Bringing on the Heat, with Hallie Heat!

So for me, blogging and preparing for the holidays are not tremendously compatible. It has been hard to keep up with out blog the past two weeks. Hopefully things will settle down after break.

This past week, the students finished their snowman cards and wrote the final draft of their winter poems. They made a second copy of their poem for you. I will send them home right before winter break. Today, each student made a micro-podcast of their poem that you will find in the previous post. They did a great job on their poems and their first audio presentation!

While each student recorded their audio files, the other students were continuing their individual work in the TOPS Math program.

At recess today, I introduced the students to the game, Blokus.  It is a strategy board game that challenges spatial thinking and it a lot of fun for all ages.   If your family likes board games, it is a great one!

In the afternoon, the students were introduced to our newest Quirkle, Hallie Heat.  In our experiment, we learned the warmer water (and air) rise, while colder water (and air) sink.  Your child has their experiment log to share their hypothesis, observations and results with you.



All of our cards were mailed out last week. We ended up making and mailing 62 cards. Thank you so much for your donations of stamps to assist us with the postage costs. We have received 47 cards so far. 

Today, we opened some of the cards we have received from other schools including ones in North Carolina, Texas, Wisconsin and Virginia.  We used a map of North America to locate the states and their relative direction and distance from Kansas City.   

We discussed the grade levels, number of students in each class and the average high temperature for December 15th in each town/city.   A couple of weeks ago, in the computer lab, the students were introduced to Google Earth and the features that allow us to zoom into a map to the point of virtually standing in front of the schools.  They were very observant and noted differences and similarities in each town/cities geographical location, proximity to the ocean, lakes or rivers, rural and urban areas, the physical size of the schools and even surrounding plant life.  As we were discussing the average high temperatures today, by looking at the map of North America, the students realized the colder temperatures were to the north while the southern locations were warmer.  

There is no SAGE class next week, December 21st as it is a half day.  I will look forward to seeing them all again on our next SAGE day, January 9th.  That is also our first day of Spanish.  Each week, Senora Gates will teach a 30 minute Spanish lesson.  I know they will be excited to start our Spanish language lessons.

I hope your child and your family enjoy our winter holiday break! 

Our WInter Poems

Looks Can Be Deceiving! :-)

The students worked really hard today!  This morning, we met our newest Quirkle, Gilbert Gas.

We explored carbon dioxide is both gas and solid forms.  The students wrote their hypothesis and recorded their observations as we added salt to a bottle of soda pop with a balloon covering the top of the bottle.  Ask your child to show you their science log sheet to find out their conclusion.

 Next, we explored carbon dioxide in solid form, dry ice.  There are few things that are quite as exciting as dry ice....

except maybe, dry ice and dish soap...

Bubbles and strange, cold gas.... does it get any better than this?

Next, we worked on our math problem solving skills in the TOPS Math and Math Rules programs.  

This afternoon, we finished our snowman cards by writing the final draft of our winter poems.  The students made a second copy of their poem for you.  I will send them home right before winter break.

Next we opened some of the cards we have received from other schools including ones in Pennsylvania, Michigan, West Virginia, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Kansas, Arizona, Florida and Ontario, Canada.  We used a USA atlas and located the states on the map of North America.  Many more will arrive in the days ahead.

We had a busy day!  I think this looks a bit more like my hard working, E day students!

Wishing You Wet, Wonderful Snowman Snow!

Experimenting with Friction

This week, the students were introduced to our newest Quirkle scientist, Friction Fred.  In our lesson, the students learned about friction and how this resistance helps us to keep our footing on slick ground.  The students also conducted an experiment with friction.  After recording their hypothesis, they cleaned the tip of their nose with a paper towel, breathed on the bowl of a spoon, rubbed the spoon on their nose and let go of it.  Check out your child's science log sheet to read their observations and conclusion.

Next, they began writing the rough draft of their winter poem that will be included in their snowman cards.  A second copy will also be made for them to bring home.  The students were given a choice of the style of the poem they wrote- acrostic, cinquain or free verse.   Next week, they will write the final draft of their winter poem and finish up their card.  We need to mail them by December 9th.  So far, we have received five cards from other schools.  We will display them on the bulletin board in our classroom and plot the locations on our map.  You are welcome to stop by and see the cards.

