Classroom Learning – Feb. 9 – 13, 2015

This month has been flying by as its been full of short weeks filled with a lot of activity! My students have been hard at work but we also made some time for celebrating the work and learning we have been doing.

Language Arts

We are well into our read aloud Wendell The World’s Worst Wizard. We have learned about the differences between gnomes, elves and trolls as well as wizards and witches. The students have been reflecting on their connections, inferences and predictions as well as other criteria as we move forward into this story. They have each chosen either a specific character from this book or a type of character and started brainstorming their profiles so that they can create depth for their character when we begin their narrative writing pieces next week.

This week we discussed juicy adjectives and descriptive words. Students researched a variety of words and then applied those to their peers in our Friendship Adjectives Hearts:

Each student left a descriptive adjective about themselves and their peers on their heart.

Students have also started their book clubs! I have never seen more excitement and enthusiasm for reading in all of my years of teaching so watching them jump for joy when books where distributed was wonderful! I credit this in part to the fact that they all chose their own books based on interest and abilities. They all decided within their groups as to how much they will read before providing reflections. Each group also created a collaborative Google Doc which they will record their questions, comments and information to share with me and the classroom.

Here are some photos from their meetings:

Reading!

We use a variety of tools and resources. We read, converse and record our learning.

Mathematics

We are nearing the second loop of feedback for the student’s Resort Reports. I have asked that they each work on them this weekend whenever possible so I can provide them with additional audio feedback. They will be given more time next week to listen to feedback and apply to complete their work. I have loved using the add on Kaizena for the audio feedback!

Science

We completed a brief experiment together on growing crystals and students were able to observe their findings from last week’s  solutions.

Verifying our hypothesis and updating our observations.

Social Studies

The student’s jot notes and research skills are moving forward as they continue to research the two regions of the Arctic and the Great Lakes LowLands. I assigned each student a google doc for jot notes and one for a bibliography. They are loving using the add on Easybib to create their works cited. They are using both text and online resources and have learned how to cite each resource. They then also created two separate Google Presentations focused on each region of Canada and will compile their research into a personal presentation with a focus on guiding questions.

Starting our region research, creating our jot notes and answering our guiding questions!

Students are required to use a variety of text and online resources for region research.

Art

Our Falling Backwards pieces have turned out amazingly! Some students are still finishing up and we will begin Dragons next week!

Some of our self portraits falling backwards…can you guess who we are?

Valentine Buddies

This week we also gathered with our Grade 7B buddies to work on our collaborative art. We decided that this would be an awesome time for us to make our buddies some Valentines and they created some for us in return. We also set-up all of the treats brought in from both classes and shared while working on art together. It was so heart-warming to see them so excited in making, distributing and receiving Valentines. I truly believe one is never too old to celebrate love, kindness and friendship.

Distributing our Valentines and reading them!

Our collaborative murals are coming along quite nicely!

Cheers to lemonade, good friends, goodies and school!

Skiing

We received some high praise from the ski instructors at Rabbit Hill Ski Resort on Friday. Two instructors approached myself and Mrs. Krefting at the end of the day with huge smiles on their faces and asked us if we were with the students from Greystone. We said yes, and they began to say how absolutely wonderful our students were. They said they have never had such an incredible group of kids who listened and were so respectful. They were so happy with them that they wanted to give them something and so they opened up another area for them that they normally never do. They wanted us to let our kids know just how much they were thankful to have worked with them today and they also said please bring them back anytime!

To say I am proud would be an understatement!

I tried to capture some photos of everyone skiing, however most were so far up on the hills that I was only able to capture a few in action.

Skiing at Rabbit Hill!

Exhausted from a day of skiing but so very happy!

We have had a great week! I can’t wait for the next!

Classroom Learning – Feb. 2 – 13, 2015

February is a short month to begin with and we’ve added a lot of events which have also made for some short weeks. However my students know, a short week means even harder work and effort to ensure we continue learning.

Here is a brief overview of the past week’s learning and what we can anticipate coming up!

Language Arts

Student reading groups have been created and they have collaboratively chosen a book they will all read and reflect upon together. Reading time will be provided in class in addition to our daily Drop Everything And Read Time as I truly believe we need to provide our students with not only time for directed reading but also time for reading books of choice to build their love of books. We will be co-creating assessment criteria this week for their reading groups and get started! They have been so excited to begin and seeing this makes me realize that they love to read!

They have also been doing an incredible job updating their GoodReads and also sharing, reviewing and recommending books they have read. Keep it up guys!

We have started reading Wendell The World’s Worst Wizard together, which is a very detailed, descriptive Fantasy/Science Fiction/ Adventure book. This is a harder transition for students who are used to the more general Fiction reads and so we have  reviewed the characters and their roles as well as the settings of each section together to gather understandings. It is essential for students to connect to concepts in books in order to comprehend so its been quite interesting to hear their take on this story so far.

