Thursday, December 11, 2014

Hour of Code

Phew, thank goodness the electricity stayed on today despite the big storm.  Today was the day we participated in the Hour of Code during our Computer Lab time.  


The Hour of Code is a week-long event organized by Code.org, with the goal of exposing as many students as possible to coding. There are numerous coding tutorials on the Code.org website.  We picked the one featuring Angry Birds to experiment with today.  Here are links to other opportunities for elementary coders at Code.org.

If that's not enough coding for you, you can check out these other websites;

Made with Code

Bitsbox

Scratch


Tuesday, December 9, 2014

First Annual Thanksgiving Cardboard Construction Challenge

Wow!  I had read about classes, clubs and entire schools doing Global Cardboard Challenges, and I really wanted for our class to do one, but I honestly had no idea how it would really work out. When I looked at blogs to get advice, they mostly said the best thing to do was just to go for it, so we did!

The week before Thanksgiving, the class watched Caine's Arcade, a heart-warming video about a boy who builds an entire cardboard arcade one summer.  If you haven't seen the story of the boy who inspired the cardboard construction movement, it's definitely worth watching.




Then, the half-day Wednesday before the Thanksgiving break, students brought in lots of cardboard, lots of tape and one wonderful mom brought in all kinds of markers.  We had a nearly two hour block of time for the challenge.  The only rules were students could build alone or in groups of up to four people, students needed to be polite and kind, students needed to use their imaginations and they needed to have fun.

Here are the before photos:




Here are some photos from the event:












The morning was fantastic. Although it was pretty unstructured, the students quickly broke off into single person and multi-person groups.  They helped each other refine ideas - one of my favorites was when a race-car morphed into a pirate ship.  Another was when one student suggested to a friend that an egg carton section would make a perfect polar bear face (it did).  Students worked together to hold pieces in place for taping or adjusting.  Students negotiated different building groups almost seamlessly.  The ideas were flying around and for almost all of the time period, all of the students were building.  

This activity is a keeper for next year (without the styrofoam snow!)

Next 10 books in Mrs. Newman's 100 Book Challenge

I love car trips for reading!  I've decided to add quick notes to the books I read for my One Hundred Book Reading Challenge.  Here are the next ten.

The Princess Fables by Marc Clark – These short fables, handling modern day problems, like a child with the “I don’t wannas,” were originally written by the author to get his daughter to go to school in the morning.   



The Stratford Zoo Midnight Revue Presents MacBeth – This is a short (74 page) graphic novel in which the animals of the zoo come out of their cages at night to present Shakespeare’s MacBeth. Reading this rendering of Shakespeare for elementary readers made me want to re-read Shakespeare's original.


Heather, the Violet Fairy, by Daisy Meadows (Reading Level 2.9) – When I made our first class library book order, I realized I hadn’t included fairy books. Luckily, a parent donated the Rainbow Magic series in the same week.  In this, the last book of the series, Kirsty and Rachel have to find the last of the rainbow fairies to restore color to Fairyland.  Fairy lovers will root for Kirsty and Rachel and will be itching to add color not only to fairyland, but to the simple black and white illustrations.



Ida B by Katherine Hannigan (Reading Level 6.4)– Ida B is such a delightful, creative, energetic character.  I couldn’t help but root for her as she struggled to come to terms with a sick mother and having to go from home-schooling to a school that already failed her once. 


Squish - Brave New Pond (Reading Level 2.6)– This is the second graphic novel about Squish, an amoeba, who in this book explores how important it is to sit at the popular table. This might not be a book I would pick up for myself to read, but the first reluctant reader I handed it to took the book home at night to finish it.  That’s enough for me to consider ordering the whole series of Squish books.

Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library, by Chris Grabenstein (Reading Level 4.5) -  This is another book in the popular sub-genre of game books,  also represented by the Calder Game, by Blue Balliett (Reading Level 5.4) and the Gollywhopper Games, by Jody Feldman (Reading Level 3.9).  I can recommend all three of these books, Escape from Mr. Lemocello’s Library in part because it is set in a library my daughter would design if she won the lottery and because it is sprinkled with references to books many students (and parents) will have read.    A good read for library, book and game lovers of all ages.


Fig Pudding, by Ralph Fletcher (Reading Level 4.7) – Narrated by the eleven-year-old eldest son Cliff, this is a book full of memorable moments in a large family.  Many of the stories are simple in the way life really happens, providing a nice break from the adrenaline-packed fantasy and adventure stories that abound. The Abernathys  could be your neighbors and you’d like them.  There are chapters that will make you laugh and chapters that will make you cry.  Fig Pudding was a good read for over the Thanksgiving break.



