October 4, 2001 -
There are seven kids total, and they all seem enthusiastic about the whole program. It was very exciting to hear all of the creative ideas that everyone came up with in our discussion. We sat around in a circle and brainstormed for what the kids wanted to do this semester. It was obvious that there was a large spectrum of information that the kids wanted to cover so we decided that we would have to limit down the flow of ideas to a couple main areas. I was amazed to find out that these kids wanted to learn upper level mathematics and computer programming. Most fifth graders want to learn how to play tetherball at recess, so having such an intelligent group of kids helps show promise for how successful this semester with them could be. For the most part, we just went around the room and all got to know each other all much as possible for the first day.
October 11, 2001-
Today we took a small math quiz. Our objective here was to have several questions that the kids would be able to answer and also a few questions that we knew they could not answer. We thought that at least we would open these kids to some higher-level math that they will be seeing in the future. You guys just got done taking some other tests so you all really didn't want to do amy more work. We still had a fun time.
October 18, 2001-
Today we did not meet with the kids because they did not have school.
October 25, 2001-
We decided to break up into three separate groups. Devin brought in his laptop with the kids web page on it. The laptop, along with four high-powered calculators and a palm pilot made up the heart of the computer and electronics station. The second station consisted of a large tournament chessboard, set up and ready to play. The third and final station was sort of a wild card today, for lack of a better word. We planned on doing some math at this station but the kids wanted to make music instead. Bongos, violins, saxophones, trombones, you name it, you guys played it all!! You guys loved the electronics and were incredibly excited to play chess.
November 1, 2001-
We once again used the idea of stations to break up into smaller groups. In addition, we gained one more student to put our total number of kids up to eight. Hooray for Jerry!! Initially we played a game Today we had the chess station, an actual working math station (wow!!), and a station we took to the library and got on the computer with. The kids in the library were searching for graphics for their website, but we really didn’t find much, and everyone just showed Devin and I there favorite game on the Internet. Everyone is excited about having their own website.
November 8, 2001 -
Today we stuck with routine and followed the same guidelines as always before. For the first activity we once again played a circle game. This time although it had to deal with numbers rather then names and Halloween costumes. I think this is one of the best activities that we have for the kids because it is fun, competitive, and helps them to learn to things. Before going to the different groups we all took the second quiz. This quiz was only three questions long and was not nearly as difficult as the first. In addition, we only included the topics that we had been working on with the kids. After this we broke up into our three groups again and began the main part of the day.
November 15, 2001 -
Today was very exciting and encouraging. We brought in an old computer and took it apart. They could not wait to take out every last screw, and before we knew it there was nothing left of the computer but a bunch of separate parts strewn about the table. Remember how you called the motherboard the city, and then pretended the RAM and video cards were rivers and houses. It was really interesing to see how their imagination works. After this we focused on our main project, the web site. We gave them each a piece of paper and colored pencils and told them to design their own personal page, which all will be linked from the main page. They had lots of fun creative ideas, and everyone actually focused on the task at hand. Then, to my amazement, you asked if you could do some math problems. I am really starting to see some progression in the kids.
November 22, 2001 -
We did not meet this week due to Thanksgiving
November 29, 2001 -
Devin an I brought in an old video editing deck for the kids to take apart. We thought that since we had so much success when we took apart the computer with the kids that they would probably enjoy taking apart some other electronic devices as well. Once again I was amazed to see how much enthusiasm the kids had for taking apart this piece of equipment. They dismantelled it down to the last screw and then everyone wanted to take a part home with them. Before we knew it we had absolutely nothing left of the video editing deck other then screws and a few metal pieces that no one wanted. They made all sorts of relations to what they thought each different part was, things that I would have never thought about. In addition we played chess again with a few of the kids and did math problems on the board.
December 5, 2001 -
Instead of entering the kids sites into the computer and editing the font how they wanted it, we decided that we would just scan in a sheet of paper and then load the files as images. This way the links from the main website would just open up a jpeg of the kids personal creation and it would be much more of the kids own work then our own. This is becuase we realized that we did not have enough time to teach the kids the necessary HTML to actually program the website themselves. We are getting very close to the final meeting and it is going to be hard to leave these kids after we have had so much fun.