The Final Round of Pirate Math

Captains Log: Twenty-Fourth of February

The Crew was growing weary of being upon a boat for so long as they were but wee pirates and hadn't fully developed their sea legs and stomachs. To be fair to our bitty buccaneers, they had faced a harder journey than most do as can be read about here.

Well, as these land-lubbers had been sailing for so long, we knew it was high time for them to come to port and reach the island. They had to figure just how far they were away from the island and then they were off. They began their search by questioning a mysterious old man about the details of their treasure map. They went about making paces that the old man gave them which happened to be their ages added all together. When they reached the cave they knew they were getting close and an X marked the spot in the middle of the classroom. The students pulled out the shovels from the Captain and realized that as they each dug together they were digging one foot at a time. So to dig the 10 feet down to the treasure chest, they'd have to do 9 shovels full for each foot. They added it up and realized they needed to do 90 shovels full of dirt! Upon reaching the treasure, the students carried it by the armfuls back to the ship and sailed back home.

Miss Brown Even had pirate booty (hats, eye-patches and pencils) for the students to take home with them. When we reached port, the students had time to reflect on the outcomes of their long journey, and what treacherous things they'd had to do. The most treacherous of all? That they'd been doing math through the whole adventure. They made tough choices and had to spend wisely in the first day, the second day brought the challenges of the sea and there was math all over for them to do, and even on the island, if not for some helpful math skills, those brave sailors may never have found their treasure.

Below are some pictures of the experience they had!

Counting paces to find the X!

Digging for treasure!

Pirates getting ready to leave the ship!

Fighting the Kraken!

Pirate Math 2 FebruARRrrrrrry 10, 2015

With their gear all packed, this band of scurvy sailors set out with me to find the ship of their brave captain. They knew they may some across some trouble, but they'd planned for this. Follow the link below, and then read along to see where their adventures took them!

https://prezi.com/bri7ait7w5rh/untitled-prezi/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

These sailors learned that there would be troubles they'd face and they'd need to face them with the toughness of a pirate. The first slide got the students to give me their very best Pirate "Arrrr!" The second slide got the students to make a great pirate face. We then led them off from their classroom to the dock where the Captain's ship waited for them. Unforutnately, upon entering the port, they were faced with the terrible task of paying a sailor's tax to the Port Authority in slide three. They rounded up the some of their gold and bribed the guards to not make them have their gear investigated. So they set sail with food, weapons to fight off enemies that might come, and their wits to brave a treacherous sea on their way to discovering an island full of treasure for them.

On their first few days at sea they ate, and were cheerful. Then they arose one morning to find that they were being boarded by another fierce band of pirates who wanted to steal their treasure maps! Each student who had prepared with a cutlass or a flintlock pistol was given a chance to roll dice against an opponent. Mrs. Brown (The Pirate Queen) rolled, and all those with pistols had two "shots" or rolls of the dice to see if they could get higher than her roll. Anyone who didn't was taken captiave. Those with cutlasses had two swings to force their pirate enemies to yield to them. They could combine their rolls and as long as they added up to 20 - their age, they were ok. Again, any who failed were taken captaive. Also, those who hadn't planned for battle at sea were taken captive by the pirate queen. With the battle won, they only had to negotiate the release of their shipmates. They added up together all of their gold and made an offer to the Pirate Queen for the release of their prisoners. She consented and sailed away.

Things weren't better the next day however. Those disgusting sea dogs left a some bilge rats in the scullery and they destroyed all of our food. The crew was devastated to learn this news, but knew that they would have to go to work. There was a week left on the boats according to the globe they'd brought. That meant they'd have to determine how many fish they'd need over seven days. Each decided how many fish they could eat, and what they'd need to survive, and so they added up the total. Then the students began reeling in fish, and they were some of the largest fish you've ever seen 'ya land lubbers.

Unfortuantely, the next morning faced them with something much scarier than a band of marauding pirates, or a lack of food. Slide four revealed a great beast called a Kraken. The students knew that they'd have to work together and respond to the command of their captain to "Fire in the Hole!" to beat the Kraken. They knew from the Captain and their own pirate saavy that a Kraken could only take about 150 points of damage. They had three rounds to begin firing upon the beast, and neither crew needed even fully two to bring it down. They were deeply impressive.

At this point, the Captain had to depart and they needed to return to recess, but Tuesday the 24th  we will finish their adventure, and hopefully find some treasure.

Visit 2 -- Magical Creatures and Where to Find Them

Deep Apologies. This visit happened in October 21, 2014. I have been AWFUL at the blogging side of this great project.


