Note Taking Walkabout (Grade 4/5)

This post courtesy of  Kent Percevault

Note Taking Walkabout (Three Levels of Government)

Students were raring to go on the note taking walkabout.  About 30 different little chunks of notes were taped up in the gym, halls, library and students had a scavenger hunt to find them and write them down in the category they believed they fit best (municipal, provincial, federal).  Engagement was high, students were discussing each piece of text they found, all students were on task.  Reluctant writers and/or at risk students got a lot written, it was clear that adding the physical movement with the social small group discussion aspect had the students much more enthused about what was essentially copying down notes.  Judy and I got some good video of the students at work during the activity.  Will be interesting to see tomorrow what understanding and retention the students have of the content.

Christmas Toy Project (Math 9) Part II

This 2011 “Maggie + Math Toy Project” was a great success on many levels! I am thankful for the support of others who stepped up to help my students complete the project.  Special thanks go to Mr. Brodt and the Senior Woodworking students, Mr. Gibson for donating the paint and brushes from the art department, Mr. Becker for being supportive and Mrs. Searcy for her positive encouragement and enthusiasm throughout the process and for helping to film and then doing all of the editing. As I reflect on the entire process wherein students achieved the prescribed learning outcomes for this unit while doing something commendable for others and the traditional classroom extended into the community, I cannot help but smile!  We proudly presented the toys, candy canes and food hamper to the Women’s Shelter on December 15, 2011.  It has been one of those memorable times as a teacher!  Congratulations students – well done!

(For a detailed explanation of the project see the "Part I" post below)

Courtesy of Melissa Berrisford

Christmas Toy Project (Math 9) Part I

Special Christmas Project (This post is from Melissa Berrisford)

Goal of Project:

• To teach a mathematical concept through the design and construction of unique wooden toys to be given to families with young children for Christmas.
• To make a real-life connection for the math students; learn surface area while doing something nice for someone else.

Who is involved?

• It is a collaborative project that involves Mrs. Berrisford’s Math 9 students and some of Mr. Brodt’s senior Woodworking students.

Background information about the project:

• I came up with the idea while I was planning the chapter one math unit. My initial goal was to incorporate an interesting, meaningful project tying in the concept of surface area. I used a mind map to explore possible project ideas. Then it came to me - the timing was perfect to tie in Christmas – my favourite holiday! Yippee. The project evolved from there…

The “math” involved (brief description):

• Students used grid paper to design and label measurements (either to scale or using a scale factor). We also discussed imperial versus metric system.
• Once the toys were made, the math students measured the actual dimensions using rulers and/or calipers.
• The students then calculated the surface area of the composite figure (the toy). They also determined the cost of painting the toys.

Our class will also be adding dry food items and goodies to the Christmas baskets! I am excited for the completion of this special Christmas math project!

Assessment with Manipulatives (Math 9)

Recently I gave my Math 9 students an option to use linking cubes to help them write a surface area quiz.  Immediately some students knew they would want to use the manipulatives and collected the cubes prior to the start of the test while others waited to preview the quiz first. In the end, all of the students used the cubes to help them complete the quiz. Interesting that when given the choice, the students utilized the manipulatives! 

Socials 11: Spy vs. Spy

This post is courtesy of Russ Reid.

During our August Pro-D I worked with Dave S. and Lesley L. brainstorming ways to improve understanding of the cold war for our grade 11 students. We all felt this was a challenging era to explain and understand. It was thought through competition (which in a nut shell was the cold war) a better understanding could occur.

This was my first time running the competition and I was nervous wondering if the kids would buy into it. Well I failed to remember how competitive teenagers are. I first divided the students into two groups - Soviets and Americans. Next time I would like to create a few sattelite states. We have had a few competitions along the way. The one they bought into hook line and sinker was the Spy vs Spy.

I asked two adults on staff to act as double agents. Each of them came up with a password. This password would then be used by the students to discover who their agent was. Once they found their agent, the agent would give them a document (a blueprint of a secret tank being built by the other nation). The students went around the school (on their own time) saying their password to adults (the two passwords were "The earth is blue" and "I love cuddling with Nellie"). One of my agents decided to bake a cake and hide the blueprints between the two layers. The video is of them discovering the document.