Guts & Glory, the American Civil War, by Ben Thompson – Faced with a host of students who want war books they can read, I ordered some graphic novels and this book, by Ben Thompson.  Reading Guts & Glory is like having the opportunity to have dinner with someone who loves the Civil War so much, he makes you love it, too.  Told in a very casual style (in fact, at one point, I have to resort to Urban Dictionary), Thompson tells the stories from the war that elementary students want to hear, without overloading them with dates and statistics.  I’m hoping for more American history books from Ben Thompson.


Titanic – Unsinkable, by Gordon Korman (Reading Level 5.7) - One of the great pleasures of teaching elementary school is the excuse it gives me to read books written for middle grade readers.  Today, I picked up the first book of Gordon Korman's Titanic series.  I have never really been interested in the sinking of the Titanic, but I couldn't put this book down.  Korman has created such compelling characters in Unsinkable that I had to keep reading to see what would happen to them next.

The book, which begins in Belfast in 1912, has a Dickensonian beginning. Two young boys pickpocket from a surprisingly rich man. The thieves are immediately likable, Paddy is an avid reader and Daniel would have been a engineer or a designer in another life.  Their life is a rough one though, and due to the twists and turns of fate, Paddy ends up as a stowaway on the Titanic.

Joining him on his shipboard adventures are his unlikely companions, Sophie, Juliana, and Alfie. Sophie is the daughter of the embarrassingly public American suffragette, Amelia Bronson.  Juliana is the oft-ignored daughter of the Earl of Glomford, who is traveling to Texas to meet with a Texas oilman. Alfie is an underage steward, on board to travel with his dad, who works in the boiler room.

As the story progresses, Korman guides us around the Titanic as the youngster's weave in and out of each other's lives.  Korman's descriptions of the ship and its passengers left me longing for more.  Did that person really travel on the Titanic?  Did the dining room really look like that?

My original plan had been to pick a student to be the coveted first-reader of a new book, but now I'm wondering if Unsinkable should be our next read-aloud.  What a great decision to need to make!

Sisters, by Raina Telegemeiar (Reading Level 2.7) – Students requested that I order this graphic novel, about the perfectly believable relationship between two sisters, for our classroom library and it’s been circulating since it arrived.  Much of the story occurs while the sisters are traveling with their mom and baby brother on a long distance car ride.  Many adults can relate to how much fun that is in real families and  the conflicts are believably portrayed.  Although I haven’t read many graphic novels, one thing I really appreciated in this one was that the flashbacks (which sometimes confuse students) are indicated with different page coloring. 


Saturday, November 29, 2014

Elements4D - not quite as we expected

I was very excited to use the Elements4D app with my class today for our lesson on the periodic table. About a month ago, I introduced the class to another augmented reality app, the colAr app. That app worked so well, we had high hopes for Elements4D.

I had tested the app at home and liked how images of the elements appeared when a cube was scanned by the app.  I really liked that when Hydrogen and Oxygen were scanned together, students saw water in the combined cubes.  I saw potential for using Elements4D in two or three of our third grade physical science lessons, especially after reviewing the well-thought out lesson plans on the Elements4D website.  It seemed worthwhile to go in over the weekend and load the Elements4D app on our iPads.  I was willing to  watch a movie one evening and put 24 element cubes together for the students to use.  I thought I was set.

This morning I went in early to be sure the app was working on the school iPads like it does on mine at home.  It didn't.  When I pointed the first iPad camera at an element cube, the app switched off. So, I tried another iPad; the app switched off.  Thinking three was my lucky number (or just plain hoping for a different result), I tried one more time.  The app didn't work.  I hate it when that happens.

As is inevitable sometimes with technology use, I had to quickly regroup. My goal for this lesson was for the students to gain some familiarity with the periodic table and with some elements, familiar and unfamiliar.  Fortunately, there are resource links in the Elements4D lesson that I could still use.  I showed the class the relative sizes of an aluminum can and an atom of aluminum using the "zoom in" feature at www.strangematterexhibit.com.    After a quick Google search, I modified a worksheet from the Elements4D lesson; instead of having students sketch the element from the image they would have seen using the app, I had them answer questions about the element from the interactive periodic table found at www.chemicalelements.com.    

I even managed to use the element cubes that I had laboriously made.  Which elements did each student look up?  Why, the 6 elements conveniently located on their own personal cube.






The lesson was a success in two ways.  Students achieved the original goal; they enjoyed locating and researching the elements on their cubes.  They also learned that with technology, you often have to adapt.  While in this season of Thanksgiving, we are thankful for apps, but we are even more thankful for our brains to use when the apps don't work in the ways we anticipated.