Our narrative writing pieces will start this week based off of Wendell. The students will brainstorm their characters and create brain cloud maps with descriptive details of their character. They will then create a draft outline of their story. This will all be in their Language Arts folder in Google Docs.

Mathematics

We hope to finish our Resort Report this week or early next week. This includes all of the student’s multiplication equation work in their duotangs as well as their reflections. Their entire completed project will be in their Google Docs accounts and also posted to their blogs along with their reflection on their learning and understandings of multiplication. I am so very proud of their work so far and some have even begun multiplying 4 digits by 4 digits using the strategy they feel comfortable with. However, any additional review of those facts at home would be immensely helpful! We will tie in this learning with Division which starts following the completion of this project.

Science

We’ve had a blast mixing and creating liquids and solids. The students engaged in multiple hands-on experiments last week and documented their findings in their Science folders.

Here are a few photos from last week:

Mixing liquids to observe what happens.

They were excited to document the changes.

Working together and discussing hypothesis of whether liquid and solid combinations will dissolve.

We’ll reevaluate our findings of the solutions this week.

This week we will be working on an a project experiment called Fill’er Up where students will have to create a device, mechanism or find a way to move liquids across a solid.

Social Studies

We completed our See, Think, Wonders about both the Arctic and the Great Lakes Lowlands regions and these can be located in their Google Docs Social Studies folder. They were fascinated by Niagara Falls as well as the sizes of the Great Lakes. Each student then created two separate Google Presentation documents with each slide titled with a focus question, which they will have to answer with their research:

Examples:

• How does the land shape life in the Arctic?
• What are the challenges of developing natural resources in the Arctic?
• How are Inuit ways of life traditional and modern?
• How does climate influence quality of life?
• Why does this region have the largest population in Canada?
• What makes this region unique?

This week students will be shown how to effectively conduct research using the internet, how to cite their sources and we will review copyright practices and plagiarism. They will also be provided with written texts from which they will be required to pull information and re-word in their own words to ensure they are able to find the information they are looking for but also to create their own understandings of it. Their individual and completed presentations will then be posted on to their blogs.

Art

Art is one of our favourite subjects. We get to be creative, wacky and representative of ourselves. We have been working on a drawn piece called ‘Falling Backwards’. Students had to trace their hands and feet, in which ever perspective they chose,draw themselves, and then decide what would scare them the most if they were to fall backwards into something. They then outlined their drawing with a Sharpie and learned how to use watercolour paint to create texture. Their results are awesome and I can’t wait to showcase them with you once they are completed. Here are a few pictures of their work in progress:

Stay tuned for more from LC5B!

 

LC5 Made The Front Page!

Our learning community’s partnership and visit with our local Spruce Grove Public Library to introduce our students to their brand new Innovation Lab was featured in the Spruce Grove Examiner this week.

Here is the article written by reporter Karen Haynes:

Ella Morrison didn’t seem shy as she belted out the lyrics to her favourite songs during a tour of the Spruce Grove Library’s Innovation Lab on Jan. 16. Morrison was using the library’s GarageBand technology to record her voice. – Karen Haynes, Reporter/Examiner

The Spruce Grove Public Library’s (SGPL) Innovation Lab is open for business and students from Greystone Centennial Middle School know first hand just how cool this library addition really is.

From Jan. 13 to 16, Grade 5 students from the Spruce Grove school toured the library’s Innovation Lab, testing its virtual reality program, Lego robotics, GarageBand software, 3D printer and circuitry systems.

“Libraries are not just about books anymore and they haven’t been for a long time,” said Leanne Myggland-Carter of the SGPL.

“We are a community hub — for many ages and stages in life… We have intergenerational learning going on. Kids come with their parents and grandparents, and they are helping each other. It’s a community based learning space,” she said.

Dana Ariss, a Grade 5 teacher from Greystone said the partnership between the library and the school was a prime opportunity for students to learn about the technology and resources that are available to them.

And it perfectly complemented the school’s recently completed Innovation Week, which finished right before the Christmas break.

“It was such a valuable experience for the students to see what there is. For them to have one-on-one building time, creation time and play (time), that’s where they construct their own knowledge. To give that to our students is something that is an absolute must,” Ariss said.

From Dec. 15 to 19, Greystone students participated in their fifth Innovation Week. For four days, students are challenged to question, investigate, process and create a final project in an area of deep interest to them.

“They go through the design making process. It helps students to have an understanding of themselves as learners and how to share their learning,” Ariss said.