We also had a space race (building paper airplanes), trivia competition about the cold war, rock/paper/scissors competition. Next week they are going to watch a clip of a Russian Ballet troupe. They will be given time to practice and will have to perform in front of judges - Three Americans and Three Soviets. All the judges will be corrupt and will give Zeros or Tens depending on which nation is performing. I will also have a group boycott the event.

The hope is to give them a fun, practical way to understand the war. The students are also receiving notes, video and textbook questions to reaffirm their understanding.

Show What You Know-Test (Science 8)

This post is courtesy of Middle School Teacher Lindsay Guza: Today I decided to give my class a very non-traditional test. I gave the student the hand-out below and a large piece of blank, white paper.

Energy Flows and matter cycles in ecosystems

Chapter 2- QUEST

INSTRUCTIONS

On blank paper, please show me that you understand the concepts and ideas covered in this Chapter. You may write notes, a paragraph, drawings and/or diagrams.

BE sure to include labels and vocabulary from Chapter 2.

Concepts:

1. How energy gets into the living parts of an ecosystem.

a. Photosynthesis

2. How Energy gets transferred in an ecosystem.

a. Food Chains

b. Food Webs

c. Ecological Pyramids

3. How Water cycles through the non-living parts of an ecosystem.

a. The water cycle

THANK YOU AND GOOD LUCK!

I was not in the class, as I was doing my planning, but it worked out even better than I had imagined. Here are some examples.

Student #1 often gets assistance from an adult to write tests and do work.  Today he did this test independently! 
Food Chain:


Water Cycle with ALL of the vocabulary:


Photosynthesis with ALL of the vocabulary:


Student #2:  During the last Science test, this student did not answer half the questions even though she knew many of the answers.  Today, she completed this test with no extra help or encouragement. 


Food Chain:





Student #3 always excels at tests and written work. She was able to demonstrate her learning in a new way. She was also given the opportunity to show more than she would have been able to on a traditional test.

Choice Power: Grade 4

This post is courtesy of Kent Percevault.

Our class is currently doing a read aloud novel together. After hearing the chapter(s) each day we do a reading response. I have taught several different methods for the response. The main responding method practiced is to first retell what we heard to a partner, then after practicing verbally, write about it using the "first, then, finally" frame. The frame is basically three sentences where students attempt to pick out the most important parts of the story in the order of what they heard and then write about it in their own words. Additions to this have been a 3 panel comic with captions, again using the "first, then finally" frame concept and things like diary writing as a character in the story. Even though the kids are really enjoying the story the reading response is not all that well liked for several and can be difficult for some to complete. Now that they all know how to do the different kinds of responding I let them choose in what way they'd like to complete their response and suddenly engagement went up, complaining went down and their work improved. Me thinks there is something to this choice stuff!

Math 8: Sticky Note Success

This post is courtesy of Middle School teacher Pam Rutten.

Monday morning always seems to be a struggle for my students to get motivated, especially in math. So I am really focusing on Monday mornings and how I can get them engaged right off the bat. This Monday I tried a little activity with Sticky Notes. We are working with fractions, decimals and percents. I wanted them to be able to convert a fraction into a decimal, or a decimal into a fraction, etc. and understand what the values actually meant. I split the class into 6 groups of 4 and gave each group sticky notes. I then wrote 14 different values in the board (.0067, 75%, 3/5, etc) and had them write one value on one sticky note. I then gave each group a section of blackboard and their task was to place their values in ascending order on the board. I made it a competition to see who could complete the task first. Those were the only instructions I gave them. In order for them to do this, they first had to recognize that it would be easiest to convert them all to the same type (either all fractions, all decimals, or all percents), and then order. So it was very interesting to watch. All the students were very engaged and discussing with their group about how to go about the task. A few of the groups converted all to percent and a few converted all to decimals and then ordered them. Once they thought they had it correct they would call me over and I would simply say "error" if there was one and they would all go crazy and try again. Once they had all figured it out I had each group pick a representative to share the approach their group took to solve the problem. Then to top it off, no group had converted to fractions, so I had another race to see which group could now convert all the values to fractions first. Overall, I would say it was very successful, and the students had a much clearer understanding than they did at the beginning of the class.