ScienceThis week students finished their first learning artifacts. If you're curious to see what they made before the astronomy fair at the end of the year you can check out this website. The last activity they were asked to do for this artifact was reflect on their experience. Each student filled out a form asking for specific examples of how the process went. Take some time this weekend to ask them about what they learned about themselves as learners. Some students started their work on their second learning artifact. They were asked to not work the same people again and to pick a different way for showing what they learned. This forces students to work with people they may not work with and create something that's new to them. This is on purpose and is part of the designed learning process. The goal is for them to take the experiences and skills they learned during the first artifact and apply them to the second. I really look forward to see what they produce in these new and different working groups. Lastly, students will need another book for their second artifact. They may ask you to go to the library again or for help finding an article to print. MathMonday: We worked on our books all day. Tuesday: We worked on Word Problem #23. This problem comes right out of the 4B book. It should look very familiar to the students. I wanted to take a step back from solving complex problems to reviewing how to draw bar models. Selecting a concept most students have gone over is an easy way to do that. For student working in the 6A books I solved the problem algebraically as well. On the solution slide you'll see how to solve the problem using both methods. Wednesday: Book Check Day
Thursday: Game Day Friday: Tetris Math
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ScienceStudents wrapped up their first drafts this week and primarily focused on getting feedback on their projects. One of the main discussion points of the week was getting a diverse range of feedback. One way to do that is getting feedback from family members at home. Please take some time this weekend to ask your child about their artifact and show it to you. Here are some questions to ask them:
MathHere's a breakdown of what we worked on this week in math. Monday: We spent the day working in our books and getting questions answered. Tuesday: We worked on Word Problem #22. After the last month or so working on problems about fractions we've moved on to working with decimals. This problem actually comes from the 4B book and is one that students generally ask for help on. Creating a bar model for this problem really helps to visualize what's being described. Here's the solution to the problems. To solve it you have to understand that if you have the whole of something and have a few of the parts. You can use subtraction to find the missing part. Wednesday: Book Goal Conferences
Thursday: We had Grandfriends Day and to show off how we do math students worked through Word Problem #22 again as well as Number Talk #4. Friday: We normally do game day on Thursdays, but because of Grandfriends Day we moved it to Friday. One of the new games that I added to the rotation was Yahtzee. This is a fantastic game to play with kids to get them to think about statistics. Science
Our week in science what split between two activities. The first being wrapping up our research for the first astronomy artifact. The second being starting our work on the first draft of the artifact. We took a different approach to researching this week on Tuesday. Instead of using online sources students were asked to print print sources. For the first 45 minutes of class students collected information without the assistance of the internet. Afterwards, we had a discussion about the pros and cons of using both digital and print sources. When talking about digital sources students brought up how they liked being able to look up words they didn't understand and being able to look for sources at different reading levels. What they didn't like what how distracting using the internet can be as well as having to spend a lot more time thinking about the quality of a source. For print sources they spoke about how it wasn't as distracting and how much easier it was to judge the quality of the information. The downside being the information might not be as up to date and how much harder it is to look up words on demand. In the end we reflected on the type of learners we are and which type of source is best for us.
Near the end of the week students shifted towards creating their first draft of their artifact. I really wanted students to conduct the majority of their research first before starting to build something. In general, students at this age have a hard time with structuring information, and if they have the information first it makes organizing it much easier. I highly recommend you speak with them over the next few days about how they're organizing their information and what their plans are for their artifact. The more feedback they can get the better the overall product will be. Math
Monday: We spend the day working in our books and getting questions answered.
Tuesday: We worked on Word Problem #21. This problem shifts our attention from fractions to decimals. It's also a great problem because there are two very different ways for solving it.
Wednesday: Book Goal Check Day
Thursday: For game day this week students predominantly chose to play Tetris again. Students also played the video game Snippercips. This game involves moving around two characters who can change their shape to solve various puzzles. The game has a strong emphasis on creative thinking, problem solving and cooperation. Here's a video of an example level. Friday: Harnessing the classes recent interest in Tetris we had activity that simulates a level from the game. Using dice to generate dimensions students created blocks to fit in a 8x13 grid. This activity reinforced quick mental math and a their understanding of area and perimeter. Here's an example of what a game might look like. ScienceStudents started researching their first astronomy artifact this week. A whole host of topics were selected. Studying famous astronauts, the moons of Jupiter, and how exoplanets are discovered are a few of the topics selected. Over the next week students are going to be focusing on research. In class this week we talked about how to evaluate online materials. The main methods we'll be using is called the CRAAP test. The test focuses on students looking at the currency, relevance, authority, accuracy and purpose of a website. Student have also been asked to find a print resource to use for their research. Please take some time this weekend to help them find a book on their topic. Next week I would like to ask students to spend some time researching without their computers. It will be much easier for them if they had a book to use during that time period. Below is an image showing the process we are working through to complete each artifact. This week we worked on brainstorming and research. Each group has their own self assigned due dates for each stage. If you haven't done so take some time to ask your child what their due dates are. Every group is planning to finish their first artifact on April 26th. MathMonday: To get back into the swing of things after spring break we worked on our books for the entire class period. Tuesday: We completed Word Problem #20 as a group. Here's the problem. This problem is challenging because students might assume that Lisa gave Ann 3/8 of her hair clips. Which might mess up their model. Here's the solution. Wednesday: Book Check Thursday: Game Day. For game day this week I introduced two new games for students to play. The first being the classic Tetris for the original Gameboy. Tetris is a great game for teaching kids how to solve problems under stress. As well as spacial awareness as they try and figure out how to arrange the pieces. The deck building game Star Realms was also introduced this week. While playing Star Realms we have conversations about probability, quick mental math, and managing multiple sets of numbers in your head. Friday: Number Talk #8 This talk focused on using the abstract image above as a tool to talk about how we group numbers to find a sum. There are multiple ways to count the dots using addition, subtraction and multiplication.
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