Pages

Friday, May 16, 2014

Week 36- Refraction, Engineering Challenges, & Pentominoes

This week we did a little experiment to see how refraction works. My students put a penny under a cup and then filled the cup with water. 


Refraction makes the penny disappear! 




I divided my students into groups for the House of Cards Engineering Challenge. Smart-Chick on TeachersPayTeachers has several great engineering challenges.

Each group got a deck of cards and a pair of scissors. Their goal was to build the tallest free standing structure. I loved seeing them work to find a solution to make their structure the tallest.


I also think my students really loved doing this! 






The tallest structure of the day was from Skyler, Jared, and Evan. Their tower was 31 inches tall.


Then I had them stretch their brain in math. We pulled out the Pentominoes and had them work to create as many different 3x5 arrays using different combinations of 3 of the pieces. 



We only have one more week of school left before summer break. I can't believe it is coming to an end. I have some more fun activities planned for the last week of school, along with awards day and field day.





2 comments:

  1. I am so glad the kids liked the engineering challenge! They are amazing! The tallest tower is impressive (and so are the others).

    ReplyDelete
  2. Love the engineering challenge! I want to try that with my kids next year. Thanks for sharing!
    Chelsea
    Fifth Grade Wit and
    Whimsy

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for your comments. Students, make sure to answer the question of the week to earn your ticket for the good job jar. If you have trouble posting your comment just e-mail it to me and I'll post it for you.