Friday, November 14, 2014

Building Bridges and Learning About Ourselves

If you have seen the movie, The Internship, a comedy about two old guys competing with tech-savvy youngsters for coveted jobs at Google, you got a glimpse at how the business world is changing.  No longer do employers look at prospective employees' resumes and decide who looks like the best fit. These days for an interview, job-hunters may well be asked to work on a cooperative project with people they have never met before so the employing company can see how they handle working in a group under pressure. Wow!

Today, our third graders participated in a similar challenge.   Groups of 2 or 3 were each given 20 pieces of dry spaghetti, a yard of tape, and a marshmallow.  The groups had 3 or 4 minutes to strategize, then they had 18 minutes to build the tallest structure they could that would support the marshmallow.  I don't know if you have tried working with dried spaghetti before, but it's not easy!

At the end of the build period, 3 groups had built towers that could support a marshmallow; the tallest was 12 inches.  Four more groups had towers that could stand supported; the tallest of those towers was 16 inches.  The final three groups had some success, but didn't have a standing structure at the end of the allotted time.






Building the towers was interesting, and there were several important lessons:  for third graders the two biggies were mistakes are okay and creativity is important in design projects.  More important than the building though was the conversation we had when the 18 minutes were up.  We met at the front of the room and talked about the process.  We first talked about which was more frustrating, the building process or the collaborative process.  Fourteen students said the building process was the more difficult part, 3 said working with a partner was the hardest part, 3 students abstained.  I think this says a lot about our class culture. Students did not pick who they worked with; I assigned groups. Nevertheless, most groups felt like they had worked well together.



There was more divergence when I asked the students to rate themselves on a scale of more extroverted (energized by working with others) or more introverted (energized by working alone). This time, 7 students self-identified as introverted, 5 self-identified as extroverted and 9 felt they fell somewhere in the middle.  Students talked about why it was easier or harder to work in groups.  The pros of group work were having someone to help generate ideas, having someone to help with focus, and having an extra set of hands.  The cons were being overwhelmed by too many ideas and too much noise.  Many students noted that whether or not they wanted to work in a group depended on how much they needed to concentrate to do the work.  For instance, in most cases, students said that math was much easier to do individually, unless students were playing a game.



Our last discussion question was "why is it important to think about how you work in a group or under stress?"  Again, there was an engaging discussion.  The students agreed that knowing more about themselves could help with school work, studying and expectations.

It was a busy afternoon (thanks for coming in Mr. Beller and Ms. Rinehart!) and I'm glad it's Friday. However,  the happy thought that I was left with is how eloquent the students were when discussing the process.  I think Google will be lucky to have them!

Sunday, November 2, 2014

How to find out what owls eat

We are finishing up our Life Science unit this trimester and our last project was dissecting owl pellets.

Owls have a unique way of digesting their food.  Unlike other birds, they do not have a crop, but food owls eat goes immediately to the gizzard to be digested.  The digestive juices in the gizzard break down the usable parts of the prey for the owl, leaving bones, feathers and fur behind.  These undigested parts of the food are periodically regurgitated by owls in compact little pellets.

By investigating the contents of owl pellets, it is remarkably easy to get an idea of what a particular owl ate.  It is not unusual to find nearly complete skeletons in a pellet, and it is common to find identifiable bones.  The owl pellets the class looked at had bird and rodent bones in them.

Last week, armed with gloves, toothpicks and magnifying glasses, students in our class got to work in pairs to dissect barn owl pellets.  There were some good finds as you can see below.

We want to extend a special thanks to our two middle school volunteers, Joely and Meghan.  They were a big help!



















Saturday, November 1, 2014

SHISA stories

I have been trying to find a great way to teach students how to write short narratives, and this year, I think I've got it!  Thanks to this packet from Darlene Anne at Teachers Pay Teachers, I have used the acronym SHISA to help students summarize fiction stories for a couple of years.  This year, I decided to turn it around and use the acronym to help third grade students write picture books for their little buddies.

I set up a template for the books with a letter of the acronym on each page.  The students wrote and illustrated according to the letter on the page.  For example, on the first page, they introduced and drew their main character.

Here is what each letter stands for:
S - someone
H - has a problem
I - it gets worse
S - something major happens
A - and the problem goes away

The students had no problem understanding the parts of the story since we had been summarizing stories using SHISA.  Having them use the acronym to write their own stories worked well. The buddy stories are interesting and follow a basic story arc.

Here are a couple for you to read.

I love this iguana story:






And this story about a wolf named Wolfareen: