All grade levels have been moving full STREAM ahead during our second quarter! Our two major focus areas were; stop motion movie creation and programming/coding in computer science. I have been very impressed with the students’ growth in working collaboratively with their peers! To begin the quarter, all students in grades 2 through 8 dove deep into the history of STEM in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. They learned that we have a huge connection to the parade here in Akron, Ohio thanks to the Goodyear Company. The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is known for their giant balloons. Each grade level was given a different aspect of the parade to research. Students then used the engineering and design process to create their own parade designs. 2nd graders used map skills and their understanding of magnetism to create their own versions of the giant parade balloons. 3rd and 4th graders designed parade float prototypes. 5th and 6th grade researched the clowns and costumes and created parade characters. Students used stop motion to bring their characters and costumes to life. 7th and 8th graders researched “balloonicles” which are part float and part vehicle. They then created their own balloonicle prototypes and showcased their prototypes in a stop motion movie. The second half of our quarter was focused on introducing programming and coding. All grade levels have participated in activities for “Hour of Code” and Computer Science Week, which is celebrated every December. The Hour of Code started as a one-hour introduction to computer science, designed to demystify “code”, to show that anybody can learn the basics, and to broaden participation in the field of computer science. Kindergarten through 4th grade students have been learning to code our new “BlueBot BeeBots.” They have participated in a variety of challenges and centers with the bots, that focus on problem solving skills. 5th through 8th grade participated in a variety of challenges to enhance their understanding of coding and coding skills. This included programs such as Lightbot Hour of Code, Swift Playgrounds, AppLab App creator,Koodable and ASCII text art coding. We will continue to use our coding and programming skills as we explore more through the use of robots like Dash, Sphero and Beebot in 3rd quarter.
Welcome to a fun and exciting year in music class! Our first liturgy with Bishop Gries was a wonderful celebration as a school community. Despite only being in school two weeks, the students did an amazing job singing and participating in the mass! We will continue learning new songs for mass throughout the year in addition to classroom learning. Throughout all grade levels, music classes will focus on singing, musical concepts such as beat, rhythm, dynamics and tempo. We will be using various pitched and unpitched percussion instruments as well as body percussion. Throughout the year, classes will be held five days in a row one week a month. I am looking forward to g wonderful, musical year!
Students are learning to work interdependently in STREAM 1! This means that many of our projects and activities have had a focus on teamwork and collaboration. Kindergarten listened to the story Bonaparte Falls Apart by Margery Cuyler. In the story Bonaparte’s friends help him to solve a problem. His friends come up with many different ideas to help find a solution. Not all of the ideas work. We learned that it is important to try many ideas when attempting to solve a problem. Kindergarten also learned about symmetry and created their own symmetrical skeletons using playdoh and Q-Tips! First and Second Grade students read the book Press Here by Herve Tullet. This surprising book helped students to explore the concepts of action and reaction. We learned that where there are a series of actions and reactions, we have a chain reaction. Students then used basic classroom materials to create their own series of chain reactions! Third and Fourth Grade students participated in a STEM Quest Escape Room Challenge. They worked in teams to solve a variety of standards based challenges in math & language arts. They proved to be *SMARTIES* as all four classes were able to complete the quest! Fifth Grade students practiced their collaboration skills as well as their use of the engineering and design process in the newspaper basketball tower challenge. Students worked in teams to create a tower using only newspaper and masking tape that would hold the weight of a basketball. The tower must be stable and a height of at least 12 inches. All teams were successful and many teams challenged themselves beyond the 12 inch requirement reaching heights of 20 inches and beyond! Sixth, Seventh and Eighth grade students had to use collaboration and were required to think outside the box in the nail balance challenge. Students were challenged to see how many nails they could balance on the head of one nail. The nails could touch each other but no part of the wood block. Many students hypothesized that the teams would only be able to balance one or two nails. In the end, many groups were successful in balancing between 12 and 32 nails!! In between our larger group activities the students have been participating in smaller challenges that focus on a specific Habit of Mind. Classrooms have begun sharing their knowledge and expertise on these Habits of Mind. Look for the student created posters that will begin to be displayed in the hallway across from the office!
As we look back to 2017, St. Benedict's second graders had so much fun preparing for Christmas. We celebrated by enjoying time together as a class, drinking hot chocolate and reflecting on the year. After a long break, we are excited to be back at school again. In this New Year we will begin thinking of New Year’s resolutions and asking God to help us make good choices in our daily lives. In Math class, we are continuing to work with double digit addition with the concept of regrouping. During this time, practicing our math facts has been a huge focus in school and at home. In Social Studies class, students are enjoying reading the adventures of Flat Stanley as he travels to many different states. We will continue our study of maps and how to read them. In Language Arts, we are focusing on reading fluency by starting individual poetry binders. We have been enjoying acting out the poems, illustrating, and even writing our own poems. We are excited to see what God has planned for us as we dive into the 3rd quarter of school.