Our Expert Eyes walks continued with one led by Ed Feng, with a focus on mathematics around our grounds. He shared with us how he develops algorithms to rank the strength of college football teams and why the home team receives +3 points just for playing at home (Hint: It’s the referees.) After noticing the students practicing archery, Ed shared his understanding of statistics and helped us think about the odds of shooting our arrows inside and outside of the target under certain conditions.

We also welcomed families and friends into the school for Grandfriends’ Day. After gathering in the atrium for a performance from the choir, we set to work on a murder mystery activity created by Clara, a 4th-grader in our class. After learning about the various suspects, we had to carefully eliminate some based on clues she gave us and identify the guilty party.

Working together, grandfriends and students created maps that represented the neighborhoods that the grandfriends grew up in. The grandfriends then shared stories about their childhoods with the maps as visual aids. We were fortunate to be able to share their stories and learn more about their lives when they were younger.

We spent some time across the street with County Farm Park Naturalist, Shawn Severance where we helped clear out some invasive species, including honeysuckle and buckthorn. Our work there is part of an ongoing ecosystem restoration project to encourage more native plant growth in the park.

Our Odyssey collaboration with Imogen continued with homeroom time being devoted to both blocking and scriptwriting for the upcoming performance.

In math, in addition to their work in Singapore Math, students were introduced to some computer programming activities where they had to use blocks or lines of code to complete different challenges.