The students also worked at their Exploratory centers.   The newer students selected their first center, filled out their contract and started the Knowledge level task.  The rest of the students continued their individualized tasks.  Ask your child about their center choice and/or current task.

Our Hair Raising Experiments!

It is getting colder each week.  Please remind your child to bring appropriate outerwear as we will be out for recess as often as possible.  As chance would have it, Briarcliff has not only a great view of the river and city, but also gets every gale force wind that sweeps through the area. LOL! 

We started our day by meeting our newest Quirkle, Ellie Electricity.

In this week's experiment, the students explored static electricity and learned when objects have the same charge, the repel each other and when they have an opposite charge, they attract each other.  Ask your child about their observations during our experiment.

 We also discussed other forms of energy and spent some time looking at how magnet poles react to one another.

Next, we discussed our Global Snowman Card Exchange.  I show the students the map from the previous blog post and told them about the cards we will be designing.  Next we learned to use this map and Google Earth to explore the locations of the schools.  In the lab, the students learned to "fly in" and in many cases, were able to see the front of the school building and the houses in and around the area of the school.  The students noticed that some schools are smaller than others, some are in rural areas or very small towns, while others are in the center of metropolitan areas.  Some schools are along the coast, near the ocean or great lakes and some are in desert areas with palm trees.  It will be even more interesting when we have made a personal connection with a class.

In the afternoon, the students worked on their mathematical problem solving skills in the TOPS Math or Math Rules Programs.  We also spent some time working at our individual Exploratory areas.  This was the first week of Exploratory for several newer students.  Ask your child about their center choice and the specific task on which they are currently working.

We ended our day by beginning to create the individual snowman cards that we will send on December 9th to our exchange partners.  I know we will have some exciting conversations and learning that come about from this project.  I have encouraged the students to explore the maps at home as our lab time is very short.

Have a wonderful weekend!

A Little Outrage Can Be an Interesting Motivator!

I'm sorry this was so slow in coming to you!  I've been living the "mom of a teenager the week before the high school play."  I think I did better when they were little, but we are having fun!


We started our day by working on our math problem solving skills.  The students completed their first full page "Squiggle" as a part of our creative problem solving.  As they combine the squiggle marks to create a single, cohesive picture, they learn the necessity of taking their time, being flexible in their thinking and to be elaborative in their projects.

Next the students were introduced to Density Dan, our new Quirkle.  We learned that another way to say something is "dense" is to say that it is "heavy."

We made a simple hydrometer with a straw and a ball of clay.  The students predicted which liquid they believed to be heaviest; salt water or fresh water and then we tested to find out.  Ask you child to tell you about their observations and conclusion.

Our day ended with more than a little outrage.  I asked Mrs. Webb to hang the students' "Squiggle" designs up on the bulletin board along with a name tag at the base of their illustration-- but I asked her to mix up the names and papers and to be sure none of the names matched with he appropriate student work.  It took a little while or them to notice, but when they did, they let me know- in no uncertain terms, that a grave error had been made and they didn't like having someone else's name on their own work.

After leading the conversation in a few circles, I pointed out that I believe this must be how authors, illustrators and photographers feel when someone takes their ideas, designs or photographs and uses them in their projects without giving them proper credit by citing sources.  "Plagiarism" is an academic vocabulary word for our second grade SAGE students. I think the students gained an understanding of the importance of crediting our sources.

Have a good week!

2011 Global Snowman Card Exchange

I am very excited to share information with you on our newest project.  All five rotations of students are going to work together to participate in a global card exchange between 59 classes from across the United States and Canada.   Over 750 classrooms have registered and been organized in groups of 30 for this project.  This collaboration was organized by a teacher in California named Jennifer Wagner.  She has successfully encouraged teachers since 1999 to use online projects in their Pre K-6 classrooms.  This is the first time I have participated in one of her projects and I am very excited about having an opportunity to connect our students to others from across our country and around the world.  

Through this real world platform, we will be working on our research, problems solving, writing and technology skills.  We are responsible for making one, snowman themed, card for each of the fifty-eight other classrooms.  Below is a Google Map I made in Batch Geo to show the locations of all of our partners.

