Check mate!

    This week, as part of our studies of the middle ages, the Spirits had an introduction to chess from Mrs. Head and the Narwhals. Chess can tell us a lot about the way people lived in medieval times, and as we studied the chess pieces and how they are used we realized that chess is a miniature history of medieval life: from the pawns who represent the peasants and laborers in the fields, often sacrificed to allow the landowners to escape harm; to the rooks or castles who provide refuge; to the bishops who represent the mighty church; and to the all-important king, whose surrender would mean the loss of the kingdom (and the game). We have a lot of avid chess players among the Spirits, and it is NOT TOO LATE for them to join the chess club!

Creating our Personal Crests

      A coat of arms is a unique heraldic design on a shield. It was used by medieval knights to cover, protect, and identify the wearer. The design was a symbol unique to the individual person or family.   
      The Spirits started the month thinking about what things they value and enjoy, and what makes them unique. In the first few days of school, we created crests showing some of these things:

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         Then we spent some time learning about heraldic colors and design (see "Create a Coat of Arms" in the Explore More column at right) and practiced designing our own coats of arms using this website. Finally, each student created their own personal crest using colors and symbols that had meaning to them. These coats of arms will soon be on display in the Navigators/Spirits entrance stairwell, along with the paragraphs the Spirits wrote explaining the meanings of the various elements they chose. Here's a look at some of them in progress and most of the final products, but be sure to stop by soon to check them out!

   
   

   

   
   

   
   

   

   
   

   

   
   

   

   
   

   

   
   

   

   
   

   

   
   

   

   
   

   

   
   

   

   
   

   

   
   

   

   
   

   

   
   

   

   
   

   

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

This year's first "Math Quest"

     
 In the Seabury primary grades we do regular inquiry-based math lessons that allow for a wide range of developmental stages to work simultaneously on the same project. Last year we called these "Math Adventures," but this year, they are  called "Math Quests," of course!
      Our first quest this year centered around place value and the book Sir Cumference and All the King's Tens, one of the wonderful series of math adventure books by Cindy Neuschwander. School Library Journal describes the plot as follows:

"Sir Cumference and his wife, Lady Di(ameter), are back in another math adventure. As the hosts of a surprise birthday party for King Arthur, the couple needs to organize a growing number of guests for events to run smoothly. After several fumbling attempts to count the crowd, Sir Cumference realizes that the simplest way to figure out the total is to group the guests into tens, hundreds, and ultimately thousands. This system allows the royal celebration to take place without a hitch, resulting in a happy ending for all."

      Like the hosts in this book, the students counted and organized the guests, represented by beans, into groups of ones, tens, and hundreds to tally up the total number of people attending King Arthur's party.  Students are usually given the option of working individually or in small groups, and the difficulty of the work is differentiated by math level - some student received hundreds or thousands of beans to count, some received smaller amounts. Once they had their beads counted, everyone participated in "making trades" at the "party pavilion" - ten tents of ones traded for one tent of tens; ten tents of tens traded for one tent of one-hundred; ten tents of one hundred traded for a tent of one thousand, etc. Everyone was asked to make an estimate of the total number of beans/party guests before starting, and when we were done counting (it took us two days of math time!) we reviewed how to make accurate estimates and how estimating helps us solve big problems quickly. 

      It is always interesting to see the new insights and understandings students build during this type of exercise. For one thing it is always fun, but more importantly, everyone does math thinking and students are always busy talking about what they are doing, what they should be doing differently, better ways to approach the problem -- generally sharing strategies and ideas. Our role as teachers is to circulate, asking questions to elicit thinking and make sure students are on track. This is one of my favorite parts of teaching math - the "a-ha" moments take place non-stop!

       During this quest, many students started counting beans one-by-one, but quickly moved into more efficient methods of counting - skip counting by 2s, 5s, and 10s. Lots of addition and multiplication took place as students tried to figure out how many more beams they had to count before they could bring them to the counting table to be added to the total. One of the students standing at the counting table was waiting to flip the thousands digit when we counted up a group of ten one-hundreds, saying "Oh - that's why it's called the thousands PLACE. I get it now." A-ha!

Starting off right - the "Big Picture"

     We know from research that gifted students often quickly grasp the overarching concepts within areas of study and see "the big picture." (Have you read the article our Head of School Sandi Wollum keeps talking about? It's a synthesis of research on best practices for teaching the gifted and talented: http://www.k12.wa.us/highlycapable/workgroup/pubdocs/educatinggiftedandtalented-rogers.pdf)

      So to start the year out right, we spent some time during the first few days of school talking about our overarching concept of "Quest;" what Quest means and what a quest might look like in our classroom. We also spent some time thinking about all the subjects we will be addressing in our curriculum rotation this year, and noting what we already know and would like to learn. The following pictures show a "poster walk" around our class, with some of the materials we will use for each of our Social Studies and Science topics set out to peruse and explore. The students looked over books and materials, thought about what they knew already, and talked a bit to friends about what they might like to learn about that particular subject before making notes on our poster of each subject area. Our overall QUEST this year? Knowledge! Specifically about the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, Native Americans, U.S. Regions, Matter, Meteorology, Inventions and Environmentalism. 

      By the way, our first area of study is the Middle Ages. The students already knew that this was a hard time to live, a lot of people were killed or died, that there was slavery then, that there were not really dragons, and that a Knight's armor could weigh 160 pounds. (We're gong to verify that last one.) What do they want to know? 

• When did medieval villages come into being?
• Why were people beheaded?
• Knights are cool - but what did they really do all day?

I can't wait to see where this quest will lead!