Today in Science, we started with a read aloud about Jane Goodall called The Watcher. This book is an excellent example of how one person's observations, careful science note-taking, and perseverance can have an impact on the world. We, of course, tied this in to our own Science Notebooks and the importance of observing the world around us. We talked about different types of observations and data that can be gathered in an investigation- qualitative and quantitative. QUALITative describes the QUALITIES of something using descriptive language. For example, the car is red, has tinted windows, a scratched bumper, etc. QUANTITative data describes QUANTITIES, or numbers, related to the object. For example, the car is 12 feet long, has 4 tires, is 6 feet tall, etc.
The kids then used their powers of observation to describe secret rocks that I gave to them. Each child received a different rock, though some were very similar to others. They then had to write qualitative and quantitative observations about their rocks (without others seeing it) and then we put all the rocks in a pile and played a rousing game of "Guess My Rock!" The kids had a great time playing, and we learned a lot of important lessons:
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One of our Growth Mindset lessons this year is to have the kids play Rock Paper Scissors against one another, with a twist. When a student loses to another, the student who lost follows the winner around and cheers for them. The winner that pair plays the winner of another pair, and then the winner of that round has even more cheerleaders behind him or her. We played a few times in a row, it was so much fun. We learned that winning isn't everything, and it feels great to have a cheerleader rooting for you :) We did an activity this week to practice our communication skills...without the use of our voices! Mrs. T and I put a colored dot on each child's forehead... and they had no clue what color they had. Their task was to find their group members with the same dot color WITHOUT talking. Some of the kids caught on quickly and came up with strategies to figure out which group they were in. Many discovered that by helping others, the groups were formed much faster. Teams were tasked with creating the tallest freestanding tower they could out of 19 cups. Here are some pictures and videos of the task. On Monday afternoon, we exercised our brains by trying to brainstorm as many words as we could for given topics. The only catch was they could only use the Scrabble tiles given to their group to spell them out. Some groups got really creative to stretch their letters and made Scrabble-ish type layouts. We will repeat this activity throughout the year to see how much progress we have made with our subject-specific vocabulary.
Today in Reading Workshop, we started talking about our goals for our reading. We will continue to work over the next few days to fine- tune these goals to make sure they are SMART: S- Specific (What we want to do) M- Measurable (How we will know if we have reached it) A- Achievable (Is it possible to achieve it) R- Relevant (Does it relate to bettering ourselves as readers) T- Timely (Date by which we want to have it completed) Here are some pictures of the kids shopping for books and the start of some of our goals: In addition to getting to know one anot her, we've been establishing guidelines for how to behave and treat one another in class. The kids worked in groups to make posters about what it means to be a good classmate, partner, group member, and teacher. They had some fantastic ideas :) We also played a fun follow the leader game (not sure of the exact name of it, but we had a good time). I will be posting more this week as we begin our first full week of the school year!
I look forward to meeting everyone at Back to School Night on Tuesday 8/21 at 7pm. Please report to the gym first for an introduction from Mr. Blubaugh. Below is the packet I will be referring to during my presentation.
I've been working on getting the room ready. I can't wait to start the new year and meet my new class :) Here's what our room looked like after my first day of working on it in late July- yikes! What a mess! I've been working hard to clean it up and get it ready for our new learning adventures this year. Here are some more recent photos. Want to see what it looks like now? You'll have to come to Open House on Wednesday at 9am! Hope to see you there ;)
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