Let the building begin

Hello,

We were able to start our Rube Goldberg machines this afternoon.  The goal is to have everyone build a contraption that contains at least six of the following: a pulley, lever, screw, wedge, inclined plane, gear, and wheel and axle.  Once completed, (and the parts are pointed out and explained) students will then attempt to connect contraptions.  Based on some of the plans and early building that I've seen, I think we are going to have a lot of success tomorrow.  The unit is all about problem solving, so tomorrow I hope to see a lot of problems and then many, many solutions. 

Students may work on this at home and bring in anything that may help them.  You may help them with anything that takes an adult's steady hand, but please let them make this their idea. 

We had a lot of red faces coming back from P.E. this morning.  The annual long run is now a back and forth run in the gym.  Ask your child how they did and if they reached their goal.

I was a little red faced this afternoon when a teacher came in to our class exclaiming that some of our kids were completely disruptive in the hallway.  I was NOT happy to say the least.  I talked to the students and they missed out on some building time as they wrote three separate apologies each to the three surrounding classrooms.  It wasn't our proudest moment.

The Harry Potter Quidditch Teams will practice next Friday.  I may need a little sewing done for our robes, if anyone knows of someone with that particular talent and the will to help refurbish our robes.  They are more like capes, but we had a few rips last year.

Thanks for reading.

Mr. Shea