Focusing on some of Alberta Education’s cross-curricular competencies — knowing how to learn, think critically, how to identify and solve complex problems, and how to create something innovative — students started their projects by zeroing in on what they are passionate about.

“It’s unbelievable the amount of dedication and perseverance these kids demonstrate. It’s something that is important to them,” because they take ownership of their projects, she added.

The projects included sewing, clay animation, creating special effects and make-up art for film, robotics, stop motion, caricature drawing, and others with a focus on engineering, horticulture and baking.

“The main focus is not just on the final project but also on the process: how did they get to this point; what did they learn; where did they fail; and how did they learn from the problems they faced.”

Greystone Centennial Middle School will host its sixth Innovation Week in the spring of 2015. At the end of the week, parents will be welcome to visit the school and see what the students have accomplished.

Our Educational World Is Changing

I recently was forwarded this incredible video by Dr. Tony Wagner who is the Expert in Residence at Harvard Innovation Lab. It’s a powerful talk about the status and direction of Education held at the World Innovation Summit For Education.

Our educational system is changing and I have never been more excited for the opportunities our students will have for a successful future. This talk focuses on the changes happening and why innovation, creative problem-solving and knowing HOW to apply information learned within collaborative environments is so vital for our students.

If you have a free moment, I would highly encourage you to watch:

“When knowledge is a free commodity, we need to innovate” Tony Wagner – WISE 2014 [Special Address]

2014 – My Year Of Change & Growth

The start of a new adventure!

This reflection will be framed in a different format than my usual posts. This is just how I feel I can accurately reflect on the year that has passed as it contained such force and fundamental change that I have compartmentalized most of it by time frames.

January – February 2014

I felt it…that feeling in the pit of your stomach that digs away at you. It whispers quietly at first, but it quickly becomes so loud that you have to listen: “Dana, you need a change.” I loved my school, my co-workers, my district and most of all my incredible group of students who had been my little family for three consecutive years. I remember first meeting them in January of 2012 as they were told they would have a new teacher and a brand new classroom. They had been in a combined grade one-two and extra funding had come up enough to hire a full time teacher for them. There I stood in their old room and watched as each one came up to me, introduced themselves by name and told me their favourite colour. I still remember their anxious faces and their half-smiles as I walked with them down the hall to what would become our new room. “THIS IS OURS??” they exclaimed with joy and squeals as the doors to their new home opened. I nodded yes and in that exhilarating moment, I knew in my heart that I also had found my home.

So when that whispering feeling of change started coming around, I panicked. Ignorance is bliss as they say and so I ignored it.

March – April 2014

I knew that no matter what was to come in the future, my students and I were to be separated at the end of this school year as they moved on up to grade five. I went into full “make the most of every moment” mode and these months brought us so much innovation, creativity, inquiry and excitement in learning. I did my absolute best to ignore that feeling to the point where I wasn’t doing much beyond working. I planned, I connected, I shared, I communicated, I read, I tweeted, I moderated, I presented, I travelled to conferences, I blogged and I taught and learned with my all of my heart for and with my students. These were the most exhilarating moments of teaching I have experienced (all of which have been documented in my blog and our Twitter account Miss Ariss’ Class). I poured my entire being into teaching and making every minute count. However, that feeling of change didn’t go away and it was wearing me down as the days went on. I learned that no matter how hard you want to run from the feelings that scare you, it is often those that need to be felt and addressed. I finally stopped and really evaluated what I wanted and needed:  Leadership mentors, group collaborations, constructive feedback loops for growth, opportunities for larger impacts on educational change, learning PD for my own growth and a more permanent home-base both professionally and personally

Change was happening and that feeling became so loud within that I finally started listening. Sometimes in life, things happen for reasons beyond our control but when we look back upon them, we often see the real meaning and the learning that can occur from them if we have the right attitude. As much as I loved everything about my career, I knew in my heart that my time in my little community, where I felt the safest and happiest I have ever felt, was ending. I could continue to ignore my personal and professional needs for growth and stay in my comfort zone or embrace that feeling and move forward into uncharted change. Those who know me well….know how this story will end.

May – July 2014

I can only describe these months as an absolute blur. Somewhere between full-time teaching, numerous educational conferences, presentations and travelling….I found the courage to listen to my heart. I took a huge leap of faith and accepted a new position at an incredible middle school a few hours away. Many would call me crazy for leaving a permanent teaching position, but they would not know who I am and what teaching truly means to me. Its not about positions, status, rank or authority; for me, teaching is about continuous growth and learning. To truly be an effective educator, I needed to continually embrace the difficult situations and decisions in my life and learn from them in order to grow and develop into who I am as a person which has a direct affect on my teaching, because I teach from my heart. I cannot remain in my zones of comfort and expect my levels of teaching to grow. I needed to widen my experiences in order to become the educator I need to be for every student that I have the privilege of working with.

