Interactive Notebooks

Spontaneous Problem:  Animal Rhymes

Boundary Breaker:  Make a simile to complete the sentence...The Past is like _____ because ______.

Starting off, we practiced our questioning skills to discover the hidden item in our mystery box. We found a postcard from the Roman Colosseum from our friend Mrs. Clarkson! You can check out her recent travels to the area here! Next we looked at a project exemplar featuring Roman art and created our own Roman mosaic artifacts.

Our ancient civilizations project focus today was looking at the FINDS model of research.  We are using the FINDS checklist to help students address the task in a step by step manner.  They were able to explore sources helpful to their topic on our Symbaloo Site and begin to use their digital notebooks for citing sources and note taking.  We also brushed up on primary vs. secondary sources and ways to check the reliability of online sources and using proper citations for those sources.

Research checklist: FINDS

Focus

_____ Civilization you will research ______________

_____ Topic (Cultural Universal ) you will research ________________

Investigate and choose resources

_____ Explore Symbaloo web site and choose web sites

_____ Explore books and choose books to use for research

_____ Site the sources that were used in taking notes

Notes

_____ Type notes in the digital notebook about your cultural universal from the resources  chosen

_____ Describe at least 3 artifacts that are part of your cultural universal

Develop notes into project

_____ Write a research paragraph on your topic from your notes

_____ Create an artifact, model or visual about your topic

Score work

_____ Complete check list

_____ Rubric

_____ Reflection

We also learned to play the code breaking game, Mastermind, as we focused on using information to make a logical decision as critical thinkers.  They really enjoyed this and were getting pretty good at using their clues to eliminate possibilities!  We played the old fashioned way but to play at home, you can use this link!

Ancient Civilizations World Tour

Spontaneous Problem: Name things you can catch.

Boundary Breaker: After watching the You Can Learn Anything Video, students responded with the idea about learning that struck them the most.

Today we took a look at our upcoming research project which focuses on a cultural universal of one of our four ancient civilizations.  Students seemed excited to select their civilization and discover more about life in the past.  From their study, they will be creating an artifact model that they will be able to display along with a museum style placard.  The placard will show off their research and highlight the archaeological find and what it reveals about the culture from which it came.  You can take a look at the project rubric here.

Springing from the cultural universals we discovered last week, students were able to act as time travelers stopping off at Ancient Egypt for a view of the pyramids, and then on to Ancient China to see the making of the terracotta warriors.  Our next stop was Ancient Greece to walk through the columns of the Parthenon, and finally to Rome for a contest of gladiators in the Colosseum.  Students rotated through our civilization stations to get a glimpse of each culture.  They collected facts and stamped their passports as they selected the civilization that they would like to dig deeper into for their research project.  As a class we looked at the where and when of each civilization and added them to our timeline.  Students also got to explore online resources to help them make their final choice.  Here are some links if they are interested in further exploration at home.

Ancient Civilizations Maps http://www.eduplace.com/kids/socsci/ca/books/bkf3/imaps/

Ancient Egypt: http://www.ancientegypt.co.uk/menu.html

Discover Ancient Egypt: http://www.nms.ac.uk/explore/games/discover-ancient-egypt/

Discover Ancient Egypt: http://www.nms.ac.uk/explore/games/discover-ancient-egypt/

Exploring Ancient China: http://www.historyforkids.net/ancient-china.html

Ancient Greece: http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/topics/z87tn39

Guide to Ancient Greece: http://www.historyforkids.net/ancient-greece.html

Discover Ancient Rome: http://www.historyforkids.net/ancient-rome.html

Roman Empire: http://www.historyforkids.net/ancient-rome.html

Discover the Romans: http://www.nms.ac.uk/explore/games/discover-the-romans/

Cultural Universals

Spontaneous Problem:  Name things that are hidden.
Boundary Breaker: Is giftedness right side up or upside down?

Today we had some fun using logic and probability to play Higher or Lower with cards and dominoes.  Students drew a card and held it up to their partner without looking.  The partner did the same and based on the other player's card students made guesses if theirs was higher or lower.  We were able to play with single digit cards from 0-9 and then with dominoes numbering 0-12.  Students discussed and wrote about their strategies, probabilities, cut-off numbers for their decision making, and how the strategy with the cards differed from the strategy they used with the dominoes.

