Monday, October 31, 2011
Friday, October 28, 2011
Thursday, October 27, 2011
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
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
Thursday, October 20, 2011
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!
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!
Friday, October 14, 2011
Thursday, October 13, 2011
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!
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.
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!
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.
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!
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
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 were also introduced to the Components of Creativity:
- Fluency
- Flexibility
- Originality
- Elaboration
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:
- submarine
- unicycle
- skateboard
- scooter
- a huge sling-shot
- a zebra
- 4 Wheeler
- piggy-back-ride
- 100 helium balloons
- a tree bent over to the ground to fling you through the air!
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!
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