I make this sound as if it was easy when in reality, this truly was the single most difficult decision of my life. I had built a safety net and it was never harder to accept the truth that nothing in life ever stays the same. I became almost paralyzed with fear; I was so afraid of losing the only family I had come to known, so afraid of moving away from everything that I had built and created, so afraid of what was to come, that I completely became focused on the impact failure could have on me by making this decision. I forgot how much I would champion making mistakes and learning from them to my students, but the difference was that we had built a safe environment for failing. I didn’t feel so safe as my entire life depended on succeeding with this decision I had made. I turned to the safety of my closest friends and family, who rallied alongside me and supported me in every way imaginable. By July 1st, I was living in a new home, in a new city and preparing for a new school, new colleagues and my first group of “new” students in three years. That is a lot of NEW and it happened within a span of barely two months. This was that feeling in the pit of my stomach realized: Change.

August 2014

Questions, questions, questions swirling in my mind all the time!

Where is our room?

Who do I contact for this?

Where can I find?

Will I connect with a new group of students?

Will I make an impact on their lives?

Will my colleagues accept and welcome me?

Can I really do this? Oh wait… I AM DOING THIS!

September 2014 – December 2014

When I first started this reflection I didn’t fully grasp or realize the amount of learning accomplished during the final half of 2014 until I started looking at the photos I had taken. I have grown immensely both personally and professionally in these past few months by being active in my new community and surroundings, by embracing the uncomfortable, by being honest and open about my strengths, strong passions and areas of growth but most of all in my own self-confidence as an educator.

I found myself surrounded by communities of support, expertise and varied experiences in an environment prime for growth. This is what I had hoped for and I knew it wouldn’t be an easy journey, but I have never been one for easy. I have come from close to 5 years of independent teaching in small rural schools. I have always planned, coordinated and constructed all of my own materials, units, and assessments based on my own student needs and most recently, students with whom I had looped with for three years and knew like family. I now was in a team of six grade five educators collaborating together on the learning for our students, in a school almost seven times the size of my previous.

A few of my fun-loving colleauges!

Reflecting on the start of the school year, I see now that underestimated the transition into this. It has been years since I needed to share who I was, my true self, with other educators, as when working within a small district everyone knows everyone. My other collaborations have been with educators who follow me on Twitter or read my blog and have a strong sense of who I am. The individuals within my comfort zone, who are my rocks, all know my deep passion for learning, know how excited I get at the thought of planning a unit with my students and finding those connections for them, know that I am honest, genuine and will ask a lot of questions because I have a need to know the why behind everything I bring into my classroom, but that mostly I care…about everything and everyone all the time.

I learned that when working within a large group, fostering a relationship beyond work is essential for the dynamics because once everyone truly knows one another a foundation of trust and an environment where vulnerability is welcomed can be built, however that this also takes time. Effective collaboration doesn’t happen overnight, it needs to be built step by step by each individual party. My sheer optimism and strong will to ensuring meaningful things happen despite obstacles, is who I am however this is something that is shown over time through sincerity and action. I am learning how to communicate my passions, thoughts and ideas outside of my comfort zone and am pushing myself to hear (not just listen) and understand more and more.

Our LC5B!

These few months also taught me about the power of student connection and relationships. I had worried whether I would be able to connect with a brand new group, but as the weeks went on I started receiving hugs, drawings, jokes, stories from home, open discussions about their lives and genuine interest in mine, shared laughter and that feeling of knowing these are the amazing kids I am so lucky to know and work with every day. I love the community we have built and will continue to grow.

We are a family and their words mean so much to me!

Just a few weeks ago, I decided to surprise my previous students by attending their Christmas Concert at my old school. I snuck into the dark auditorium hoping to grab a seat when one of them noticed me from behind the stage. Within a few seconds, they all popped out from behind the stage and began furiously waving to me. I can’t begin to describe that moment, but a lot of tears were involved. The kids I am honoured to meet and work with throughout my career are what make being an educator the most  meaningful to me.

Learning and sharing…always!

This term also brought forth a lot of Professional Development and new projects which I am so honoured to have been a part of. Collaborating with other PSD70 educators on the first ever #EdCampPSD70 and co-keynoting the opening with Kelli Holden in the presence of so many incredible colleagues was truly humbling. Kelli and I reconnected again in November to present at ATLE on the use of SKYPE in the classroom.

I was also honoured to be asked to present an IGNITE session by Dean Shareski, who ever so kindly arranged the presentations to start alphabetically which in turn had me presenting first. This required me to dig deep into who I truly am as an educator and helped build my confidence in sharing that with the larger community of educators. Despite the nerves, it was an absolutely thrilling experience where in five minutes I shared my passion for education and spent the evening learning about the passions of others.

