Thursday, October 28, 2010

Weird and Wonderful

The title of this post, "Weird and Wonderful," does not refer to the students of Room 209, but to the article they read earlier this week.  The most recent National Geographic Explorer featured an article on animal adaptations that meshed beautifully with both our Life Science review and Classification of Organisms unit.

In addition to reading the article and visualizing the extraordinary animals highlighted, we watched two short videos provided by National Geographic.   The first is all about underwater survival techniques with an emphasis on mimicry.


The second shows a number of different ways that the Thorny Devil has adapted for success in its habitat.



I apologize for the advertisements at the start of each video clip.  (In the classroom, I cue the videos up to begin after the ads. )

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Math Decision Making

Today's math lesson was all about making choices.  Should we use mental math, paper and pencil, or a calculator to find the answer to an equation or problem?  

At first, students leaned heavily toward the far more "cool" method of using a calculator.  But then we counted off by threes and the race was on!  You can imagine the surprise when students were solving some equations more quickly using just their minds than their classmates aided by calculators!  That wasn't always the case, however, with some equations answered more quickly by those with paper and pencil or calculators.  

What we discovered:
  • When numbers are easy to multiply, such as compatible numbers or multiples of 10, use mental math.
  • When numbers are fairly small (1-digit by 2- or 3-digits), use paper and pencil.
  • When numbers are large and you want an exact answer quickly, use a calculator.


We then practiced deciding which method would be best for a variety of problem-solving situations, with students holding up cards to indicate their choice.  We also learned that not everyone would make the same choices and discussed how we each approach problem solving in our own unique way.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Social Studies Alive! America's Past

Over the summer, Mr. Lyons and I wrote a proposal to bring our new Social Studies program, Social Studies Alive! America's Past, to Pine Glen.  This is the 5th grade continuation of the Social Studies program students used in 4th grade.  There were many reasons the Grade 5 team advocated for and eventually were granted permission to conduct a pilot at Pine Glen, including a more accessible text, more interactive materials and kinesthetic activities.

There is an incredible amount of work that goes on "behind the scenes" to bring this curriculum to life.  Many hours were put in over the past few weeks to prepare for lessons, create materials, and set up the scenarios in which the students participate.

Hands fly up to answer questions during a game.
If I ever wonder if it is worth the long nights of copying, cutting, creating visuals and other prep work, I simply have to recall our experience in class this past Wednesday.  Students had scoured maps and texts to come up with questions to stump each other the previous week.  On Wednesday, they played a game to test their geography knowledge and skills.  It was amazing to watch as they adapted the game to overcome obstacles (they instituted a time limit for answering to prevent hands from going up prematurely), supported each other in finding answers, and poured over maps to find answers.

In the end, I realized that they had taken control of their own learning and the best thing I could do was to step back and let them go!  The prep work to set the stage paid off immensely and our students were on their way to becoming life-long learners.