The world we live in is almost totally fake. I don't mean that in some kind of dramatic, new agey, depressing way. I simply mean what we do is unnatural. We don't deal with averse weather conditions in our habitats. It dropped below freezing here in Provo last night, and my sleep was only disturbed by the sound of my crying child which I got up to feed with a plastic bottle of food. I am not, never have, and probably never will be responsible for making my own shelter for more than a few days at a  time, and even that will be of my own choice to go camping, not out of need. Almost anywhere I move in the world, I can live without fear of death from the elements because I can adapt to the environment with tools that other creatures like me have created.

That ability to adapt is one of the biggest differences between humans and most other creatures on earth. That's what we explored last Tuesday.

I started our group activity by asking the students what kinds of things they did on cold days and having them show me a frozen image or a quick silent movement of what they did to get ready. Many students talked about putting on extra layers, and a few mentioned things like drinking a big cup of hot chocolate or eating waffles that would warm them up. Then we all pretended to be asleep at our desks. When "our mom" called us and told us to get ready for school we all did different things to show we were getting ready.

Some of the students acted as if they were rushing downstairs to eat breakfast. The things they ate varied widely and all looked delicious. Others knew that it was going to be a cold one, so they took time to put on extra clothing. Each of the students finished and went to go wait outside for the bus. As they stood outside, the wind blew and they indicated their chill through shivering, bundling up tighter and standing in groups. When they arrived at school, Ms. Brown had determined to make the room as warm as possible to counteract the cold outside. Students stripped their extra jackets and winter gear, and walked faintly to their desks. They then acted out how they would respond to the heat. Some begged Ms. Brown to turn it down. Others drank lots of water. Each knew that in order to survive their school day in a 110 degree environment, they would need to adapt.

When the students reached this point, I demonstrated for them how to give a report about a certain animal. I chose to use the Emperor Penguin. I sat in the front and put on my news reporter hat, and explained a few interesting facts about the Penguins. Then I allowed the students to ask questions, and if I didn't know, I indicated that I'd find out them. We also acted what penguins must do to survive the arctic winters. Many of them will huddle together around the smallest of the penguins to protect them from the fierce winds. We had our smallest stand in the middle and we crowded around them as the wind blew fiercely through Ms. Brown's class.

Then, each student had the chance to report on their own animals. I had selected animals from different biomes to help the students get a feel for what a wide variety of animals there were and how they survived in different settings.

Ms. Brown set up the partnerships of students and they read a couple of paragraphs about each animal. As they read, they each were to select a question about the animal that they could make up based on the information they were given, just like in a news report. The students then presented their animals to one another by having each partner ask the other a question like in a news report.

Below is the selection of animals that students could choose from

Dawn Bat
Red Fox
Mongolian Gerbil
Banded Gila Monster
Toco Toucan


Each of the students did a stellar job. Until Next time!

Session 2 Visit 1 -- "Pirate Math!" 2/3/15

Avast! Ye be lookin' for a bit of pirate treasure? Aye, ya land lubbers, an old sea dog lik'un meself can tell. But the treasures ye be on the search for may be not what lies in store!

Miss Brown and I have, if you are reading for the first time, divided her class into two sections. That way each group gets thirty minutes of work time with me, and thirty minutes of digital learning. Each of these sections meets three times to follow a dramatic process through to learn about an core subject. This period of three visits is called "Pirate Math!"

Second graders are funny. They're like the ideal interactive audience. As a theater practitioner myself, It's important to create something that the audience will really buy into. In Miss Brown's class, I knew that if I was going to get kids interested in doing math, they'd need to find something where the math was secondary to the imagination they would be invited to explore.

So when I arrived, I decided to bring a friend with me. He was an old sea dog we simply referred to as, "The Captain." Some of the students began to notice similarities between he and I, but what they couldn't help but notice is what made the two of us so very different. For example, while I'm a man with a clean haircut, and two hands, this scurvy rascal has a hook for a hand and wears a bandanna on his head. Clearly this is a fierce pirate who is not to be trifled with.

Well so as to spare the tender feelings of the children I left the Pirate out in the hall until he was needed. I began by asking the students which of them LOVED doing math. There were a couple pretty enthusiastic hands, but several others who looked at them like they came from another planet.  I continued asking their feelings about math, and told them that I'd brought a friend who would hopefully make math a little more exciting for them.

As I went into the hall to "Get my friend" he came in and instructed the students that he was looking for a crew to help him find a great treasure. He told them that if they wanted to join the fiercest band of pirates the globe had ever seen they'd need to get some pirate gear. He left just as I came back in, and I asked the students what he talked about.

The students understood that they'd need to figure out what they could and couldn't take with them as pirates. We started by presenting them with a list of goods that they could acquire each student wrote in their math journals at least six items that they wanted to bring with them. Then each student had to look at how much each of those items weighed. The advice the captain gave them was to not pack more than 27 lbs of gear, and so each item had to be added up, but not exceed 27 pounds. Some packed light, others packed too much and had to unload a little, but they all were doing math without even recognizing it for what it was.