I was introduced this term to many new forms of PD focused on #MakerSpaces and #MakerEd, which I had implemented in my previous teachings but never had the opportunity to dig deeper into. From a Saturday road trip to Calgary with my AP and three other teaching colleagues to attend a one day MakerFaire to an ERLC hosted MakerSpace session where I connected with local librarians on the new creation of Innovation Labs in our city. I am so excited to share these experiences with the kids as they completed their first Innovation Week projects in December and will be visiting the labs in January. Not to mention continued collaborations and discussions surrounding Alberta’s Curriculum Redesign which I am currently a part of the committee for my new district in working on the competencies in learning.

In remaining true to myself and constantly having a need to learn and absorb, I along with my #Cdnedchat team continued our weekly collaborations continued and our chat is livelier than ever on Monday evenings! I also jumped in to three separate book clubs with Google Hangout reflections with various educators within my school and across the world to expand my learning and push my mind further. One of the book clubs focused on Leadership through being a part of my district’s Exploring Leadership committee.

Present – 2015 and beyond

My biggest take aways from 2014 have been to always listen to your heart, no matter how scared you are, and that how change is viewed depends solely on how you approach it. Is it an adventure filled with learning opportunities or will you view it as something horrible and choose comfort?

I learned how to truly be vulnerable and to rely on others when I need to. To not be afraid to say I need help or I don’t understand this can you show me. Reach out to others and in doing so, you open the lines of communication and make your connections just that much stronger.

I was reminded by my own inner fear and worries that we all face insecurities, hardships and stress. Our job isn’t to add to that, but to lift it off of one another. Be kind to all, especially the ones who may seem to have a hard exterior because somewhere down their path of life their experiences helped to shape that. Our students may come to school with brave faces, but they are looking to us to create the safety of an environment conducive to learning, just as we need in our own professional lives.

So what does 2015 have in store for me? I won’t even venture a guess, but I certainly hope my years continue to provide me with continued learning opportunities, strong supportive networks and a deeper understanding of my purpose as an educator.

Implementing Our Electricity Understandings

We have been working very hard in LC5B learning about electrical mechanisms, circuits, batteries and just how electrical circuits operate.

This is a fairly in-depth unit and the students and I have approached it with inquiry in mind. We are surrounded by electricity, but just how does it work and how dependent are we on it? LC5B had come up with so many questions which we have taken the time to research and learn about what we wondered.

Last week we had failed attempts at implementing a working circuit, but our focus at that time was on the process and how to continue to try alternatives when coming face to face with a failed attempt. This week we focused on applying the skills and knowledge we had learned about functioning circuits and attempted to put them to test with our circuit boards.

Students chose partners they felt they could work best with and each group was provided with an operating circuit board and the cell batteries students were asked to bring at the beginning of the year. I didn’t provide them with any further instructions other than to make their circuit operate. We had built the foundations of what an effective circuit requires in order to function, and now they had to apply this knowledge. This was the best piece of assessment of learning as students were quick to begin and were incredibly focused and determined on getting their circuits to operate, and they applied their understandings of insulators, conductors, switches, cells and voltage. They were also 100% comfortable in explaining how and why their circuits were or were not working, which allowed me to see their understandings in a natural setting.

They explored, they pushed, they clipped, unclipped and re-clipped….and may have burnt some bulbs…but they were learning!

I hope you can see and hear their excitement below:

What happens if…..

Let’s see what this does…

So excited about his group’s completed circuit!

Is this going to work…

Concentrating in their groups!

We think we got it!

Thumbs up and all smiles!

Success and pride!

What happens with more voltage?

 

Building Readers

Our goal this year is to build a community of readers. In order to build strong life-long readers, we must foster a true love of reading. Very often students are told which books they must read and when the power of choice is not balanced, students will disengage and reading will become yet another task that needs to be completed. There is a time for structured reading to learn the skills necessary to delve deeper into text, however our end goal is to build a love of reading so that students will continue to read out of enjoyment which will also grow the amount of reading they do.

One of the very first steps in this process is to introduce students to the endless amount of resources available to them and guide them in choosing books that are suitable based on interest and abilities. We are so very lucky to have access to any book in the entire world whether through our local and provincial libraries to thousands of online resources. We have been talking in our classroom about how and where we can find books well as how to know if it’s a book we are interested in and are able to read. This learning process is very important as I don’t want students to be at frustration levels when reading. The end goal is for them to read and read and read.

I’ve begun to introduce them to books they may have never read or even heard of before. The Global Read Aloud that we participated in chooses the top new books by authors from around the world. Students then share their thoughts, reflections and connections with peers also reading the same book. The books chosen resonate with their readers and I continue to read these aloud to the students year long to build that connection and model for them that deep love of reading. When I close a chapter and hear “Awww…no!! Keep reading Miss Ariss, keep reading,” thats when I know those connections have been made. This is the feeling we need to build with our students.

