Week of October 14

We are working hard on our evolution projects.  Many of the kids are nearing completion on the PowerPoint presentation, complete with animations.  They are very excited about animations, some a little too excited!  They are turning out really well.  We will have you all in some time soon to check them out. 

 

The students did a fun activity in math on palindromes.  Maybe you heard about it?  A palindrome is a number (or word) that reads the same backwards and forwards.  Some numbers need steps to become a palindrome, and that was what the students were trying to discover.  For instance, if you take the number 23, it isn't a palindrome, but if you add its reverse (the number written backwards) to that, 23 + 32, you get 55, which is a palindrome!  This is called a one-step palindrome.  Other times you have a number like 64.  Add the reverse, 46, to it and your answer is 110, not a palindrome.  Add the reverse again, however, 011 and you get the sum as 121.  The students are working on all numbers up to 100.  Once they get to 89 and 98, it will become very interesting, since this take many steps!  Be sure to ask your child about palindromes if he/she didn’t already tell you about them. 

We also began work on an introduction to archaeology this week.  The students visited a mystery cemetery on Thursday and tried to make inferences and draw conclusions about the “13 grave sites” that were set up.  They are looking for clues  to the social status, gender, and age of the people buried.  The use of logic comes in handy as they explore the clues given to them.  Here are some great pictures from this.