Once the students had planned what they would get, they knew they'd need to purchase all of it since there were no cutlasses, pirate dictionaries, mess kits, or treasure maps with them. Fortunately, The Captain had left me with a box of pirate treasure that each of them could use to purchase their gear. It ranged from 96 coins on the low end to 119 on the high end. They took their loot and headed to a pirate store where they were given the options of buying things Good, Best, or used. There were something that were OK to get used such as someone's old parrot, or an old pirate outfit that would just make them look fiercer from being worn at sea. Students tended to stay away from buying used gold teeth and food though.  Gross! Any gold coins they didn't spend they kept to have with them on their adventure across the open sea and towards the treasure island.

You'd be amazed how frugal some of those kids were.

With that, I left and bade them to prepare their best pirate voices for their entry onto the captain's ship the following week. This is a smart group of sailors I get to meet with.

Until next time!

Below is the Pirate Store they had to work with to determine weights and costs. :)

For Sale		Used	Good	Best		Weight
Pirate Outfit		6	9	12		3
Captain's Hat		2		5		1
Eye patch		1	4	2		0
Cutlass		5	10	15		5
Pistol		9	14	19		3
Tatoo			2			0
Compass			2	4		1
Rings		2	4	6		0
Golden Tooth		2	5	8		0
Boots		3	6	9		2
Food			5	10		per week
Clean Water			5	10		per week
Treasure Map		3	8	13		2
Peg Leg		2	5	10		0
Parrot		3	7	11		3
Monkey		8	14	20		6
Bandana				1		0
Hook		3	9	15		1
Spyglass		2	4	6		4
Matches				2		1
Mess Kit		2	3	4		2
Globe		8	12	16		8
Pirate Dictionary				4		2
Pirate Flag				10		1

Visit 1 -- The Human Machine 10/14

Hey!

Thanks for reading the blog. Let me just say that these kids are smart, and endlessly creative. The way our arts integration is going to work is that we are doing four three week chunks of arts integration. The first three weeks, which are the 14, 21 and 28 of October, we have been mostly been looking to expose the students to creative drama work while incorporating science and a little work with reader's theater at the end.

On this visit, on October 14 (sorry I'm late getting this and the other one up!) I knew that the students had been taught some of the major bones in the human body. I wanted to teach why bones are important and give the students a chance to explore what their bones are doing and how they work for other creatures on earth.

We started the lesson with having each student introduce themselves and create a sound with their name. For example, when I said Mr. Savage, I said "Saaaaavvvvaaaaagggggee" like a fog horn with one group and "Ssssa-a-a-a-a-vvvv-aaaggggeee" Like starting a motor with another group. The students created some animal noises, used interesting voices, and made other robotic or mechanical sounds  to say their names. Then with those noises, each student found a repetitive motion to make that corresponded with their noisy names. Each person then became part of a human machine (which I wish I'd grabbed a video of! Maybe Miss Brown can do that another time).

This picture is us introducing ourselves ---->

The students explored what their machine could be doing, and we talked about how important even in this made up machine,  taking parts out changes what it can do, and limits our ability to do what we were designed to do. The students made some really awesome comparisons to what we need for our own bodies. This led to a demonstration of animals in a power point and their bones. The students identified what bones we had in common and different from animals like King Cobras, Jelly Fish, Ducks, Kittens and so forth. With each animal, we moved like them and talked about how those bones helped us move, or served other purposes.

When we finished this part of the activity we asked what bones do in our own bodies. They came up with "Supporting" "Protecting" and "Giving Shape" or "Forming." Smart kids, right? So we then acted out what would happen if we missed certain bones. Like "Shaking hands without phalanges" or "standing without a spine" or "moving without tibia and lower bones."

Ultimately these kids came up with some fantastic ideas and were able to really discover how to build upon the things that they actually know, and get up and learn those things with their own bodies. I'll bet if you asked your kids at home to explain or try some of these same things, you'd be amazed to see just how much they retained. Their human machines are pretty great.

Until next time!

BYU Arts Bridge

Hi!

I'm Scott Savage, a BYU Student studying Theater Education and Chinese Dual Immersion. This year I've been given the exciting opportunity to work with the talented Liz Brown and her 2nd Grade Class at J.R. Smith Elementary School. I work with the BYU Arts Bridge Program which is focused on integrating the fine arts (Music, Dance, Theater and Visual Arts) into core curriculum in an Elementary Classroom. I will be updating the exciting plans that Liz Brown and I create for intergrating my main art (Theater) with the things her students want and need. There will be photos and videos of selections from the students work posted, and updates about the process from our end as well. I hope that this blog will serve as a platform that parents, fellow teachers, and our communities can use to understand how valuable arts integrated teaching can be to the lives of students. Children are the leaders of tomorrow, and they will need to fuse creativity and practicality in their endeavors.

As always, comments, questions and anything else you want to say is welcomed below.

Thank you for reading!
谢谢！