving deeply into articles and essays that explore what our world would be like if dinosaurs had not gone extinct and if it is currently scientifically viable to revive the species. He has reviewed information and opinions from a variety of sources and split that into subtopics which he will add to his tri-fold display. Today he began working on his board.

The 4th Grade reading group students are in various stages of working on their 20% Projects. Bronte, Maggie, Abby, and Za'riya decided to get creative with their tri-fold backgrounds. Bronte, Maggie, and Za'riya are each studying and documenting the lives, habits, and habitats of pets that they have at home (hermit crabs, bearded dragons, and French Bull dogs). While they are doing different projects they are linked in the sub-topics they are studying.

Willa has completed typing her information, formatted her text, and had it printed. She is cutting in preparation to add to her display. She also sought out help from Maggie as she worked on illustrating her fictional story for her reading project. Maggie gave her some tips on drawing people and faces in a cartoon-like style. It was great to see students collaborating and utilizing one another's strengths.

Violet and Olivia completed their tri-fold background and are beginning to arrange the information on the science behind clouds that they typed out and formatted on Google docs. They will also be including visuals that show different types of clouds.

This was a busy and productive crew today. They will be more than prepared for the 20% Fair on April 25th.

Noah has completed his math travel agent project and presentation. Today we took what he is working on in class (adding fractions with like denominators) and pushed him forward. We worked on comparing fractions with unlike denominators by finding the lowest common denominators through finding lowest common multiple. He caught on quickly and practiced his skills using Prodigy Math. Way to go Noah!

3rd Grade set designers continued their painting, sculpting, and creating. Next week they will be focusing on formatting the textual evidence that informed their design decisions. I look forward to seeing their models continue to come together.

Have a wonderful weekend!