In our classroom, reading is an integral part of everything we do. We have dedicated DEAR (Drop Everything And Read) time where students can choose to read independently or with a friend any book of their choosing. We will also be starting Literature Circles as well as focusing on individual strengths and areas of growth for each student in fluency and comprehension.

However, reading doesn’t end at school or in our classroom and so as a class, we created our own private reading community on GoodReads.

For those unfamiliar, GoodReads is the following:

“Goodreads is the world’s largest site for readers and book recommendations. Our mission is to help people find and share books they love.

A Few Things You Can Do On Goodreads:

• See which books your friends are reading.
• Track the books you’re reading, have read, and want to read.
• Check out your personalized book recommendations. Our recommendation engine analyzes 20 billion data points to give suggestions tailored to your literary tastes.
• Find out if a book is a good fit for you from our community’s reviews.”

Students have already joined the community, learned about privacy settings, searched for books of interest and set their own reading goals from now until we come back to school in January. Goodreads can be accessed from anywhere at anytime, it can even be downloaded as a free app on your mobile device or iPod. Students will require the use of school, local and at home libraries to obtain their books/reading materials as Goodreads is not an online reading program. The reasons we will be using Goodreads to track our school and at-home reading are as follows:

• It’s real and connected to the world. Students can share and reflect on what they’ve read with millions of others so that reading isn’t just happening in a vacuum. They learn about differing opinions and have access to titles they may never have had a chance to see.
• They will read and write reviews and recommendations alongside other avid readers. Their opinions will matter and the amount of writing and reading they do will grow.
• They can recommend books to one another after completing them. We all know that when a teacher or parent recommends something students don’t respond as favourably as when their best friend recommends it.
• They will build independence and ownership of their own reading. They will be required to independently provide page updates as they read at home and at at school. Goodreads provides them with a visual to help aid their growth and progress. This will be monitored by me weekly so I can have individual discussions with students. I ask that they read at home and be provided with access to record in their Goodreads account. They can do this at school the following day as well if access is not available.
• Students are very visual and often times pictures will grab their attention faster. Goodreads provides photos of each book so students can look at the cover and even read the first few pages of a book before deciding if it’s one they want to find.
• They can create their own goals and share that with me. I have stressed continually that reading is NOT a competition between them and others. They read for themselves and they share that growth with me. We will have whole group and classroom reading goals that when reached, we will celebrate, however we are a team made up of individuals.
• Our private Goodreads community also allows for group discussions about what we are reading. I have modeled a discussion question and will encourage students to start their own about their reading as we get going. We have also connected our community to other classrooms on Goodreads, one even being in our own Grade 5 team.
• Students will also be asked to create book trailers to review a chosen book they have completed and will post completed projects to their blogs.

I have also stressed that for this, reading material can be of the student’s own choosing. It need not be purely fiction or restricted to just chapter books. The possibilities are endless and I will allow any reading material that can be recorded and students provide evidence of the why and what to me during our individual reading discussions. We want to build the excitement over reading and connecting and that means different things for different students.

As always, I rarely ask my students to do something I myself haven’t done, and so I, along with two other teachers have connected and shared our own accounts and reading goals with them on GoodReads too. We’ve also extended the information to our parents in the hopes they would join us too.

Students need to see, know and understand that reading is life-long and not just a task to be done at school. Are we modelling this to them?

Classroom Learning – November 3 – November 7, 2015

We have had quite the event-filled weeks leading up to our current Fall Break. I sincerely hope everyone is resting and gearing up for the next few weeks of learning!

Here is a brief update on the learning activities happening in our classroom:

Mathematics

We continue to review and reinforce the three estimation strategies of FrontEnd, Compatible and Compensation. These are new concepts to students as most are familiar with the use of compatible which allows them to estimate or round to the nearest 10, 100, 1000, 10,000 or 100,000 but there are still struggles with rounding beyond 100 and we will be continuing to review and apply. Students will need to know when and how to apply these strategies when adding and subtracting whole numbers up to 1,000,000. They have demonstrated growth and understanding with addition, however subtraction across multiple place values is an area of focus.

Students are also completing their final place value and estimation project which they will have on padlet.com. They will be posting these to their blogs very soon. Here is a video made by Nate and Ashley describing this project with photos of Ian’s completed project.  It also features a student from Mrs. Krefting’s grade 5 classroom sharing about the Language Arts learning we are doing as well:

Language Arts

We have been focusing heavily on the writing trait of Ideas. Students observed a random object within their environment and listed the details. Then as a group we wrote a descriptive paragraph imagining ourselves as that object. Students then showcased their creativity as they assumed the role of their object and described themselves from its perspective. They posted these on their blogs and were so happy to see your guesses in the comments section. Some were very tricky but also quite descriptive.