View 2011 Global Snowman Holiday Card Exchange in a full screen map

Our 2nd grade SAGE students are learning to use a traditional USA and World Atlas and coordinates on a grid this week so the skills tied nicely to this new adventure.  We will be working with Google Maps and Google Earth to learn more about the locations of each school. 

Both K/1st and 2nd grade SAGE students will be introduced to using a Thesaurus in the next week or so.  We will use the synonyms we find to help us write winter swirl poems  for the cards.  The cards we create must be mailed by December 9th.  Once we receive all of the cards from the other schools, we will be graphing some of the information we learn about the other students, schools and locations.  I am hoping we can Skype with one or two of our partners so the students have a chance to connect face-to-face.  We will have to see! 

"Building" Our Confidence

Building on Our Creativity- Literally!

We started our day by working on our mathematical problem solving skills with our individualized programming in Math Rules.   

Next, we completed our first "hands-on" problem solving challenge. Using only one pair scissors, a one inch cube of clay, an 8.5x11 inch sheet of paper, four small drinking straws, two folder labels and six popsicle sticks the students had to create the tallest, free standing structure possible. The base of the structure also had to fit within a five inch square.  To be successful, students must be fluent, flexible thinkers. They need a steady stream of ideas and they must be able to adapt and change direction or strategy as new problems arise. We started with five minutes to brainstorming designs on their planning form and they then were given twelve minutes to actually construct their tower.

It is fun to see the room go completely silent as each student's brain is fully engaged in the task. The students used a variety of designs for their towers and most were successful. Our tallest tower, for this first attempt, was 38 cm!  (In most cases, students nearly double the height of their structure when given a second chance to accomplish this problem on another day.

This task may be based on creativity, science and engineering, but the most valuable lessons for elementary children are affective.  Hands-on problem solving tasks develop the skills needed to solve real world problems and provide the students an opportunity to experience challenge, frustration and even failure in a "simulation" type of environment.  The pressure feels real, the students are highly motivated, a successful outcome is desired, but a failed solution comes with no real penalty. 

In this teachable moment, we can discuss how individuals positively and negatively handle frustration, stress and challenge, why some students quit and others persevere and the feelings their classmates that struggle academically might have on a regular basis. For some students, it is the "Ah Ha!" moment that enables them to empathize with their peers and avoid hurtful bragging.  Having said that, it takes a great deal of maturity and wisdom for an individual to celebrate their academic success in a way that does not make someone else feel less and so, the conversation continues...

They ended the task by evaluating their designs, construction and finished structure on their hands-on planning form.  Have your child share their planning sheet with you and let them discuss what they learned from it all.

Growing up in a culture where athletic, theatrical, musical and artistic "winners" are hailed with attention, applause, trophies and recognition it is only natural that students with academic gifts will initially seek that same response when they achieve a level of success. Although I find it to be hypocritical that is how the world is. I think it is our job as parents, teachers and advocates for bright children to guide them, model an appropriate level of humility and provide them opportunities to celebrate their success and receive genuine praise.

Next, the students met our newest Quirkle, Colorful Caroline.  We learned about primary and secondary colors and had a lot of fun with an experiment where the students

discovered black marker ink is made from a combination of several different colored inks.  Have your child tell you about their hypothesis and observations.  I also sent the materials with the students to conduct and share the experiment with you too!

Have a great weekend!

See Our Possibilities

Botanist Bert's Baffling Blossoms

Botanist Bert Loves Blossoms!

Dear Boys and Girls,
Today we learned about Botanist Bert and his plants.  Can you tell me something you learned about plants and flowers or something you learned from our experiment?
Mrs. Koch

Andy Acid Arrives!

The students continued their individual work in the TOPS Math and Math Rules programs. They got really hung up on a problem that involved money.  We spent quite a bit of time discussing coin values and equal exchanges.  I know first graders have had very little math instruction on money, however they usually have some background experience that helps them to pick up related concepts quickly.  After my lengthy, yet fabulous lesson, which included concrete manipulatives, modeling, practice and instructional support, (yes, those are most of the key teacher terms that are supposed to convince you that I know what I am doing) I was asking the students which denomination of coin or bill was greater and one of your darling children said, "a dime and a ten dollar bill are equal (in value.)"  Ugh!  Obviously my lesson wasn't so fabulous!  (LOL) We will continue to look for opportunities to practice working with money.  I want to encourage you to please do the same.  --Nothing huge or stressful, I just want them to begin to learn the value of coins and combinations with an equal value (two nickels=a dime, ten dimes=one dollar etc.)

