2nd Grade Adapts Classrooms to Leprechauns

The 2nd graders worked on the “Adapt” portion of S.C.A.M.P.E.R., a creative thinking tool which helps people to generate new ideas.  For this activity, they had to Adapt a classroom for leprechauns.  They thought about not only the physical differences, but the curriculum changes.  For example, leprechauns might have to learn how to talk to humans, how to survive without getting stepped on, or how gold changes its value (I think I would like to know that one as well!)

The students also worked on limericks, but we are still refining them.  In addition, they did some more “Balance Benders,” which are really challenging all of us!

1st Grade Creates Substitutes for Pot of Gold

With field trips, assemblies, and early dismissal schedules, first grade missed a little GT time during the last couple of weeks.  We got back on schedule Friday.  To practice their divergent thinking, the students used the “Substitute” part of the S.C.A.M.P.E.R. tool to imagine what else they might like to find at the end of a rainbow besides a pot of gold.  You can see some of their responses below.

2nd Grade Makes Scarecrows

The 2nd graders practiced the Substitute part of S.C.A.M.P.E.R. by substituting building pieces for the straw in a scarecrow.  You can see some of their inventions in the short video below.

The students also learned more about tarantulas by using the PebbleGo resource from the library, and filling in a Depth and Complexity research sheet.  After a little more practice, they will soon be ready to research their own choice of animals.

Of course, after introducing the Zoombinis app to the whole class two weeks ago, the students were eager to try it on their own.  There is a lot of problem solving, patience, and observation required for this game – but it’s fun!

1st Grade Makes Riddles About Their Countries

The 1st graders used Haiku Deck to create short riddles about their countries.  On Friday, we showed the riddles and the students put their location guesses on our floor map.  The student who guessed the closest got to program Dash to “travel” to that country. You can see their riddles embedded below.

The students also used some creative thinking to draw what they would like to find at the end of the rainbow.  I included some of their drawings with the photos for this week.


Riddle 1 – Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires


Riddle 2 – Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires


Riddle 3 – Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires


Riddle 4 – Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires


Riddle 5 – Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires


Riddle 6 – Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires


Riddle 7 – Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires

3rd Grade Imagines Themselves as Leprechauns

Thanks to Cristian, our 3rd grade blogger, and Alexa, our photographer, for this week’s post!

Today in class we finished Billibonk. and it taught us not to solve the problem first thing. We also did some research on our project, recycling. We went to all these different websites on recycling. Also, we had indoor recess, so we played on an iPad game called Osmo. We even minimized ourselves to leprechauns and shared with class what we would do if we were leprechauns. Last of all, we did another Hands- On- Equation worksheet.

2nd Grade Does Research for Great Bridge Challenge

We reviewed the materials and forces that can effect the strength of a structure, which the students researched last week.  Today, they were presented with a challenge – to create a bridge using nothing but 20 straws and some masking tape.  The bridge needs to span 25 centimeters between and we will see whose bridge will hold the most pennies.  The students had to research what type of bridge they plan to build and sketch it today.  They will make their attempts next week.  Two groups decided that arch bridges would be the best.  One group is going to do a suspension bridge, and one is doing a beam bridge.  The students also watched a video from Kid President about being inventive – and being prepared to fail sometimes.

After planning out the bridges and doing some bridge “challenges” on the interactive board, the students did centers.  They are now keeping track of their centers using the iPads and Google Spreadsheets.  They can choose their centers, but cannot repeat a center.  No more than 3 students can be at a center.  There was some great synergy going on at the Chocolate Fix and Math Logic centers!  And I posted a few pictures below of some Valentine S.C.A.M.P.E.R. projects where the students had to “Put it to Another Use” with a heart shape.

2nd Grade Uses Thinking Hats to Choose Our Next Visitor

Scully, the ball python, will be leaving us this Wednesday. The students lucked out today because they got to see him in the process of shedding. His cage was an extreme mess when I arrived this morning, and there are pieces of skin all over the floor, as well as several still peeling off his body. Definitely a learning experience!

I decided that the 2nd graders would choose our next 2 week visitor. I gave them the options of live animals that we can borrow from Region 20. Each pair of students had a different animal to research. They used their Thinking Hats to: Find information, think about the positives and negatives, find what was interesting, and write their feelings about that animal. Then they presented their results to the rest of the class. The choices were: Hissing Cockroach, Green Tree Frog, Green Anole, Land Turtle, Water Turtle.

It was close, but the Green Anole was the winner once all presentations were made and the class voted. So, that will be our next visitor!

We also worked on some creative thinking by doing a S.C.A.M.P.E.R. activity. We used “C” for “Combine”, and the students combined hay wagons with whatever they imagined. I put a couple of examples in the photo gallery. One shows a hay wagon with wings, and another shows a wagon being carried into the air by an H.E.B. plane!

Lastly, we worked on some math problem solving by playing a game called, “Where is the X Tile?” The students used clues to figure out “x”.

5th Grade Starts Planning Genius Hour Missions

5th grade continued to read The Giver today, and to discuss the effect that too much safety might have on freedom.  They were definitely all in agreement that the fictional community in the story has far too many rules!

They also came up with some great plans for their first Genius Hour projects.  I am hoping that they will take a look at Edmodo after this Friday to play in the “Digital Sandbox” that I plan to post.  This will help them to come up with another way to present their projects, rather than just using Powerpoint.

We had a bit of a technology glitch when we were about to work on Hands-On-Equations and Coding.  So, the back-up plan was to do a S.C.A.M.P.E.R. activity.  Along with pictures of students presenting their drawings, I have posted a couple of examples from students who really included a lot of detail on their “Put to Another Use” pages.  One student decided that a hay wagon could be used to help a hero turtle save a duck from being roasted.  The other one drew a hay wagon turned into a space simulator for animals.  Such imagination!

 

2nd Graders Work on Substitutions and Suspensions

In this case, by “substitution”, I mean one of our creative thinking tools from S.C.A.M.P.E.R., with which you can invent something new by substituting something for one of its parts.  And the “suspensions” we were working on were suspension bridges.

The students got into the spirit of the upcoming holiday, St. Patrick’s Day, by imagining what might be fun to find at the end of the rainbow instead of a pot of gold.  They also practiced “combine”, the second part of S.C.A.M.P.E.R., by designing a clock combined with a shamrock.

To complete the K’Nex portion of our Bridges study, the students were able to choose whether to create an Arch Bridge or a Suspension Bridge.  We got some help from one of Hidden Forest’s WatchD.O.G.S., Mr. Castleberry.