Next up was our Habits of Mind Bonanza.  We focused on three different habits today and then played a matching games to review.  First, students worked on persisting by being challenged to recreate a paper model.  It was a challenge indeed.  As students worked, we took notes of their language and attitudes when faces with the task and discussed failure as a valuable learning experience, often more so than success.  Next we practices Questioning and Posing Problems with our 20 questions mystery box game.  Students were quick to pick on on quality questioning that helped the team to narrow down what could be hidden in the box.  Finally we used the story of Beekle, the unimaginary friend, to spark our creativity and create our own perfectly whimsical companions.

As we head into our study of ancient civilizations, we took time today to read the book Westlandia, by Paul Fleischman.  We looked at Wesley and his journey of creating his own civilization.  This brought to light our nine cultural universals: geography, family, economics, communication, government, recreation, beliefs, education, and resources (food. clothing, shelter).  Next week we will continue on this theme as students look at some specific cultures and get their feet wet with a little research.

Critical Thinkers

This morning we warmed up with the Spontaneous problem, "What do you need to Explore?"  and shared about some of our own recent discoveries.  We also hunted patterns in our Set game warm-up.

We focused today on qualities of critical thinkers.  We discovered that a critical thinker needs to...

• Be fair
• Be accurate
• Be clear
• Be relevant
• Be logical

We used videos from the Children's Guide to Critical Thinking to highlight different types of thinkers...

• Naive Nancy- Doesn't care about thinking, follows the crowd, takes the easy road
• Selfish Sam- Uses thinking to manipulate others and get his way
• Fair-minded Fran- Thinks to understand and solve problems, considers others

Students were able to take some notes and share examples that helped them realize the benefits of practicing critical thinking.

Our Habit of Mind focus was on Managing Impulsivity.  We read My Mouth is a Volcano by Julia Cook.  Students then practiced managing their impulsivity as they participated in a relay race to come up with the biggest list of good and bad examples of the skill.

Students also played high rollers to build and compare four digit numbers as an introduction to our place value unit.

We wrapped up by breaking in our brain stretcher packets and trying our hand at some analogy practice.

Meet the Nerds

This week we kicked off our morning routine of Morphic Thinking where students warm-up with a spontaneous problem and boundary breaker.  We will be including these weekly.

Spontaneous Problem: A spontaneous problem is a brainstorming type problem to be solved in a specific amount of time and scored according to the number and creativity of responses generated. The point is to challenge students to be flexible thinkers, to elaborate on original ideas and to think fluently and creatively about a specific topic.

Today's Spontaneous Problem: What could you find on the imaginary planet, Twinkle?

Boundary Breaker:  A boundary breaker is a group experience which works toward creating a sense of community. Students gain an awareness of and respect for the opinion of others by the use of questions that go beyond superficial depth and have no right/wrong answers.

Today's Boundary Breaker: What is thinking? Why is thinking important?

We also engaged more with our year-long theme, Exploration.  We read the book, Why Explore by Susan Lendroth and students brainstormed and discussed reasons why people explore and how there is an innate explorer in all of us.

Students were introduced to our math unit, Unraveling the Mystery of the Moli Stone, and completed a pre-assessment for on numeration and place value.

We finished by looking at the four components of creativity and our mascots, The Nerds, who encourage you to "feed your imagination".  We used flexibility to look at a doodle from many perspectives.  We used fluency as we brainstormed many ideas the doodle could become.  Then we narrowed it down to our most original idea.  Finally students added detail to elaborate on their picture.

Welcome!

We had a fantastic start today!  We were able to go over the ins and outs of ALERT and help students uncover what it means to be gifted.  We discussed the Gifted Child's Bill of Rights and looked at the bell curve to build understanding of their personal exceptionality in academic areas.

Students created some picture glyphs as a get to know you game and were able to share some of their favorite things and interests.

We also looked at Art Costas's Habits of Mind and discussed them as good practices for your brain to be successful.  After a quick introduction, students played Habits of Mind Bingo to become more familiar with them.  Most weeks we will focus on one particular habit with an activity that helps students begin to build that skill. 

Finally we searched the room for clues leading us to the "Key to Success"  this year in ALERT. Students solved codes and puzzles highlighting some of the things they will experience in our classroom through the course of the year.  They managed to beat the clock and uncover the hidden key: Curiosity!  Next week we will look more into our year-long theme of exploration.