Prototyping has begun!Our students completed their proposals and were grouped accordingly. They shared their individual game designs with their new group, and then worked together to create a final design. The teams signed a group agreement (or contract), and then completed an engineering challenge to practice their agreement to listen to each other's ideas with respect, do their best work, share the workload, and ask for help when they need it. SCRUM SCRUM is a group management tool used in many tech firms - a rugby metaphor for putting our heads together to solve a problem or creating a product efficiently ("a scrum"). Over the last few years, we have worked on adapting this support system for the classroom. Students were able to think of the tasks they need to accomplish to build their prototypes, and then began using the Scrum board to organize their work - what task are they working on first, getting help when needed, and knowing what tasks still need to be completed.
Writing WorkshopImmersion into letter writing. What is a letter? What is its purpose? What makes a good letter? For our project we are starting pen pals to learn more about people in our community so we can adapt our games to fit their needs and desires. This week we collected good questions and created a structure for our pen pal letters: make a statement to tell information about you, and then ask a question to learn information about your pen pal. We will deliver our letters next Friday at our field work to Calavera Hills Elementary School, and mail another letter to a nearby school of more diverse needs. MathOur word problems continue... We are focusing on our discourse, which requires students to be able to communicate their thinking and share their strategies with others, as well as listen to other strategies and compare them to their own. Meanwhile, each classroom has begun introducing other interactive routines into their math workshop. In Mr. Manger's class, they have begun "the money game". Each table has a bank of $1 bills, $10 bills, and $100 bills, which they are responsible for keeping organized. The teacher calls out a series of transactions within a story format, for example, "Congratulations on setting up your banks, you each earn $10. Please add $10 to your wallet." Each student takes the correct amount of money out of the bank and places it into their wallets on the table. Their wallets are simply pieces of paper that they have separated into ones, tens and hundreds. "Fix your digits!" They need to continue to keep track of how much they have by writing the correct amount on their wallets. "You were sent to the store to buy milk. The milk costs $7," and on and on... The key concepts are number sense and place value. And eventually they will use 10-sided dice, and play in partners - they could become very wealthy (hundreds of dollars), and also they could go into debt (negative numbers). In Ms. Kegley's class, they have started the "counting jar" routine. Each student has their very own jar filled with like-colored tiles. Students are tasked with counting the tiles, double-checking their total, and making an equivalent set using place value blocks. It reinforces number sense, as well as the importance of accuracy and perseverance (sometimes students count their tiles 4+ times to get the accurate total). Finally, students must represent the number on paper using pictures, numbers or words, challenging them to show their thinking multiple ways.
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¿Quieres Jugar? This week we began our Design Thinking. We read The Gift as a class to Empathize with our customers. Who are we creating these games for? We learned that "the gift" is the people that fill our community. And we talked about who is in our community. Prototype: Students ended the week by completing a proposal. They had to choose an idea and then submit a proposal to the head engineers (a.k.a., the teachers). Students will be grouped based on the similarity of their ideas, and with regard to student desire to work individually, in pairs or in groups of 3 or 4. Writing WorkshopWe published and shared our personal narratives! We look forward to sharing them with you at our conferences in October. MathWe have continued our Cognitively Guided Instruction (CGI) in math two days per week, as well as more open-ended group activities on the other days. (See our previous post about CGI.) SportsmanshipThursday was International Peace Day. We launched another aspect of our project on sportsmanship to compliment other social emotional learning in the classroom (i.e., social detectives, conflict resolution, and size of problem). On International Peace Day we had fun acting out various scenarios to practice good sportsmanship. We continue this work throughout the project, and the year. The NEW Children's MuseumThank you drivers and chaperones for making this happen. Our field work to the New Children's Museum was an inspiring experience, and led us right into game design. Next week we will continue designing new games. Here is a story we are reading about a 6-year-old girl who designed a card game and worked with her family to publish Sleeping Queens. Pictures from our field work, and game design in the classroom: Inside Exploration (play)Following our field work experience at the New Children's Museum, time for children to play within an engaging environment is important, and something we are committed to providing. Our goal is to have two hour-long indoor play sessions across the grade, so students can move from room to room and play with different friends. In addition, classrooms have scheduled their own exploration times. We have created several areas within the classrooms for students to play. We have an office space, thanks to the various donations from several families, kitchen area, building areas (wooden unit blocks needed), arts and crafts, and a game design station. We will continue to refresh these areas with new materials, and create new areas as students' interests change. Family contributions are welcome. MathThis week we added another component to our math program, Cognitively Guided Instruction (CGI). CGI was used by second grade, as well as third and fourth grade teachers last year. It is a specific approach to teaching math that utilizes students' natural problem solving abilities. Teachers pose a story problem and give students time to grapple with solving the problem, and then facilitate a discourse around the problem solving strategies that students used. Students' work is documented, and we can review it throughout the year, including conferences.
This week began with our Family Game Breakfast. Thank you all for attending and bringing your joy for games, as well as, helping teach new games to our students. We continued to play games throughout the week and answer the question: What makes a game fun? Next week we are going to study the specific components of certain games, and research the history and geography of them. Here are some pictures of the family breakfast and our game research. In Math we are engaged in open-ended activities exploring many mathematical concepts, such as patterns, shapes, and sorting, as well as mathematical mindsets, such as learning from your mistakes, believing in yourself, taking your time, and persevering. Next week we will continue these activities, as well as begin CGI (Cognitive Guided Instruction), which focuses on problem solving and discourse. Here is an article that explains the research and philosophy behind our teaching: What is Mathematical Beauty? Reading and Writing are happening all over the classroom, as students read game directions, write their research findings, read independently during reading workshop, write their personal stories during writing workshop, read to each other, listen to class read alouds, and write during free writing times. This week students chose their story idea to publish, rehearsed (or planned), and drafted. Next week we will focus on revision strategies and publish our personal narratives. Caterpillars!
A successful first week! We met some new friends, including our new engineering teacher, Ms. Song. It was a hot week, literally up to 98 degrees outside on Friday. But we remained cool inside our air conditioned school building. Check out our work below for the week: Body Mapping Our first weeklong activity was creating body maps of ourselves. Students traced each other carefully, and then decorated themselves with loose parts. Next, they spent several days thinking of "Who am I?" and filling in their bodies with pictures. They will be on display Tuesday morning at our Family Game Breakfast. Reading We spent the first week establishing our reading workshop and independent reading time, while creating a culture of reading for fun. Our goal is for all students to develop a passion for reading. Writing We started our writing workshop as well. Students are writing true stories ("personal narratives") about a time that they played. We started by reading good stories and discussing what makes them good stories from a writer's perspective. Then we spent two days "collecting" our own story ideas. Here is an example of collecting. It was fun to get to know each other this week! Thank you. |
Upcoming DatesAll School Exhibition: Wednesday, June 6th (5:45pm- 6:30pm) Archives
June 2018
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