This week I have been experimenting with many different "performance projects" and final projects. I had assignments happening in most of my classes as a way of trying to gather some final grades before having to finalize report card marks. I have had a lot of fun planning these projects and the kids have come to school excited to prove what they know! I also had some experience dealing one-on one with some parents this week. I had noticed an unusual trend in one student's behaviour, and decided to take action towards notifying the parents. We were able to meet up, come up with some solutions as a team, and were able to let the child know that we were supporting their success in school. It felt great to have my first real parent interaction go so smoothly, it has really opened up my eyes to the benefits of creating a partnership between home and school.
Below is my weekly recap and highlights!
Below is my weekly recap and highlights!
Science
We used our information gathered from last weeks gravity racers to chart our distances into bar graphs. It was a great chance to do a little bit of cross-curricular math integration into our science class! I also demonstrated a "wind-powered" car using a sail and a blow-dryer for the kids. Afterwards, our science performance projects were under way! I created a fake company called KISS Motors (Keep It Safe and Sound) who has 'hired' our kids to create a model car that can drive within a set road's width and stop within a certain range by using brakes. The kids have paired up, brought in their materials, and have signed the employee contracts. They have been busy working away to figure out how to combine all of their previous knowledge in order to complete all of the requirements. I have been taking a "stand back" approach in order to allow the kids to make mistakes, learn from their mistakes, and then work hard to make their vehicles more effective.
Health
We continued with our safety unit this week by looking at some recreational safety rules. The kids completed a cut and paste activity by carefully reading rules and deciding which rules were most suitable for each type of activity. Then I had the students pick topics from a bag to base a safety advertisement poster on as a way of reviewing all that we have covered so far. They were to give a suitable title, a picture promoting safety, and a sentence to explain their safety rule as well as to shed light on possible consequences. I gave them a rough drawing example of how to go about showing their safety topic.
Gym
I started off this week by teaching the kids how to do cartwheels and how to keep balance on a 'balance beam'. I had decided that doing some balance beam exercises would be a fun change for them, so I simply flipped our gym benches upside down because they would be more challenging and more sturdy by being upside down. After wrapping up those couple of skills I introduced the final project and the kids have now been busy creating their own gymnastic routines! I am amazed at the creativity that many of the students have come up with so far! They are really putting in the effort to be daring and to coordinate with their partners. I can't wait to see their final performances! I have been busy trying to download all the required music which ranges all the way from the Harlem Shake to an Allan Jackson song... priceless!
Social
In social I have had the kids gaining an appreciation for the value of native stories by interpreting and rewriting a chunk of a creation story. Their pictures have turned out awesome and they have been realizing how these stories would've helped to explain WHY Alberta is the way that it is! They have really been attempting to incorporate native American artifacts and lifestyles in their drawings which has been awesome to see! I have also had them beginning to work on an information brochure which promotes either Writing-On-Stone or Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump. They have been doing some online research and deciding what information is important, how to organize information, and what types of design features would draw customers' attention. I am hoping that they will really gain an understanding of how important these sites are to Alberta's history, but also recognize how important these sites are to share the Native's ways with the world. I have brought in many brochures for them to gather information from and to look at as examples. I am finding that this group of kids really responds to anything creative, so I am going to try and keep this in mind while planning their next unit!
Math
In math this week we have been busy learning about remainders in division and have been exploring the importance of remainders. I had the kids use my homemade board games to practice long division - they rolled a set amount of dice to determine the dividend and divisors, and then solved the question to find the remainder (which was how many spaces they would get to move). The game was a great success because all of the players had to do the math for the same rolls to make sure that their opponents didn't mess up the math or weren't cheating! I found that it was an awesome way for them to practice some questions, but in a more engaging way than just doing worksheets. This game also allowed me to ask the question "are remainders important?" and the kids were quick to respond with a "YES! Because that's how we get points in our game!" I've been finding that now when we do our worksheet questions the kids aren't forgetting to add the remainder to the answer because they now have an appreciation for the importance of remainders. I know that this will help us out next week when we begin discussing instances where we can ignore the remainder, and instances where the remainder can't be ignored and we must round up. To introduce these ideas, I also created some visual division questions on the Smartboard that dealt with buying tickets at a fair. In this example, the kids divided up 3 tickets to each customer, and then there was one ticket left over. So then the kids decided that that ticket would just be sold the next day instead - at that point I revealed the second half of the scenario which showed that it only takes 1 ticket to ride the ferris wheel, so now the cashier could sell his final ticket of the night and brings in more profit for the fair. The kids were able to see how even in the same scenario, there were reasons why the remainder might be useful or not useful.
I also introduced the idea of representing remainders as a decimal by bringing in some awesome money manipulatives from the Curr Lab. The whole set has been really helpful so far for those kids who need the visual of trading money in for other coins in order to continue with the division.
I also introduced the idea of representing remainders as a decimal by bringing in some awesome money manipulatives from the Curr Lab. The whole set has been really helpful so far for those kids who need the visual of trading money in for other coins in order to continue with the division.
I also attended a SAPDC PD session called "Math Games to Support Basic Math Facts". I attended this session because we had decided that it would coincide with our PD project very well. It was a really interesting session and I learned many new games that could potentially help me out in my classroom!