MANNERS
Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter what fork you use.
Emily Post

CONFIDENCE
Nothing is more beautiful than a girl with confidence.
Anne Bright

POISE
For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others; for beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness; and for poise, walk with the knowledge that you are never alone.
Audrey Hepburn

Manners, confidence, and poise for Junior High girls.
Pretty & Poised starts Sunday at 2:30 PM. Registration is about to close.

Sign up now: www.regonline.com/mindblastwinter2012

Students have been busy inspecting running programs to understand the scripting environment.  In general, exploration and modification of other projects is the quickest way to learn!  In the Scratch world,  we call this “re-Mixing”.

Introductory students worked on a re-Mix of the popular Jumping Cat Game.  Home programming tasks this week will be to finish up the scoring and “eating” actions, and introducing more/better visual elements to make the animation look sharp.  We will build on this game next week.

Advanced students started building a calculator.  This involves variables and conditional logic.  Stretching minds a little bit here, but they’ll make it.  Home programming tasks will be to complete the scripts for each of the buttons.  Next week we will fill out the operators and math logic.

Instructions  and examples can be found on the MindBlast Online Classroom at http://www.sjamindblast.org/classroom.  Students received their logins in Week One.  All interested parties can “login as a guest” to view the class materials and keep up with our progress.

Happy Programming!

Mr. Lytle

Our Robotics Engineers have been busy learning about input/output devices, and spent lab time this week programming their devices to respond to all of the main input sensors:  Sound, Light, Motion, Distance, and Touch.  This prepares us for next week’s class, when we will build our first sound-sensitive robot.
Instructions on building next week’s robot device and programming the sensors can be found on the MindBlast Online Classroom at http://www.sjamindblast.org/classroom.  Students received their logins in Week One.  All interested parties can “login as a guest” to view the class materials and keep up with our progress.
I am also encouraging our budding engineers to create a login (with parent permission) at LEGO’s “NXTLOG” site, where students from around the world share their projects and programs.
Happy Engineering!
Mr. Lytle

Welcome to MindBlast Math Games – March 8, 2011

The game is on! Over the past two weeks, each math grouping has learned and practiced one Pentathlon Math game.  The first graders learned CALLA and the 2-3^rd graders learned FIAR.  During our second class, the tournament bracket went up and the competition commenced.

CALLA is a version of the ancient African and Asian counting games in which students use number sense, deductive thinking, directionality, and one-to-one correspondence as they maneuver their pieces around the board.  They must assess both their opponents and their own positions to make an advantageous move – a free turn, a capture or cubes in the calla.

FIAR requires students to use spatial reasoning and observation skills to visualize many possible options for moving chips. While the rules are simple, this game challenges students to use spatial reasoning and observation skills to visualize their options and make their best move.

Typical of new learning, the students tend to focus on their own position without considering their opponents’ positions.  Encourage your children to think about another person’s perspective in any given situation which will help them expand their view and consider multiple options to a problem.

Personalities abound in this type of hands-on learning environment.  The creative mind of one child renamed the FIAR blocking chip “the infector.”  Now, every time a blocking chip is used to prevent an opponent from declaring a win, this child and now others, proudly state, “You are infected!”  We’re having lots of fun and practicing good sportsmanship, too!

All the children went home with a green class folder, including an overview of the class and a mini set of playing cards with instructions for Math War games.  Throughout the course of this class I will send home mini-math games. They are small enough to carry with you to restaurants, airports, doctor offices, anywhere that you can fill waiting time with math fun time!

Next week brings a new set of games.  See you then.

MindBlast Robotics at SJA Lisle