October 21st & 28th

Our third graders are busy using their critical thinking skills to collect and analyze data about board games. They had the opportunity to explore the principles of a variety of board games, rating them based on their directions, playability and how fun they were! (data collection samples below!) We also analyzed data from a survey sent to our ASE teachers and families about their favorite components of a game. They're reflecting on how important all of the components are to a successful game!

Next, we'll look at probability and fairness in game designs and then it's time to apply their research to designing their own game!

October 7, 2025

We warmed up with a new game called Order and Chaos, ask your student how to play! They continued our research about games and used our critical thinking tools to complete a  frame focusing on details, language of the discipline and how games are used across disciplines. These led each class to collaborate on the big idea of what games are! Creativity was the next focus for our third graders as we researched logos, focusing on logo designs and color choices. Students then collaborated with their business partner, creating their company name and began designing their own logo. We can't wait to see the finished products next week!

September 30, 2025

Our third graders began their research as entrepreneurs today! They completed stations exploring how toys have changed over time from the 1950s to today. They compared and contrasted the toys over time, calculated price differences from the 70s to 2000s and reflected on why some toys are still around today, even after many decades. We then researched and learned how LEGO, Mattel, Hasbro, NERF and Play Doh were created and have changed over time. They noticed that hard work, perseverance and on going creativity were key components to their success. They can't wait to continue their research and collect more data to help with designing their own companies!

September 23, 2025

Our third graders warmed up their brains with a challenging Breakout where they had to solve multi-step word problems, using all four operations! Although division was new for some, they persevered and shared a variety of strategies for solving the problems.

They have been busy over the past few weeks exploring the steps of the Creative Thinking Process, FEFO. They applied fluency, elaboration, flexibility, and originality to design an original product that solved a problem. They are very creative! See their prototypes below.

New this week- Our third graders began pondering and exploring how toys and games have changed over time. They reflected on why some toys/games that have been around for many decades have been successful, while others have not... We can't wait to explore and investigate more next week!!

September 16, 2025

We began by challenging their brains with a BreakoutEdu activity and through collaboration they were able to solve all 5 puzzles and broke out! 

Our third graders continued working on creative thinking and the FEFO process with some fun activities to practice Fluency and Flexibility! We read and discovered the amazing possibilities of a Beautiful Oops!  and discussed how we can use our flexible and original thinking to create endless possibilities. We discussed the difference between inventions and innovations, and then they collaborated in small groups to design something to help with an everyday problem! After brainstorming and discussing their creative ideas, they drew their invention/innovation and began building their prototypes! Next week they'll finish building and will get to present them to our class.

September 9, 2025

We  had a very busy, but fun day in Horizon! We started our class by applying critical thinking skills to solve the Daily Set! It was a BIG challenge competing against the computer! Then we continued with our goal setting from last week. Students created a personal goal and a collaborative goal based on Scholarly Behaviors. We will continue to check in on their goals throughout the year to reflect on their progress and encourage additional steps they can take to achieve their goals!

New this week- Students compared problem solving to creative thinking and explored the steps of Creative Thinking. Creative Thinking is the cornerstone to divergent thinking, critical thinking, and problem-solving. We introduced the terms: fluency, elaboration, flexibility, and originality to describe the steps. FEFO

Students worked on the 30 Circles Challenge to see how flexibly they could think about what to turn their circles into. I saw some very creative perspectives! One student drew a  penguin and another drew the perspective of the top of the cake! Great divergent thinking! There were also lots of balls, planets, foods and emojis!⚽️🌍🙂 Students then combined Originality, Flexibility and Elaboration by creating images out of 4 squiggles given to them. They were so excited to share their creativity with our class and I was so impressed and excited about their enthusiasm!

Next week students will continue to apply FEFO and identify a real-world problem to solve with an innovative product.

September 2, 2025

I'm so happy to have your third graders in our Horizon class! It was an awesome day of collaborating on a challenging puzzle, communicating multiple perspectives about what Horizon Class is and learning more about ourselves through a personality quiz. See below for the puzzle we used to practice our critical thinking and problem solving skills, along with ideas shared while collaborating on what our Horizon class is all about. 

We will continue reflecting on the personality quiz next week, to set individual and collaborative goals that we will refer to throughout the year.