Santa's Around the World

This December, our students are embarking on a fascinating journey of global discovery with the "Santa's Around the World" Research Project. This activity moves beyond traditional festive celebrations to explore cultural diversity and history through the lens of holiday traditions. Each student has chosen a country to research, developing an informative Google Slideshow that details everything from the unique name and date of arrival of the country's gift-giver (like Italy's La Befana or Russia's Ded Moroz) to the country's specific customs, traditional foods, and stories shared during the season. This project is a rich exercise in cross-cultural analysis, digital literacy (using Google Slides for multimedia presentations and citation), and public speaking. We are also excited to offer an extension opportunity where students may research and potentially bake a traditional food from their chosen country to share on presentation day, transforming their academic research into a truly immersive, hands-on cultural experience!

Snowflake Engineering

In our upcoming session, our students will take on an exciting challenge that blends art and rigorous engineering: creating intricate, three-dimensional snowflakes from stacked paper bags. While it may look decorative, this activity is an intensive, hands-on investigation into geometric symmetry and structural stability. Students must first act as designers, carefully planning intricate patterns that rely on radial balance to unfold correctly. Then, they become engineers, testing the principles of adhesion and structural load by precisely gluing multiple layers of paper. The successful execution of this project demands precision, focus, and leadership as students must guide their hands to make complex, symmetrical cuts through up to ten layers of paper simultaneously. The resulting 3D structure is a beautiful testament to their ability to apply mathematical rigor to creative design and achieve a complex, stable form.

Wheels in Motion Project 🚀

Our unit of study, "Wheels in Motion," culminated in a rigorous, hands-on engineering challenge where students transformed into elementary engineers. Their task was to design, build, and optimize a milk carton car (which was later powered by a balloon for one of the tests), with the singular goal of maximizing the distance it traveled. This project was a powerful integration of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math) principles.

The core of this activity was scientific inquiry and discovery. Students built a basic car and then systematically conducted separate experiments to see which feature helped the car go farther. They directly explored forces like friction and gravity, and the conversion of forms of energy (such as potential energy converting to kinetic energy).

The Engineering challenge involved a repeated cycle: students made one design change (like adding a streamlined shield or adjusting weight), then used a meter stick to record the total distance in metric units for three separate trials. Their key Math skill was calculating the average distance from those three trials. By analyzing this data, they determined what was helping the car's performance and what was not, guiding them in their final design. This process of using data to justify a redesign gave them authentic experience in the problem-solving and optimization mindset of a real engineer.

Chess at GATE

All GATE students have the exciting opportunity to learn and play chess, which acts as a fantastic training ground for the brain. This activity is far more than just a game; it is a powerful way to develop essential STEAM skills and build the concentration and problem-solving abilities used by scientists and engineers every day.

Check back next month to view the class winners of our Chess Tournament.

This month forth grade will be working with critical thinking activities such Gravity Maze, Scramble Squares Puzzles, Cubits, Cube Burst, Q-Bitz, Q-Bitz Extreme, Dizios, Batik, Master Mind, ColorKu, and Set.

Also we will be introducing the GATE Science Fair which is optional for forth grade students.  We will cover the Scientific Method, rules, partners vs. team members, resources, and video examples of former GATE students projects.  The assignment and resources can be accessed through Google Classroom.

Students will begin practicing Chess.  They will review the pieces and how each piece can move and develop strategies to help them play.  Students will participate in the GATE classroom chess tourney this fall. 

Students will participate in our digital citizenship unit to review internet safety.  Students will complete the Interland lesson "Be Internet Awesome" to help them understand how to use the internet safely.  

At the end of the month students will participate in our unit "Wheels in Motion"  This STEM activity gives students the opportunity to be an elementary engineers as they test friction, aerodynamics, weight, shields, basic design and their own design with the milk carton racer.  Students will record the distance the car travels down the race track, correct any design problems, and try to improve upon their own scores (distance).

At the end of the month we will begin building milk carton racers as we begin our "Wheels in Motion" lab.  Student will test their cars on a track adding and changing the car's design to determine how the design effects the distance that the car will travel down the track.