What's Your Style?

Architectural Home Styles

This week students explored different architectural styles for homes.  We did a concept attainment lesson where students were shown images of homes.  Homes were grouped based on whether they belonged to a certain architectural style.  One group were the 'Yes' homes.   The 'No' homes were homes that came from a variety of different styles.  Students had to come up with hypotheses as to what made a home a 'Yes' home.  As we went through the images students shared and refined their hypotheses and tested them against the new images they were shown.  At the end, they were able to come up with the key architectural features of the 'Yes' home style.  Then we went to this website to find out what the name of the architectural style is.  The lesson slides are shown below (link).

Project Time

Every week for the next little while students will be working on their big projects.  They are making wonderful progress and learning new information and skills as they go.  Below are some photos of the students at work (link).

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Designing and Researching

This week students were all busy working on their projects.  Many students have decided to design a house or other building and spent their time on drawing up plans and searching for ideas on the internet.  Other students are gathering information on a specific architect or building.  It is exciting to see things taking shape!  The photos below are of students from the Wednesday afternoon class at our 'drafting' table.

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The B I G Project

The  B I G  Project

Every year we do a major project related to our theme.  This year's theme is ArKIDtecture.  Students have the choice of designing a building or doing a research project on a famous architect or building. Each project is unique; students and teacher work together to decide what needs to be included in the project as well as what the final products will be.  This week was about exploring potential topics and brainstorming ideas.  Below are a few photos of what the Wednesday morning class was working on (link):



More updates on the projects all of the students are working on will follow in the weeks to come!

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Rocks and Architecture

Here are a few of the things we did... This Week In Gifted!

Rocks and Architecture

We learned that in ancient Egypt and Greece architecture was influenced by the type of rock that was available to use as a building material.  Sedimentary rocks, such as the limestone blocks in the Pyramids at Giza in Egypt, do well under compression.  The pyramid shape mimics that of a mountain with the blocks at the top only having to support their own weight.  The blocks at the bottom have to support the weight of all the blocks above them and the pyramid shape helps to distribute the load.

The Pyramids at Giza

We also learned that the huge and beautiful sandstone columns in the Great Hypostyle Hall at the Karnak Temple Complex in Luxor, Egypt are actually made of huge puck shaped stones stacked on top of each other.  (You can't just take a long slab of sandstone and turn it 90 degrees to make a pillar--the rock will fracture.)  Stacking the stones like pucks to make columns takes advantage of the fact that the horizontal layers of the sandstone do well under compression.  The Egyptians had to have many columns close together to support the sandstone roof since the rock spanning the columns does not do well under tension.  

Columns in the Great Hypostyle Hall at the Karnak Temple Complex in Luxor, Egypt.  It looks like a storehouse for wide columns!

In Greece we learned that the presence of marble allowed the ancient Greeks to build more slender columns with larger spaces between them because marble is a much stronger rock.  Look at the 'slinky' columns in the photo of the Erechtheion, a temple devoted to Athena and Neptune on the Acropolis of Athens.  The columns are tall and well spaced out due to the strength of marble!

The Erechtheion, the Acropolis of Athens.

Next week we will look at how geology shaped the architecture of ancient Rome!

Programming with Scratch

This week we explored the idea that when you are programming you have the 'tell' the computer every step you want it to carry out.  You have to be specific and you have to use a common language. The students went on to follow a Step-By-Step set of instructions on how to make a 'sprite' (character) in Scratch dance. 

Thanks for dropping by to see what we've been doing!

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