Catching Up

Things were very hectic during November, and the month seemed to fly by. To get a quick update about what has been going on, please check out the month in pictures!

Students participating in the Marshmallow Challenge. This is a great critical thinking AND teamwork exercise. 

Float or Sink? Using the Scientific Method, students made hypotheses about which types of candy would float or sink. They were then able to test their ideas and graph the data. Finally, a discussion about WHY some things float, while others do not. 

From Putt-Putt to Pebble Beach: Students are designing a playable mini-mini golf course using the engineering design process. They are learning about creating alternative solutions, development work, scale models, testing, and redesigning. 

The DaVinci parachutes are taking shape! Students solved geometry problems and learn background physics concepts as they built working models of Leonardo Da Vinci's parachute. We will be testing their models in a few short days!  

What happens when you combine a few household items such as baking powder, powdered sugar, and rubbing alcohol, then add heat to the mix? Students learned just this on Halloween. They were asked to journal while I conducted the experiment; creating hypotheses, changing their guesses, and observing using their senses the entire time. We had a lot of fun with this project!

Critical Thinking activity - graphing ideas, making educated guesses, testing, and concluding. 

Light Bulb Moment With a Slinky

As I was sitting at the breakfast table this morning, I said to my husband, "I'm just not sure if I'm getting through to my fourth graders about mass, weight, and the rate at which things fall. How can I help them to explore and really get it?" I then, as any teacher would, proceeded to start dropping everything I could find around the kitchen. This included a ball of paper, painters tape (we are currently painting the trim of our house), and a few other objects...

The big question I was asking at breakfast was, "How can I help them come to this conclusion on their own, rather than just telling them? How will we make it stick?!"

Fast forward a few hours, and our fourth grade class is working with a Slinky drop and researching more for our future DaVinci Parachute project. This is where the story gets good (at least in my teacher eyes). One of the students came up to me with a glow in her face and said, "Hey! We just figured out that the mass of a falling object doesn't matter as long as they are shaped the same way."

Light bulb moment! Cue Mrs. Fitz doing a little cheer in the classroom! They figured it out! The best part: because she was able to discover it on her own, learning this fact was exciting!

 These are the moments I cherish with my students! Having the ability to explore in our classroom is a huge blessing, and it is something I am thankful for each and every day.

Below are a few pictures from the same class. They were trying to make a glider using a piece of paper, 3 paper clips, and 1 fold. The goal was to see how weight changed the direction in which the object fell.

Genius Hour

You may have noticed a new tab at the top of our blog labeled Genius Hour. But, what is Genius Hour?

The idea for Genius Hour was inspired by Google's 20% time for their employees. Basically, the company found that by allowing their staff to explore their own passions one day a week, productivity actually increased. Many of the apps we take for granted were born during this 20% time!

Which brought teachers to start thinking, "What would happen if we let our students explore their passions?"

I think great things could happen, so I've decided to pilot Genius Hour in the upper grades of the elementary. Telling students that they really can learn about whatever they want can be a shock to their system. Therefore, we are currently working on submitting driving questions.

There are three rules to Genius Hour:

1. The project must be approved by me before research may begin. 
2. The project must be researched; meaning that if you can find the answer immediately on Google, you really aren't doing "research". 
3. You must share your findings. You can share this however you would like (website, book, iMovie...) but it will need to be shared. 

If you would like to learn more about Genius Hour, check out the link and video below.

Smore.com: Genius Hour

Week of Code

The week of October 19-25 is Digital Citizenship Week in the United States, and what better way to celebrate, than to expose the students to one of the most important parts of future digital literacy...code.

I will be the first to admit that I am far from a coding genius. But just because I'm not an expert, doesn't mean I can't help them find their way in such an important part of future jobs.

“If you close your eyes and think about the world 10 years from now, it will be completely different,” Vedati said.

We are preparing students for jobs that don't even exist yet, and many (most!) of those jobs will include some sort of coding ability.

 As stated earlier, this week is a nationwide Digital Citizenship Week, but in our room, it is all about code. Welcome to the Clarke TAG Week of Code!

First through fifth grades have been using age appropriate coding apps (Daisy the Dinosaur, Scratch Jr., Hopscotch) to learn more about what is behind those video games they play. Below is an example of one of our beginning lessons.

Graphic from IPAD 4 School

The students found out quickly that it takes several commands to make one little square. Wow! Imagine all the code behind an entire game...

If time allows, ask your fourth or fifth grader to show you their "house" or "square" in Hopscotch during conferences....but make sure to look at the code behind it too!

Straw Boat Challenge

What do you get when you combine ten straws, three inches of duct tape, and ten inches of plastic wrap? Why, a boat of course!

It isn't quite that simple, but that is what the fourth grade tried to accomplish this week. After some research on buoyancy and structure design, groups of 3-4 students tried to build a "boat" that would hold at least 25 pennies for the longest period of time.

This proved to be a much more difficult feat than the students originally imagined! We had several designs, but only one that ended up surviving the test period.

However, all of the students reflected on their learning, designs, and what they could change if we continued on the prototype path. This was a great STEM activity that we will revisit later in the year.

Group 1: Jenna, Jen, Rebecca, and Molly

Group 2: Spencer, Nate, RJ, Cal * This group came up with a design that maxed out the time at 2 minutes with 25 pennies. Way to go!

Group 3: Aiden, Dallas, Cooper

Dallas also gave it a shot on his own, but we didn't get a picture of his design.

The Happy Square: Tangrams

Check out this video by the first grade students! After learning more about tangrams, the students wrote, illustrated, and voiced stories about how the happy square (a 7 piece tangram puzzle) wanted to change into other things. I'm very proud of their work!

If you want to know more about the power of tangrams, check out this link from Parenting Science.


Thank you for the inspiration Mrs. Cotes! 

Geometry and Chair Designs

This post will touch on two grade levels: first and fourth.

The first of which, is 1st grade! First grade has had a big focus on geometry in the past week. We have used K'nex to make specific shapes, learned about new shapes (pentagon), and gained new vocabulary (congruent, edges, vertices). Tons of hands on learning has been happening. Students have also integrated reading into geometry with "Sid the Snake". Students read and then built the shapes that Sid described.

Over the last few weeks, I have also noticed that these students needed a bit more work on following steps, so we played the Read and Draw game. Read and Draw works on reading skills, shape skills, and step by step directions.

The next grade focus of the week is 4th grade! We engaged in our first design thinking project of the year for these students. The challenge was to design the idea chair for their partners.

We had some WILD ideas! Chairs were going to fly to space! Chairs were going to have rocket launchers! Chairs were going to have every electronic item in existence attached!

Wild ideas are the basis of design thinking. They are an amazing starting point! However, designers (the students) must then take those wild ideas and think, "Is idea cool AND build-able?" From this small question, discussions about supply, demand, adaptability,  profit, and what the consumer really wants sprung to life.  Students made some smart choices on how they might change those prototypes to be more consumer friendly, with price and function.

4th grade interviewing the "consumer" before prototype day

It may look like chaos, but this is how learning happens. Prototype day is the best! 

The fourth grade group is amazingly creative, and this project kept them thinking big. In our post-prototype discussion, students expressed that next time we tackle a design, they will keep the overall consumer in mind.

One students even said, "It isn't about doing exactly what your partner says they want (space launching chair), but more about figuring out what they really need and how you can build that." Talk about hitting the nail on the head!

Design thinking is...

• Human Centered - feedback from other users is fundamental to good design!
• Experimentation and Prototyping: prototyping is not a way to validate your ideas, but rather to think further and learn.