We kicked off a new seminar today. We began our unit on rocks and minerals. Today we focused on what we think we know about rocks and what we are puzzled about rocks. We filled out our Think, Puzzle, Explore chart. We then used the last bit of time in seminar to do a fun activity involving the number 100 for the 100th day of school. I gave learners the task of drawing me a picture using 100 rocks. They needed to create some sort of shelter. All pictures were very different and fantastic. I loved the creativity that they all used. :)
FIELD TRIP RESCHEDULED!!!!
Our field trip to Norlands has been rescheduled. We will be going on Wednesday, March 2nd. You should have seen a field trip permission slip come home yesterday with your child. Please fill it out and return it to school as soon as possible. :)
CREATED OUR OWN INVENTIONS
We took some time during our last seminar meeting to engage our creativity and plan out our own inventions. Some learners worked together while others worked on their own. Either way they completed the activity with a video explaining their inventions and how it worked. Ask your child what they created. All of the ideas were great and such a fun way to end our time together! :)
THINK, PUZZLE, EXPLORE CHART
We completed our think, puzzle, explore chart. We looked at the things we had explored and learned and added those to the charts, as well as reflected on the puzzles that we had and if we hadn't explored those we took some time to do so.
FIELD TRIP CANCELLED
Unfortunately, our field trip to Nor'lands Living History Site has been cancelled for tomorrow. They had some unforeseen things come up and needed to cancel. We are looking to try and reschedule but no date has been set yet. As soon as we have a rescheduled date, I will let you know. If your child needs to hot school lunch, please notify me asap. Thank you :)
FIELD TRIP
So I have just confirmed a field trip for Thursday, February 11th to Norlands Living History Site in Livermore. We will be gone for most of the day. The plan is to leave around 8:30 and return by 2:30. We will be participating in the hands-on farm living program which will give us some ideas of both what it was like before some of the key inventions that we have talked about as well as making that connection to what kinds of inventions were created and how they changed agricultural living. It should be so much fun. We are of course looking for any volunteers that want to attend. A permission slip will be sent home tomorrow with details. If you have any questions, please contact me. :)
SHARES
Today we had a couple of our learners bring in some items to share with us. One learner brought in a rotary phone that he had at his camp. He explained the phone and everyone had the opportunity to try it. It was very cool to see their faces when they were using it because it is so different then the phones they are used to. :) The second learner took a book out from the library called Inventions which she shared with everyone. All learners had a great time looking through and exploring some of the inventions that were in there.
BEGINNING TO LEARN ABOUT SOME FAMOUS INVENTORS
On Thursday and Friday, we focused our attention on learning about 3 different inventors. The first was Henry Ford. We watched a video on his life and accomplishments. We looked at pictures of the original Model T. We also learned about the Wright brothers from a book and Alexander Graham Bell from a video. With all of our discussions around these inventors and their great contributions, we also looked at how much their piece of technology has changed and evolved over the years. We had some great discussions, and ended the week putting together the beginnings to a great bulletin board display of information they are gathering.
INVENTION CONVENTION!!!!!
On Tuesday we began a new seminar. We are discussing inventions and the Industrial Revolution. We created a Think/Puzzle/Explore chart to discuss what we already think we know as well as what we are puzzling about. We also had some great discussions about how our world has changed and the learners got very excited and already started brainstorming some of their own inventions. :)
FINAL PIECES OF EVIDENCE
We spent this past week creating our final pieces of evidence to prove our learning on our two main science standards. The learners reflected back on their unpacking that they did at the beginning of the seminar where they wrote out what they needed to know and do to meet their learning target. They took what they were going to do and put it into actions. Some learners created posters, some learners wrote out what they had learned using a notes or pages on their iPads, some created books, and some videos explaining their thinking and learning. On Friday, we took our last day together and shared out our pieces of evidence. It was a great ending to our time together. All pieces of work and evidence will be coming home next week as we move onto other seminars. :)
DIVING INTO A NEW LEARNING GOAL
We spent Thursday and Friday diving into another science learning goal that is our focus. The learning goal is Understanding that organisms have structures with different functions which support survival. We defined some of the vocabulary in this learning goal including structures, organisms, functions and survival. We have completed a couple of activities around this learning goal including a flip chart which shows some threats and organisms that have specific structures whose functions support their survival as well as some discussions and partner work. Next week, our last week, we will work on completing some sort of product which will showcase our learning!
COMPARISON MATRIX
We put our thinking skills into practice today. We reviewed the characteristics of living organisms then completed a comparison matrix using our characteristics as a guide.
