Today is our last day before February vacation. The teachers decided to give our hard-working students a break. So we aren't sending them off with any MCAS math work. We thought our readers might miss reading about math on Fridays, however. That's why we're posting some pictures of our Mathematics Expert bulletin board. It's so important that it is located in the main hall of our school.

The board not only explains what an expert is, it also shows our week's experts in math--kids who completed their MCAS math homework impeccably (If you don't know what impeccable means, look it up so you can start to become a vocabulary expert!).




It's nice to have experts around. They know enough about a subject that they can help other kids who need to catch up.

Have a question about length units? Just ask Marcus. Maybe he can explain them to you.

That is, after he gets back from VACATION!

The Construction Book Still Continues...

Perhaps you know that Ms. Murphy's second grade class is working on a book about our construction workers. If you don't, or would like to refresh your memory, here is the first post about it and then the most recent.

Like all writers, the second graders are finding that there are a lot of commitments that can get in the way of finishing a project--everything from April vacation to things like math and spelling. But they are back!

They had already done a lot of research, interviewing workers and watching them work. But it never hurts to do some more, especially on a beautiful sunny day when the workers were putting up the wood townhouses directly across from our school's front door. So off they went!



















The second graders have learned that observation, or looking at things very closely, is a very important part of research. The kids immediately saw that THREE cranes were very hard at work. Since the bodies of the cranes were blocked from view, they wondered which one was the Big Giraffe. Andrea looked carefully at the walls going up--inside and out. She commented that the insides look like hay.



















Then one student asked why two of the buildings have walls (actually frames) built with steel while all the other buildings have wooden ones. Good observation. The kids talked about this for a while and finally thought of the story, The Three Pigs, in which three piglets build three houses--one out of straw, one out of sticks, and one out of bricks. They wondered if steel would make a stronger building compared to wood.

Nice question, Ms. Murphy's class, you aren't the only ones wondering about it. Luckily we have the answer for you in our last Ask The Expert post. Take a look!
Meanwhile be certain that no Big Bad Wolf can blow ANY of these houses down!

Building with Steel? Or Wood?

On May 11th, our post asked the question: Why are the construction workers building houses out of wood now when they were using steel before? We decided it was time to Ask the Expert!



So we decided to contact John O'Toole, the Senior Project Manager of the Old Colony site for Suffolk Construction. This question was a very easy one for him!









Choosing to use steel or wood has a lot to do with the height of a building, says Mr. O'Toole. Steel is very strong. In fact, it is so strong that it can support the weight of a skyscraper that's over a quarter mile high (for example, the Willis Tower in the city of Chicago)!





So it's not problem making the four- and six-story steel buildings at the Old Colony construction site.

Wood is a fine, safe material for building houses too, Mr. O'Toole explains. It's lighter than steel and a much easier material to work with. You can cut it with less trouble than a heavy steel beam. You can put different pieces of it together with just nails. That takes less time than drilling holes into steel and using bolts.


On the other hand, says Mr. O'Toole, wood isn't quite strong enough to stack countless stories of it, one on top of the other. There are no skyscrapers built from wood. But there are lots of three-story buildings--just like the ones they are constructing for Old Colony.

Ask the Experts: What's a Crosby Clip?

The last few posts have been describing the kindergarteners' adventure visiting the huge 400-ton crane on our construction site that they are going to be able to name. If you scroll down a post or two, you'll see that they all got a Crosby clip to take home with them.

But what's a Crosby clip besides a funny looking piece of metal with two nuts on it? And why do they have so many of them on the construction site?

The kids couldn't guess. Their teachers didn't know. It was time to...

ASK THE EXPERT!



So we did.

This time our expert is Mike Moore. He is the superintendent of the construction project. That means he watches over everything that is happening across the street. He makes sure work is running smoothly. He solves the problems that come up--which can include explaining how Crosby clips are used on the site.

So what is that little thing called a Crosby clip? Turns out it is a lifesaver!





