Week 20!!

Our new unit has begun and this week it was ALL about the SUN!

We started the week off reading the hilarious, yet informative book, The Sun is Kind of a Big Deal. This book shares important information about the sun, its central role in the solar system, and all it does to help us survive here on Earth. With this book, students were introduced to how to take down notes, keep them organized, and how to cite their sources. We’ll be using these note sheets throughout the unit to ensure all of our information is organized properly for our final project.

We also did some research on ancient Mayas and Egyptians and their early understanding of astronomy (Henry Decker even noted they were “ahead of their time”). With the Maya People, they learned of space observatories and the way they structured some of their architecture to interact with the sun. One of their favorite buildings to learn about was El Castillo, which creates a snake shadow during the spring and autumn equinoxes.

In math, students learned all about the Maya Number System, which uses a base-20 instead of the base-10 system, which we normally use. They had fun creating cards and working in pairs to build numbers with the Maya symbols!

On Thursday, students learned about the Ancient Egyptians and their use of astronomy to track time. One of the devices we paid close attention to, of course, was the sundial. Afterward, we created and decorated our own sundials out of compost plates. It was a bit of a cloudy day, but we were able to test them out on Friday and they were a success!!