We also read the book called Nothing Ever Happens On 90th Street and had a group discussion about whether things ever happen at our school. We discussed how we can observe things in our everyday environment so that it may help to spark ideas for our writing. Students then each chose a staff member in our school to visit and observe as they taught their class or worked in our front office. As they observed, students had to write what this person does and says. If this person required specific tools and what their working environment was like. They also had to imagine what superpower they would gift this individual and why and how it would affect them.

Students also had the opportunity to watch a short video called Ideas Are Scary and write a reflective piece on their observation and comprehension of its basic idea. I am trying to push them out of their comfort zones this year so that they can bring out their creativity and showcase their understandings in deeper more meaningful ways. These blog posts were truly inspiring to read.

Our Global Read Aloud is coming to an end as well. We are almost done reading The Fourteenth Goldfish together. The discussions and questions that have come up from this book have truly allowed for us to have very informative discussions surrounding Science and famous scientists. We will be sad to finish this book.

Science

Electricity and Magnetism is really bringing out the student’s love of experimentation. We have discussed quite a bit of information so that students have a strong foundation of content to apply to their experiments. They have learned about conductors and insulators, cells, open and closed circuits, switches, symbols and components. They also are learning how to use the Scientific Method when conducting experiments ensuring they have documented the following: Question, Hypothesis, Materials, Procedure, Observations and Conclusion.

Their very first experiment was to build a circuit and conduct electricity through the use of acidic vinegar, copper wire and metal nails to light a single LED bulb. I didn’t provide students with the exact way to conduct this as I wanted to observe their initial understandings from what we had learned previously about circuits. The objective in this first experiment was to see whether students have fully grasped the concept of an electric circuit, how to apply the Scientific Method when experimenting and what they do when and if they should fail. We have had numerous conversations about scientists in our classroom and how they are continuous learners who fail, but learn from each situation to make their following experiments better.

Not a single group was able to get their bulb to light, which I expected, however every single group continued to change the variables within the experiment and learned from every situation they had attempted. Only one group from Mrs. Krefting’s class got their bulb to light and they came in and shared their findings with us. Students documented their experiment and shared with me.

Here are a few photos and videos of their experiment:

Working together on creating a functioning circuit.

Reconfiguring their circuits numerous times.

 

Our next step is to create fully functioning circuits and applying the skills learned.

Social Studies

Students have brought back their information from the interviews they conducted with you and their extended families. This was the very first step in our inquiry project into finding out more about our histories and backgrounds. Every student has brought varying amounts of information ranging from a few short answers, in-depth multi-person interviews to detailed family trees. Our next step is to review their content and provide one another with feedback as to how they can get deeper answers so that their information starts to build a complete story instead of random short facts. Once this feedback has been provided, please expect that students will come back to you with more detailed questions in order to improve on their first attempt. Once completed, they will be required to organize and assess their information in order to bring it together into a presentation to share with our other LC5 communities. Students will be provided with various methods of presentation and will have the opportunity to choose which method suits them best.

We have also reviewed our country and its location in the world. We also looked up our family names to find out what they might connect us to. They are very intrigued by the fact that their last names are connected to so many things in the world and have an extensive amount of questions as to who their relatives might have been. These would be wonderful discussion questions to have and learn together about at home.

Stay tuned for more updates this break!

Miss D. Ariss

How will you use $5,000,000?

Working on their place value project.

Our focus this year is on real-world applications of the mathematical foundations we build in our classroom. We have been working on understanding place value concepts to 1,000,000 and three strategies (front end, comparable and compensation) for estimation during Math. We’ve also been thinking of how and where we would need to understand and use these concepts in our lives.

The students were then presented with the following problem:

“You have inherited $5,000,000 from a long lost relative in your ancestor’s country. The problem is that you must use this money on purchasing 3 homes in Alberta. You can use http://www.realtor.ca. One house must be over $1,000,000 and the other two can be of your choosing, however you must share your reasoning as to why you have chosen these homes. Any money left over will be yours to keep, so choose and estimate your budget wisely. How will you use your money?”

They were also presented with website called Padlet, which is a virtual collaborative board, open to representing learning and projects in a variety of ways.

Students had to organize their three homes and their features. They were to also calculate the estimated value and cost of each home as well as the property taxes. Then calculate their estimated leftover amounts after purchases were processed. Once their calculations and reasonings were completed, they will draft a cheque for their homes using written and standard form for the amount they would pay home owner. Their learning and understandings, whether visual, oral or written along with their calculations would all be posted to their padlet wall for sharing.