Look carefully at the picture above and you will see a wire rope that goes all around the perimeter of the steel. Crosby clips help keep that rope tight and strong. (If you click on the picture to make it bigger, you may actually be able to see these clips in action!)

That wire rope saves lives. It can keep an ironworker from accidentally walking off the building. It also lets the ironworkers have something to clip their safety harness onto when they are working near the edge. If a worker is "tied on" and accidently slips, he or she can not fall to the ground. Phew!

Ask the Experts: Why is a flag on the crane?

One day the kids in Ms. Meadows' third grade class were talking about the construction across the street. They wondered about the flag way, way on top of one of the cranes (look carefully and you can see it!). Yes, the boom--the long arm of the crane--is an excellent flagpole. But that wasn't really an explanation. Kids at the Perkins are starting to learn that if they ask questions, they can get answers. It was time to...


ASK THE EXPERTS!!


Several kids wrote letters to ask the question, here is Renny's:



Once again, our expert was John O'Toole, Senior Project Manager for Suffolk Construction. "First of all," he said, "the flag is a proud sign of our heritage and our country. All the workers and unions on the job are glad to work with it on site."
Then he went on to explain another reason. "It lets us know which way the wind is blowing." Why do workers care about that? Sometimes the crane's job is to operate the pile driver, said Mr. O'Toole. At our site it is acting like a big hammer, driving 100-foot long cement pile into the ground. As you can imagine that heavy cement hits the ground with a lot of force. And each time it does, the oil greasing the crane flies off--almost like the water droplets coming off a wet, shaking dog.

If you were a worker, wouldn't you want to know which way the wind was blowing so you'd know which way that oil was going to fly? Otherwise, you'd get pretty greasy before long!

ps. Now you may be thinking: What's a pile? It's a column that can be made of cement and steel, wood, or steel. What's it for? If you're curious, look it up or wait for a future post. Or, look it up and wait for a future post!

Ask the Experts: Why hose down the demo?

After watching the start of demolition, Ms. Murphy's second grade class had a question.

They didn't see any sparks or fire. So why did the crew squirt the building with hoses when it was being torn down?

It was time to ASK THE EXPERT.


We turned to John O'Toole at Suffolk Construction Company. Mr. O'Toole is the Senior Project Manager for the Old Colony Project. He makes sure that all the demo and rebuilding keeps moving along smoothly. He knew the answer to the second graders' question.

"Breaking the building apart creates a lot of dust," says Mr. O'Toole, "and dust is so light that it floats on the air. We don't want it to stay up there where people can breathe it in. So we squirt water on it. The water coats the dust and makes it heavier so it will fall to the ground."

Thank you, Mr. O'Toole!

Ask the Experts: What will our new homes look like?

Welcome to one of our semi-regular features called, Ask the Experts, with its wonderful banner drawn by fifth grader, Joshua C. Kids have lots of questions about the building of the New Old Colony. They are learning that the best way to learn is to...ask the experts. This time, one student wanted to know:

What will our new homes look like? How will they be different?

To get the answer, we asked Jay Szymanski, one of the architects who helped design the new buildings. (What do architects do? And how? Those are questions we’ll think about later!)

Here’s what Mr. Szymanski said…

The way they built Old Colony the first time makes it look very different from the houses around it. All those big brick walls set it apart from the rest of the neighborhood. Those walls also made everybody’s apartment look the same. It was harder for families to feel, “This is my home.” We wanted to change all that.

When we’re finished, there will be one building that’s six stories high and others only three stories. Some people will look out their windows and see Carson Beach; others will see Moakley Park. Some people will live on three floors with their living rooms and kitchens on one level and their bedrooms upstairs. Some homes will have their own patios, and most will have bushes and flowers in gardens outside their front doors.

All the homes will have more windows so they will feel much brighter. The systems inside them will work better too. You won’t have to open your windows in winter, for example, because the boiler puts out too much heat. You’ll be using less energy. And you’ll be using less water, too, every time you take a shower or run the dishwasher. They’ll take a while to build, but they will be worth it!