This week was full of a lot of fun! We learned a couple of different methods for coming up with ideas for our stories, we looked for some influence for our engineering project, explored lightning, and had an awesome field trip to the White Water Center!
Coming up with ideas for stories can sometimes be challenging, so we explored two ways to open up interesting pathways for our stories. As a class, we played a "then what?" game. One of us started a story with a single sentence, ending by saying, "and then..."
The next in the class added to the story, and everyone had to keep the story going. Soon, a walk to the store turned into a story in an alternate universe! It was a fun way to see where stories can go.
On Tuesday, we spent some time talking more about our engineering project. We looked at a bunch of images of different DIY turbines: wind turbines, water turbines, and even some gravity-powered ones. The idea is to explore the research phase of design and look for inspiration.
We asked questions like: what materials did they use? How did they use some materials in unique ways? This helped us get some inspiration for our own designs.
Wednesday, we learned about lightning! We were going to learn about static electricity first, but Mr. Derek's demonstration went awry, so we'll try that again next week. I switched the lessons, and we dove into a couple of cool videos explaining how lightning works, showing the events in super slow motion!
Thursday was our field trip, and it was great! I loved watching our group take chances, try things they were afraid of, and interact with our Middle Schoolers too.
Our class was down to just four for Friday, so we had added a little extra play in our day. We played some improv games that Mr. Derek knows from "Whose Line is it Anyway?" which was great. After that, our small group got to create anything they wanted. Play-doh sculptures, pixel art, and whiteboard art ensued.
I hope all of our Upper El has a fantastic time at Green River next week! So excited for all of them!!