What Is It? A Taste of Seabury Creativity

At Seabury "we challenge gifted children in a community that cherishes each individual and fosters a love of learning, discovery, and creativity." 

This mission statement  is so true as we love to use our vivid imaginations in creative ways!

This week the Navigators took the following shapes...

... and turned them into works of art!

 

 

 

 

First Friday Building Extravaganza

The first Friday of each month the Seabury community gathers together for enrichment activities. This month one of the activities was "building." Young and old alike got into the action and had some serious fun!

 

The Feudal System: M&M's, Dioramas and Chess

We've been learning all about the feudal system of the Middle Ages through lots of hands on activities and conversation. 

Making a chart of the four levels of society: 

serfs, knights, nobility and clergy, royalty

The first pyramid scheme! The serfs paid taxes (M&M's) to the knights who in turn gave much of what they received to the nobility and clergy. They, in turn, gave much of what they received to the king. 

Who can do the math? I can!

Was this system fair? A resounding no!

We then had a great conversation on how this system compares to our system of government. 

Making dioramas of the four levels. 

We later proudly presented them to the entire school at Gathering. 

What level would you like to have been?

"I would like to have been a king. I would have given everything back to the people." 

"I made a checkered floor for the throne room. There are banners on the walls."

"This is a hovel. It has a thatch roof. These are the dragons...."

 

"This is the armory where the knights kept all their weapons. I made a lot of catapults."

"I made a round table for the knights. Plus I made a long table for the feast in the Great Hall of the castle."

"My castle even has a secret escape route. You go through this noodle that is on the side..."

"The serfs work, work, work. All they do is work. These are the bundles of grain they harvested. This is a cart to haul stuff."

Ms Head and the 5th grade Narwhals came and explained the meaning behind the game of chess. We then got down to some serious business of playing chess. 

 

 

Welcome to Math-a-lot!

Our first Mathematical Quest of the year took us to the magical land of Math-a-lot. The Navigators and the Spirits gathered together and were given an open-ended math task to figure out a better way to count all the people coming to the king-sized birthday party for King Arthur. Over the course of two days we went from utter chaos to an orderly way of keeping track of all the people. We then had a great discussion of what worked best, what didn't work, how we worked together, the different ways we kept track and how the base ten system works. 

The letter that was awaiting us as we came to math class

The book that inspired us

Eager to become "bean counters"

Careful not to "spill the beans"

Putting beans into groups of 1's and 10's

Using a place value chart

Keeping a tally

Finding 10 groups of 10 to make 100

Bowls helped us keep track

Let the trading begin

ten 1's = one 10

ten 10's = one 100

ten 100's = one 1000

The numbers start to add up

Now we know: two bags of beans equals 5694!

That's a lot of guests to feed!