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.

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!

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!

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:

What do paragraphs and stop lights have in common?

If you were in our class you would know the answer to this question because we have been writing paragraphs using a stop light as our color coding guide.

Green is for the topic sentence - this sentence grabs the reader's attention and tells what the paragraph is going to be about.
Orange is for 3 -5 detail sentences - these sentences slow the reader down to digest information about the paragraph's topic.
Red is for the closing sentences - this sentence tells the reader that it's time to stop reading for a moment before moving on to another paragraph.

We have been writing color- coded paragraphs for a few weeks now, so if you get a message from a student, it might just be color-coded!

Multiplication and division fun!

We started learning about multiplication and division in October and the students are having fun using games and books to supplement our learning.

Students learned about multiplication as equal groups of items by playing the game "Circles and Stars" (from the book, Math by All Means: Multiplication - Grade 3, by Marilyn Burns)  Many parents were introduced to the game in the homework packet.

Students learned about multiplication as arrays using the entertaining book, Amanda Bean's Amazing Dream, by Cindy Neuschwander.  It made us a little bit hungry.

Students learned about division as partitioning items into equal groups using a game from Laura Candler's book, Mastering Math Facts, called "Goldfish Division."

Beginning in November, students will start earning their ice cream scoops as they learn their multiplication facts. (Again, hats off to Laura Candler.)  Our initial focus will be on the facts from 1 - 5.  When everyone has learned their facts all the way through the 10s, we are going to celebrate with a big ice cream sundae party.

Check back in a couple of weeks and see what our math bulletin board looks like!