One of my goals for students this year in my math classes is for them to become
more aware of their own learning. Recently, I added an element to our classroom that will hopefully help foster that reflection. On days where we are learning brand-new content, I ask that before students leave my room, they reflect on their understanding of our learning target for the day. On sticky notes, the students have to complete one of three sentences: Today I learned... or Today a question I had was... or Today my learning stopped because... You can see the stoplights that I have posted on the wall in the picture. Their exit ticket out the door is placing their sticky note on the appropriate stoplight (with names on the back to make sure that everyone feels comfortable being honest.) We have talked about this serving two purposes: 1. It requires them to look back at the learning target and assess their own learning and understanding. 2. It allows me to see who needs more time and/or more instruction from me to insure they grasp the concept. It is my hope that through this process during the year, students will take ownership of their learning and become focused on putting forth their best effort everyday.
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Last week, 5th graders had the chance to present their character studies related to The Westing Game. This story is a classic Newberry Award winning book that is written in classic mystery format. Each of the 5th graders had to delve into the mind of one of the murder suspects and create an alibi for why it simply could not have been them. They also had to create a "trading card" for their character - picture on the front and vital statistics on the back. You can see the results of their hard work in the pictures above.
Last Thursday, Reggie Kellum from Mathnasium came to present a trophy and a check to Werner Elementary for our students' hard work at this year's TriMathalon in October. Werner placed 2nd overall in participation (based on the number of kids who competed,) and we had 9 kids place 1st, 2nd, or 3rd in their age and competition bracket. AMAZING! The check was for $244.19 and the presentation of the trophy was recorded for the Friday morning announcements. A HUGE thank you is due to our Werner parents for their support of this event and making sure students were prepared and able to attend. It isn't everyone who wants to give up a Saturday afternoon to go do math! But here are the Werner students who happily did just that! Eric Kramer - 1st grade Sophie Wang - 2nd grade Drew Loy - 3rd grade Dylan Heinrich - 3rd grade Sierra Warnygora - 3rd grade Nathan Stansbury - 4th grade Espen Marston - 5th grade Luke Elliott - 5th grade Yeeshow Wang - 5th grade Price Schaeffer - 5th grade Tim Skolds - 5th grade Ethan Loy - 5th grade Ethan Kramer - 5th grade Gwen Wilusz - 5th grade Grace McCormick - 5th grade We have jumped right into some deep thinking in third grade language arts in our first three weeks together. In order to kick off our exploration of how authors use the theme of change, we decided to look at our own lives for a minute first to see how human beings (especially third grade human beings) experience change. By brainstorming on sticky notes, we came up with our examples. The next step was to see if there are categories of change that we experience. All three of our groups working seperately found that there are a lot of body changes that we experience. We talked about the generalizations about change:
Change is linked to time. Change is everywhere. Change may be positive or negative. Change may organized or random. Change may happen naturally or may be caused by people. We have now moved on to reading stories and novels but our conversations return to the concept of change especially as we read The Green Book, a story about a group of people that must leave Earth to settle on a new planet. Talk about change! This year we have 6 students in 3rd grade identified in creativity. The district has created a screening process and has testing in place that now helps us to identify those students who have a unique ability to "think outside the box." For most young students, they don't really know what that means so I have been working with them to explore what it means to be creative and how do you develop that gift. Our first week together, I asked them to answer a couple of questions to "get the juices flowing." They worked on a graphic poster to represent their ideas. What most of them believe right now is that creativty is connected to the arts (drawing, writing, music) but what I want them to realize is that their creativty can stretch into any area in life (science, math, sports.) They have some pretty good ideas to begin with. Here are some of their responses and a couple of pictures of them hard at work (more pictures on the photos page)... What is creativty? Creativty is thinking outside the box. And coming up with something no one would ever come up with. Where does creativty come from? In those people that have creativity it comes from the heart and the brain. Heart + brain = creativity Fifteen fourth graders have been joining Mrs. Williams and I each Thursday morning for some guitar fun. Here we are at week 4 and rockin' out with the Beattles and "Eleanor Rigby." Who says learning geometry can't be fun? Fourth graders spent some time this week using their knowledge of geometry to create a math monster. Their task was: A monster has been spotted roaming the halls of Werner Elementary. The problem is only brief glimpses have been captured so no one is sure what the monster looks like - EXCEPT you!! On your way to Mrs. Bean’s room, you got a good look at the monster. Your help is needed immediately. You need to draw a composite sketch so that everyone will know what the monster looks like so that we can apprehend the suspect for questioning. Your drawing could lead to a break in the case! I was AMAZED by their creativity and knowledge of geometry terms. Below are a few examples of the monsters that we should all be watching out for at Werner Elementary (pay attention to the details like the rewards being offered, the names, and the descriptions of the monsters - fun, fun, fun!) Last quarter, I worked with the gifted students from 4th grade language arts to create a blog for showcasing their classmates writing and creativity. Mrs. Alers and Mrs. Rushing's classes are given the opportunity to submit work to the 4th grade blog. We would love for parents to check it out, maybe comment on their work, and even considering signing up for a subscription by email to all or some of the pages. The blogging categories that the kids created are:
Extra! Extra! - This is for news and sports Imagination Workshop - This is for comic strips, jokes, drawings, stories, & poems. Critics Corner - This is for student reviews of books, movies, and recipes. Wildcat Lounge - This is for news from the Werner home front. You can connect to all of their hard work at: http://werner4thgrade.weebly.com/ This year with both the fourth and fifth grade math groups, I have begun using a program called Hands-on Equations. I think it is safe to say that the kids and I both love it! It is an amazing program that teaches algebra in a hands-on, visual way. It works to insure that students see that algebra is a world of balance (what you do to one side of the equation, you must do to the other side.) I must give credit to Mrs. Alers for it is through her that I learned about this program last year and was able to purchase it (thanks to Mr. Camp) late last spring. Here are what some of the kids have to say about it... Today I learned that if you learn to use Hands-on Equations, you can do hands-on paper algebra! When kids are excited about algebra and cheer when they find out we are doing Hands-on Equations, you know that you have found a gold mine! Check out the website so you can learn more about this great program we are using this year:
http://www.borenson.com/ Keep in mind that there is also an app available for Android and Apple users. Your child can have fun with this program at home through technology too! Throughout the year during fourth and fifth grade language arts enrichment, we are using a literature circle format for talking about the great novels we are reading. To be part of a literature circle, students have an common assignment for reading, a job to do, and a literature notebook to record their work. Below are the job descriptions that students are provided: Director - leads the group
Summarizer - recaps the reading Word Wizard - teaches the group the meaning of new words Illustrator - creates a graphic representation of an important event/person The students meet in their literature circle once or twice a week to discuss. The director is fully in charge of the group. I sit in on lit circles but have to follow the same rules as everyone else (that means asking for the talking stick in order to share my ideas.) I do assign the vocabulary words, but the word wizard teaches the group the meanings/synonyms/visuals to help them understand. The students ask the questions and answer the questions. It is a book discussion led by students, for students. While there are other times of the week where I am in charge and I am the one posing the questions and directing the conversations or activities related to their reading instruction, this is the time during the week where I am giving the students leadership opportunities and requiring them to take full responsibility for analyzing text. Building this independence and creating a space for discourse is an important piece of the puzzle for building critical readers. |
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May 2018
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