Monday – Warm and rainy

During robotics our young engineers worked on individual projects, experimenting and creating new robots. In the upcoming sessions the children will focus on creating robots that can move precisely from task to task.
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Some parents have asked us to address the concept of emergent curriculum and project-based learning. These two terms are commonplace in the world of progressive education as they reflect a more cooperative, community-driven, learning environment. Project-based learning suggests long-term, cross-curriculum exploration that is, at its best, conceived of and driven by a student or students. In this case the curriculum emerges, permitting learning activities to arise out of each child’s interests, actions or serendipitous events. If you look back on our school year you will find a number of examples: Read the rest of this entry »

Monday – Sunny and windy

Success in robotics! The team now has a robot that controls another. Persistence pays off! The students demonstrated their success by driving one robot with the other, remotely. They really worked hard on this project, reprogramming each robot in stages to find and address bugs. For other kids, the rubber wheels were a big hit; they gathered every variation of wheel and tested each against another finally determining which rolled the best. There was lots of trial and error and constant discussion and reasoning as they progressed. Read the rest of this entry »

Monday – Cold and windy

In robotics many students are very close to making a working remote control for a robot. A bug in the software that wouldn’t allow them to write the program to meet their initial vision has hampered them. They rewrote this in a new way and are hoping for success when they test it next week. Meanwhile, others worked on their Lego structures, building spaceships and fortresses. In sewing, students took charge designing and sewing tote bags using material from old bedspreads. Read the rest of this entry »

Monday – Started out warm, cold by dismissal.

Robotics was a big hit this morning as it filled up quickly following math. The children with more expertise honed their skills by teaching other students. Many of our students spend a good deal of time in designed and production. However, as they realize how computer programming influences the robots functionality their aspirations broaden.

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