Next, we completed a creative thinking exercise to work on our flexible thinking, originality and elaboration skills. The students were each given a paper with a partial design repeated four times. (The design is below.) Each repeat of the design was rotated a quarter turn to create a different perspective and new picture possibilities.  They had to use the existing design components and integrate them into their new picture.  Each design had to be used to make a very different picture. I challenged them to see if they could come up with something no one else in their class created and to be as elaborative as possible.  These drawing exercises strengthen the skills (fluency, flexibility, originality and elaboration) that will help the children in their problem solving.

This afternoon, we met our second "Quirkle" of the year - Andy Acid!

The Quirkle's series, written by Missouri authors, is a science exploration and phonetic program. When we have Quirkle time, we will first read a story featuring one of the 26 (each letter of the alphabet) Quirkle characters and follow up with a hands-on experiment or demonstration. Each book is full of words that begin with the letter sound of the character, has rich vocabulary words, and focuses on a science topic that we may or may not be familiar with. Some of the concepts are pretty complex, but exposure to the topic is our goal! Today, Andy Acid helped us learn about acids and bases and we found out what happens when we eat too much acidic food. We made a magic formula to test for acids and bases. Ask your child to tell you about our demonstration and show you their Andy Acid science log.

Have a great week!

The Quirkles: Inquisitive Inman

The Quirkles: Inquisitive Inman - slideshow maker

Creative Thinkers and Fledgling BLoggers

The boys and girls got off to a great start this morning!  We began our day with a discussion on our class Blogging Guidelines.  These can be found in a new tab on our main page.  Please take a moment to familiarize yourself with them.  


We also learned how to post a comment on our blog.  First, we watched a video by Mrs. Yollis' 3rd grade students from Los Angeles, California:  How to Compose a Quality Comment, http://vimeo.com/15695021.  We discussed the tips they shared for quality commenting and then the students wrote a rough draft of their own comment and posted it on our Rotation D blog.  They did a wonderful job!  If you have a moment, check out their thoughts.


I explained that our blog is an academic blog and should not be used as a social network.  I want to avoid students spending large amounts of time just socializing here.  I want them to post comments on their learning and "Ah Ha!" moments.  The source of their learning and revelations can be from within or outside of school.  Ideally, I would like to see students post a comment from home once or twice a week.  In the beginning, their comments may not be very sophisticated.  With instruction, practice and encouragement, your child will gain a desire to share their ideas and opinions with others and the skills to do it through our blog.  Blogging provides a real world platform for students to improve not only their reading and writing skills, but also the technology skills 21st Century Learners will need.  


Please encourage your child to share their enthusiasm and experiences from rich learning moments.  At this age, they will need your support and assistance with proof reading their comments prior to clicking that "publish" button.  In the next week or so, I will try to get a screen cast tutorial made on how to post a comment to our blog for those parents and grandparents that would like directions.  By all means, please encourage your child's grandparents, aunts, uncles and other interested adults to post comments about your child's projects and learning on our blog too!   I am looking forward to hearing from you all!

For about three weeks, we struggled with problems between Internet Explorer and Blogger.  From my research, Safari and FireFox seem to be a good match to Blogger, but IE has had problems working with it.  Many of you may have tried to post a comment earlier in the year only to have it erased, without your post going through.  Thanks to our IT department, I think we have finally found a "fix."  Please let me know if you are ever having difficulties with the blog.  A lot of this is new for me too, so in some cases, the kids and I are learning together.  (I hope you don't mind being dragged along with us!)  If you have a working knowledge of blogs and have any suggestions or ideas, please pass them along to me!

The students continued their individual work in Exploratory today.  Ask your child about their current task.  I think everyone is now past the Knowledge and Comprehension level tasks.  Now they can choose any other task from this same center to complete.  I will continue to encourage them to take their time for their personal best effort.  