Students were ecstatic to start exploring and were even more invested when they saw the connections between the google map they were using in Social Studies and the one on realtor.ca. They started out small and searched for homes within their city and soon afterwards started to branch out.

Exploring realtor.ca and padlet.com.

This is where things started to get exciting because they began to see just how much money a home can cost and some began to have questions.

“Do I only have to choose 3 homes?”

“What if I want two or more homes over $1,000,000?”

I thought about those questions and immediately questioned my reasonings behind creating the problem. I looked at them and said, “No, you have free choice. It is your $5,000,000 and so use it at your discretion so long as you can demonstrate your understandings.”

As soon as they realized they had ownership of the project and their money, their interest began to shine through which showed me that they were truly invested in this project and in applying the classroom concepts to the real world. Questions then became these (and to which I said yes):

“Can I purchase multiple rental homes and rent them out for more money?”

“I love art. Do I have to buy a house? Can I l buy art gallery spaces?”

They were making this project their own! Soon all you could hear in our classroom were:

• Students sharing the costs of their homes which meant reading the larger numbers and vocalizing them to one another
• Students using descriptive language to justify which properties they have chosen
• Students learning about different parts of our province and questioning housing costs relative to locations

We even held discussions about why some properties were listed at $1 and what bidding wars were.

This project has helped to begin the conversations about how math is a part of our everyday lives. That math is not just something you need to “do” in class but that there is a real need for the skills you are learning, and where, why and how to apply them.

If They Build It, They Will Learn

Display at Lego Fair.

How do we learn best? Why is it that we can recall certain aspects of our education but not all? What is it that resonates with a learner? I’ve been focused on creating a collaborative learning environment this year with my students. I believe that my role as an educator is to facilitate their learning, to assist them in their own understanding of their learning and how to connect this to their everyday lives. This is especially difficult with a prescribed curriculum and standardized testing that are pervasive in education today, however as an educator, if I can locate ways to circumvent these obstacles while still maintaining the student’s learning and excitement for learning, I do so.

Our classroom operates as a collaborative mini-society of thoughts, ideas, questions and most importantly opportunity. The opportunity to try, fail and try again. The opportunity to create and construct our own learning through activities chosen and put forth by us all as a team.

Our most recent endeavour was in Science, where we decided together to combine two of our units: Building Devices and Vehicles That Move and Wheels and Levers into one large encompassing project utilizing the student’s choice of Lego and K’Nex building materials. We discussed what the units looked like, what we are required to learn and understand and then we set about finding a way we could do this that excited and motivated us. The students immediately chose Lego and K’Nex, I supplied the materials and support, and the building began.

They worked in self-chosen groups based on interest and build they did. There were four groups: wheels and axles, gears, levers and pulleys and together they built vehicles,  ferris wheels, long and short ramps, sail boats, flag poles, egg beaters, chain saws, trikes, helicopters and wells.

Machines built at school.

A group of my students came to me and said that they have been building at home and would like to bring in their work to share.  They had extended their own learning beyond our classroom walls and were getting together on their own time and building. I was flabbergasted but extremely proud so we held a class discussion and decided that not only was it ok to bring their work in, but that we needed to showcase it. Together they came up with the idea of hosting a Lego and K’Nex Fair for their parents and our school. Within a week, our classroom was transformed into a warehouse of Lego and K’Nex creations. There were more machines built at home than there was in our room, and they kept coming in.

Machines built at home.

Sensing their excitement building beyond anything I had ever witnessed, I asked them how we can make our fair even more interactive. We talked about stations and one student asked if we could use our iPads in some way. I suggested we try and use the Show Me app to explain how they built their machines, the machine’s purpose and what they learned. They loved this idea and paired up with their building partners and began taking photos of their work. They uploaded these photos into the app and created mini-videos explaining how their simple machines operated. They not only created them for the projects at school, but also the ones they created at home.

iPad table featuring their Show Me videos.

We hosted our Lego and K’Nex Fair yesterday in our school’s gymnasium. We had a total of  8 tables and an iPad viewing centre for visitors to watch and listen to their Show Me app videos. The students gathered and organized their machines and welcomed their proud and excited parents and peers for an hour of learning and discussion. Each group chose a table of expertise and explained to the guests just how each machine operated, how it was built and its need and importance in our world.

Vehicles, buildings and free-time build projects.

As the fair commenced, I stood back and just watched them interact with each other and their guests. I saw responsibility, independence, growth, learning, understanding, teamwork and most importantly pride. They were beaming with pride from owning their learning. I will forever recall them answering questions but making eye-contact with me through the crowds and smiling wide knowing-smiles. THIS is what learning is and it’s the students who need to build it for themselves in order for it to be life-long.