Cynthia Heights High Ability

Building a house of cards leads to many lessons learned. First and fifth graders observed two design strategies before they began. Students had the opportunity to practice patience, teamwork, learning from mistakes, developing new plans, and starting over. They were amazed that a well-built foundation of cards could support quite a bit of weight.

Today our groups learned a few new games. We played Mancala, Honeycombs, and Shut the Box. Game play is important for many reasons; following rules, taking turns, winning or losing gracefully, and socializing without being on an electronic device. These life skills help develop future leaders.

Our third, fourth, and fifth graders created some silent partner drawings for Valentine’s Day. Each pair had 5 minutes to complete the assigned drawing without any talking or gesturing. Each person drew one detail and then passed the paper to their partner to add a detail. Enjoy some of their “Cupids Shooting a Bow and Arrow” and “Two Love Birds in a Tree.” Lots of giggles today.

Some of our students tried the frozen bubbles activity from Monday’s snow day lesson. This was just for fun for people who had the ingredients on hand. Today we have directions for how to build a snow volcano. Thank you for sharing pictures!

Third and fourth graders learned a new math game on Friday called Contig. Students used different combinations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division to strategically mark spaces on the game board. Some spaces on the board earn bonus points which is where careful thinking was required.

The 2025 Thanksgiving Balloon Parade is in the books! We had so much fun planning for this and designing our balloons! Thank you to parents for helping their child bring the designs to life! Enjoy the pictures!

Today our first graders used different STEM materials to build a bridge, a boat, and a tower. We used Legos, Brain Flakes, and Building Block Bars. There were many creative ideas!

Today each grade level spent time learning some new math games. First and second graders played a card game similar to “Shut the Box.” Third graders learned a strategy game called “Snakes.” Fourth graders played a dice game called “Contig,” and fifth graders used coordinates to play “Racetrack.”

Second and third graders were challenged to build the tallest free-standing tower using only one sheet of copy paper and 20 cm of masking tape. The tower had to stand for at least 10 seconds.

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Forty-five fourth and fifth graders were instructed to flip water bottles in class. Would different amounts of water in the bottles affect how many times they landed their bottle? Students flipped each bottle 20 times, recorded the data, and determined the fractions and percentages for each bottle landed. Results were mixed, but it appears some of these students have had lots of practice flipping water bottles.