In the afternoon, they learned the rules for brainstorming. 

• Accept the unusual
• Never critcize or compliment
• Piggyback when possible
• Never stop too soon.

They individually brainstormed "things you might find in a pocket."  We judged their ideas for their fluency and their originality.  Have your child tell you more about their list.  They are a very creative class!


We ended our day with a Quirkles Science lesson on Inquisitive Inman.  We learned the vocabulary words: inquisitive, intelligent, investigator, immediately, indigo and infer.  Later this evening, I hope to post a slide show of pictures from our Quirkles experiment.  Check back and take a peek!
 Have a great week!

Starting Our Exploratory Centers

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Exploring Tagxedo.....

As a part of our affective investigation to learn more about ourselves and our classmates, we spent some time this morning reflecting on our interests, influences and personality traits.  We used our classroom computers to create an electronic word cloud that tells others about us.  These will also be on display at our Open House tomorrow evening, Thursday, October 6th.  Although the students are anxious to share their work with you, you will have to wait until Open House.  To give you an idea of what a word cloud is, and to give you some more information about me, my personal word cloud is below.  I'm sure you will enjoy what your child created! 

The students continued their individual work in Math Rules, TOPS Math and Exploratory. Ask your child about their current task and progress. 

The students were also introduced to the Components of Creativity:

• Fluency
• Flexibility
• Originality
• Elaboration

Some questions have only one answer:  Who was our 16th President of the the United States?

Some questions have many answers:  What are all of the ways you might have come to school today?

When I asked our students this second question, they came up with car, bus, walking and then jumped into more creative, unusual, and original ideas.  Zacarias said, "I came to school happy today."  I loved the unique angle from which he approached the question.   This set the foundation for divergent thinking!  Maddison thought of coming in a tractor.  Emily thought of a piggy-back-ride. Jaeda suggested a go-cart and Jaynah thought of a limo.  (What a quick thinking, clever group!)  A portion of the rest of their list included:

1. submarine
2. unicycle
3. skateboard
4. scooter
5. a huge sling-shot
6. a zebra
7. 4 Wheeler
8. piggy-back-ride
9. 100 helium balloons
10. a tree bent over to the ground to fling you through the air!

...and about 20 more!  Wow! A pretty creative list for 1st graders.  Especially considering this was our first brainstorming exercise of the year!  Ask your child to brainstorm more ideas for you.

I hope to see you all at our Open House tomorrow evening!  Also, be sure you have gone to our Google Doc to sign up for a parent conference.  If you need the link, please email me and I will resend it.

Have a wonderful week!

Our Busy E Day!

The students got quite a bit work work done today!

We started our day working in the Math Rules problem solving program.  We are focusing on finding the important information in the word problem and in the illustration.  We also discussed the key words that tell us if we need to add or subtract and ways we can show our thinking.

Next, using Microsoft Word as our tool, the students worked to type their paragraph.  Along the way, we learned to use the "tab" key to indent, the space bar to space appropriately between words and after punctuation, right-click to correct spelling errors and to save and print our documents.  (One student, that shall remain unnamed- LOL, got tired of typing, "basketball player" so I showed him how to copy and paste.) When they completed typing their paragraph, they we able to format their font for style.  Their paragraphs look great!



After recess and lunch, the students began working in their Exploratory area.  The students were able to complete the Knowledge and and at least some of the Comprehension level task.  They are now able to select any of the remaining tasks to complete.  Ask your child to tell you about their center work and a fact or two they learned about their topic. 

Next the students were introduced to our procedures for using the TOPS Math Problems Solving Program and began their individualized work.   We ended our day working on an open-ended critical thinking exercise that focused on flexible thinking.  It takes time and practice but everyone can improve their divergent to thinking abilities.

One area in which almost all of my students need to work is "doing their very best!"  It takes time to adjust to the expectations in our class.  Many of the students tend to rush through their work.  This results in careless mistakes, less elaboration, messier work and a general reduction in the quality of their projects/assignments.  Please remind your child I am looking for their personal best effort, especially on final draft projects, Exploratory tasks and problem solving exercises.  With patience and attention to detail they will be surprised by the quality of work with which they can achieve.