CHARACTERISTICS
We spent Thursday and Friday focusing on the characteristics of living things. Some of these characteristics include growing, reproducing, breathing, feeling emotions, responding to environment, etc. We created posters that will be used to display these characteristics as well as completed some sorts which not only required the sorting but written explanation of our thinking as to why we sorted the way we did.
LIVING VS. NON-LIVING
Today we started our new seminar on living vs. non-living things. We had a discussion about what we think we know and what we puzzle about. We also looked at our two main science learning goals and unpacked them into what we need to know and what we need to do to meet our learning goals. Our two main goals were to understand what the basic characteristics of living and non-living things as well as to understand that organisms have structures that have different functions to support survival. You can see a copy of the form below. I am excited to dive in and start learning more in the next 3 weeks. :)
CULTURE FAIR
Our culture fair last night with families was a huge success! Thank you to everyone who was able to come in and share in your child's learning! I think they were very proud to show off what they had learned and created. Here are some pictures of the set up and displays of learning.
FAMILY LIFE COMPARISON
On Thursday, we watched a video about life in Italy and completed a Comparison Matrix (shown below). We also began some discussions around how we want to share our knowledge with our families on Thursday and our peers on Friday.
ENJOYING DELICIOUS ITALIAN CUISINE
Today we enjoyed some delicious Italian cuisine. We rearranged the tables so that we were sitting together at a long table where we could talk and eat as a family. We had a 3 course meal including Anitpasto for an appetizer (salami, provolone cheese, fresh mozzarella balls, and figs), cheese stuffed tortellini with tomato sauce and croissants, then cannolis for dessert.
LANGUAGE
We have also been learning some of the Italian language. The book that we read on Tuesday gave us some of the new words that we are learning. Some of the words include Ciao - Hello or Goodbye, Mangia - eat, Ferma - stop, and Canta - sing.
On Thursday, we listened to the story Strega Nona and took some new words from that as well as just learned a few words. We learned the words Strega Nona (grandma witch), nonna (grandmother), nonno (grandfather), bambina (baby girl), bambino (baby boy), Grazie (thank you), vine (come), per favore (please), and si (yes).
We are excited to learn other words as well. :)
FAMOUS BUILDINGS
On Tuesday, we looked at 2 famous buildings in Italy. We read a book called Angelina of Italy. The book was about a little girl named Angelina who lives in Italy and went to visit the Leaning Tower of Pisa. After reading the story, we used either clay or sugar cubes to sculpt either the Leaning Tower of Pisa or The Colosseum. The learners had a great time recreating these buildings. They are very excited to show them off at our culture fair.
GEOGRAPHY AND ART
Last week we put a big focus on the geography of Italy as well as the famous art and artists. We created our own geographic maps of Italy. We looked at all of the seas that border Italy, talked about the fact that it is a peninsula, looked at the popular mountain ranges including the Alps and Apennies, as well as the 2 big rivers in Italy the Po River and Tiber River. At the end of the week, we looked at 2 famous artists Vincent Van Gogh and Leonardo Da Vinci. We looked at the Mona Lisa and Starry Night. Learners had the choice of which one they would recreate. Both their maps and painting recreations will be on display for our culture fair.
MY WHAT A BIG BOOT YOU HAVE!!!! ALL ABOUT ITALY!!!!
We started today learning about Italy. We discussed what are goals are for the seminar as well as completed a KWL chart (What I KNOW, What I WANT to Know, and What I LEARNED). We also began talking about the geography of Italy. We drew out our own outlines of Italy and we will be begin filling them in with the important rivers, mountains, etc. We will also discuss the family life, art, important buildings, food, weather and do some comparison between them and us. If you have any questions regarding the seminar or any resources you would like to share, please let me know. :)
AN END TO THE SEMINAR
We had a great end to our Blasting Off into Space seminar. The planetarium was great and taught us a lot about the constellations, planets, gravity, rotation, and the Sun. It was a fun way to end. We also had Mrs. Franzose bring in her star to show us. She had a star dedicated to her a few years ago, and so she brought in her paper showing her certificate as well as where her star is located. It was a great ending!
PLANETARIUM COMING TO VISIT!!!!!
On Tuesday the 24th, we will wrap up our seminar by having a visit from the Northern Stars Planetarium. They will be completing a program with us called "Our Place in Space". The program will allow us to follow the adventures of "Scarlett" the macaw as she solves a crossword puzzle about "Our Place in Space". We will learn about day/night, the Sun, rotation, gravity, planets, and constellations, which addresses all of our science goals for the seminar. :) We are very excited for their visit at 2:00pm on Tuesday!
