Flamingo Flock

By Macy

There was a weird looking bird that was magic and he was spying on the flamingos.

The flamingos did not notice the bird and the bird made the flamingos do crazy stuff like poke each other and make the birds get mad at each other.


The flamingos figured out that there was a mystery.

Annnnd the official Strongest Structure from Room 21 is.......

The low-to-the-ground triangular prism built by Max and Ty'onte! Max and Ty'onte's triangular prism successfully held 260 grams before it leaned and sent the weights tumbling to the ground. You can take a look at the picture below and tell that Ty'onte and Max thought about supporting the vertices of their structure by wrapping the pipe cleaners around the tape holding the vertices together.  

Max and Ty'onte's structure held 260 grams

You can also tell Max and Ty'onte thought about making their structure short because "if it was tall it might bend over more easily, but it couldn't be too short or else it wouldn't be 3-dimensional!" said Max. They both worked hard on making their structure the best it could be. Check out the other designs from the talented architects and builders in our class: 

Dylan and Macy's triangular prism 180 grams

Lainey and Jamaine's structure held 24 grams

Ella and Henry's fortified structure held 127 grams

Unfortunately, Ginger and CJ's structure had an accident!
(0 grams held)

Everyone thought this would be a BREEZE! Many groups built a structure they thought would be super strong, but - dun, dun, dunnnn - they found out the hard way it wasn't as strong as they thought. Everyone deserves a good pat on the back for determination with this challenge.

Building...Rethinking...Rebuilding 3-D Structures

Building our 3-D structures has officially BEGUN! Armed with only 15 straws, 5 pipe cleaners, and 3 feet of tape (because building materials are expensive in the real world!) we set out to make the strongest 3-D structures possible. The strength of our structures will be tested by stacking gram weights on top of a square of mat board that our structure MUST be able to support.

Henry and Ella thought about why their design
would be strong

Ginger and CJ's design plan

We're realizing that the original design plans we had need to be revised! Even though we know the triangle is the strongest polygon, it has still been tricky to figure out how to incorporate the triangle into our 3-D designs. Even though we used our whole Math Workshop today to build, many people still need to revise and rebuild their structures tomorrow. Building takes a lot of time!

You can see that Macy and Dylan have made
revisions to their original rectangular prism design

Ty'onte and Max have decided to build a triangular prism
instead of the rectangular prism they brainstormed

Mallory and Sam are making changes to their cube design

Building Polygons

This week we set out to find the STRONGEST polygon! Which would it be - the triangle, square, pentagon, hexagon, heptagon, or octagon? Many of us had different predictions...some thought the triangle because it was the smallest, others thought the octagon because it had the most sides for support. Check out Max's thinking below...

Max sketched each polygon as he built it
and wrote a few observations 

Kicking Off Book Buddies

This week Ms. Payne's class started meeting with Book Buddies. Buddies chose their books together and couldn't wait to start reading! Book Buddies meet two, sometimes three, times a week to read and think together. Having a conversation about your thinking with a Book Buddy is a huge step in third grade. Check back soon to see some video clips of our conversations!

Coral

By Ella and Kristina

Curvy bumps with an egg shell color. 

One inch of tall of roughness. 

 Tiny red in a secret spot.

 Very light sent of  sea water. 

Connected by a line of coral.
With it's  mute sound of wise flames of silents.
Reminding us of the  ocean sea.

Abalone Shell

By: Henry, Dylan, C.J.  

Round, smooth and dotted, 

moving along with the snail that owned it,

crashing of waves as it was washed up on shore,

black, brown, and white dots on the top,

it sounds like wind inside, 

it is

soft at the bottom.