Great collaboration makes us learn

Remember how we learned that when a gingerbread cooky gets wet,

it will be soggy and break apart?

Our next challenge was to build a bridge over the river

so that the gingerbread could get across and not have to ride

on the fox's back.

The students had the choice to work on their own or with a partner.

What was so great to hear were the conversations that the partners

carried on with each other.

There was negotiations and explanations.

They tried out different ideas.

Some found it difficult because the materials that they were 

using were toothpicks and marshmallows.

Not the strongest materials but it was important to 

'think outside the box' on this challenge.

How can the obstacles be overcome?

Here's an example...the original design had the bridge sag in the

centre, so these two are adding supports to each marshmallow,

with the hope that the middle won't be sagging when they turn it over.

I feel I should be saying "We interrupt our scheduled show for this

important message!"

Really I just wanted you to see the lovely angels that the students made

with their handprints.

I think these two are stumped....which is great because that is

part of the process.....its not working, so how do I fix it?

Even though this didn't work, I pointed out to all the students that 

the two boys had used triangles (see the toothpicks crossed on the

left, and that the triangle is the strongest shape in construction.

The students got to share their design and then try to have the

gingerbread man (cooky) walk across the bridge.

They were very honest, sometimes starting with

"The bad news is...."

or with "I thought that ...."

Some students are chatty and some have to be coaxed to share.

In the end, though, I do believe that they learned a lot from this hands-

on approach to learning how things are built.

The students created glyphs...a representation of something

about themselves.

Each part of the gingerbread person showed aspects of the

student who was creating it:

bow tie colour was the month he or she was born

mouth was favourite pet

nose colour was age

eye colour was gender

leg stripes were number of sisters

arm stripes were number of brothers

buttons were favourite activities

Let's see if you can figure out if this is your child...

or is it this one

or maybe this one!

We took a poll and we now know that our elf's name is Ginger!

(Here she is watching the class when they sit on the rug)