STARS AND CONSTELLATIONS
This past week, we spent our time learning about the stars and constellations. We looked at new app called Sky Guide which showed us a view of the sky at that moment. We saw what constellations were around us including Orion, Ursa Minor (Little Dipper), Ursa Major (Big Dipper), Pegasus, etc. We then cultivated our creativity and imagination, which is one of our habits of mind goals, and created our own constellations. We used black paper and white paint to complete this project. It was a super fun week.
VOCABULARY DISCUSSION AND DOCUMENTATION
We updated our Solar System Vocabulary book pages on the planets and sun. We then spent some time discussing what new terms orbit, tilt, and rotation mean. We modeled what it looked like when the planets orbit around the sun especially looking at how all planets orbit the sun at different speeds. We also discussed why we have the 4 seasons. We modeled that our 5 learners, 1 being the sun and the other 4 being the Earth during all 4 seasons and what they look like. It was a super fun moving way to learn about these new terms and ideas about the solar system. I am excited to begin learning about the stars this upcoming week.
PLANETS
We have spent the last week focusing on learning about the planets in the solar system. We have watched a few videos explaining different facts about the planets as well taking down some notes on each planet to create an anchor chart for us to follow. We created Solar System Vocabulary books that we are using to keep all of our learning in. We are filling up our page on the planet now with all of our new knowledge. :)
"BLASTING OFF INTO OUTER SPACE"
Our new seminar topic has begun. We began our first 2 meetings together discussing what our goals for the seminar would be as well as doing some art projects. The goals we set were learning and understanding what the planets, stars, and moon are, why we have seasons, understanding vocabulary such as axis and orbit, working on measuring distance, looking at a combination of fiction and non-fiction text and understanding the author's purpose, managing our impulsivity, creating creativity and imagination, doing investigation, and meeting quality standards. Our major art project that we completed was creating 2D rocketships that would blast us off into our learning. I am very excited about the upcoming weeks.
FINAL PROJECT
For our final project this week, we started working on a personalized map activity which pulls in many of our goals. The learners were able to choose any place to map fictional or real. They were given access to many different art mediums including markers, crayons, glue, clay, etc. They had the choice to make their pictures 2D or 3D. They need to include a title and compass rose for their map. I am very excited to see what each individual one looks like when we finish up on Thursday. :)
INTRODUCTION TO GOOGLE EARTH
This past week, we looked more closely at directional words as well as learning how to read a grid map. We did some activities with putting an putting animals and food on a grid and figured out which directions they could go and how to correctly read the grid to see what food the animal could access easily. We also did an introduction to GoogleEarth. As a group we looked at our school and its community. Individually we found our houses and communities that we will in and mapped those out using GoogleEarth as our guide. It was super fun and excited to be able to show our peers where we lived and what our neighborhoods looked like.
FICTION MAPPING
We began creating some fictional maps on Tuesday, and we will continue this on Thursday. Today, we discuss the difference again between fiction and non-fiction. The activity was to think about their ideal house and map it out. We will finish this and begin working on treasure maps in the next class period or two. :)
DIRECTIONALITY AND ART MEDIUM EXPLORATION
We have been spending the last couple of weeks doing a combination of mapping familiar areas as well as learning about direction. We have been using different art mediums to complete some of our maps. We looked at perspective when mapping our playground, we painted a map of our bedroom, and used collage materials to make a compass rose after a lesson on the directions North, South, East, and West. We also went on a mapping challenge on our playground. Students needed to use their compass and follow directions written out on a paper to find 6 different pieces of playground equipment. It was a super fun activity which got us outside, but also made us apply our new directional knowledge. This week, we will take some time and look at some fiction literature as well as begin completing some fiction mapping such as treasure maps and ideal mapping.
MAPPING
Our Tuesday and Thursday seminar is off and running. The topic for the next 6 weeks is Mapping. We took the two days this week to discuss the expectations and goals. Our goals include learning what a map is (social studies), how to create a map by either drawing or building (social studies), learning directions (math), using different art tools (art), examining the difference between 2D and 3D (art), using and understanding non-fiction vs. fiction text (literacy), and building team work (social). We also took some time and completed our first map of our classroom. We did a model together, and then they had some time to complete one themselves. They came out looking fantastic! I have some future map makers I believe. :)
No comments:
Post a Comment