Happy Halloween

I have to say that I love these whole group collaborative projects where each students does a different little project as part of a larger communal project! The school held a door decorating contest. We brainstormed on the board some ideas for it and then each student picked what they wanted to make. 

 I had never heard of Freddy Fras bear... but he turned out really creepy

Our finished door. We didn't win "but we tried our best and maybe next time" (We did win being the class with the most box tops this month!) 

We also connected with another class over skype for the pumpkin seed project. The pumpkin had over 500 seeds! Amazing!

Multiplication Station

If a student can't add fluently, how are they supposed to learn multiplication? It has been a little surprising to have some students not be able to add +1 or +2 without being able to use their fingers. Now that we are finishing up our quarter, I am realizing that students are able to do the work but it takes them way longer because they are counting up the long way. 

A couple years ago, the reading scores were really low across the school and so they had a big push towards building better readers. I'm happy to say that my class of readers are on grade level. However, now the school is realizing that now they need to put some more care into the math curriculum. 3rd grade and up is going to be doing their multiplication tables. In a month, the principal will hold an ice cream party for those who can say their tables.  I made an ice cream table to show which number students had practice rote saying their tables. They have to say 0-12 for that number in 30 seconds. 

I tend to shy away from rote learning, but I understand why it is important here. The students have enjoyed practicing it through ipad games, writing it out on the whiteboards, smartboard, and practicing timing each other.

3rd Graders Discuss the 3rd Debate

"I just wanted to hear them talk about taxes" was a surprising revelation from one of my 3rd Graders this morning. "I think Hillary will raise more taxes for people who make $250,000, but Donald won't"

I had shied away from discussing the 2nd debate with the students because I wasn't comfortable with some of the subject matter that would be brought up. Students should not be exposed to "locker room talk" especially that it is being discussed as being acceptable language.

My voter registration had come in the mail and I showed the students and explained that on November 8, I would go and vote. Everyone in Alaska will vote on that day. Depending on if more people vote for Hilary or Donald, Alaska will turn RED or BLUE.
 I pulled up the electoral map on the smartboard and asked if they knew why Alaska had the number 3 and California had the number 55 on it.

"Is it because California is bigger?" No, its because there are 39 million people in California but only 700,00+ people in Alaska. They were a little concerned that Alaska was red, which meant that Alaska's points would go to Trump. I explained that there were 2 teams. The Red Team thought each States is different and should get to decide their own rules whereas the Blue Team thought that because we were all USA, we should have the same rules. Alaska is different from most other states so they want to make their own rules, so Alaska usually votes with the red team.

"Why are those places brown?" Red means that they usually vote for the red team, pink means we think they will vote for the red team. Blue means they vote for the blue team, and light  blue means that they will probably vote for the blue team. This map is a prediction, we don't know who will win yet. "I think that is called an estimation" (Very nice use to our Math talk)

"Can we see the map when Obama won?" I pulled it up, they were curious about Mitt Romney and John Mccain and asked about them. This is all history. It is fascinating. Next week, I will have them choose President or First Lady Biographies to read and we will talk about how the government works.

#GRAPAX

https://theglobalreadaloud.com/

We are participating in the global read-aloud of the book, PAX. Every week, we connect with other 3rd grade classes on twitter to talk about the chapters for the week. Next week, we will be hosting. Am trying to set up a skype so that another classroom will read to us one day.

Here are some great illustrations that the students did of Pax. 

A couple students made the prediction that Peter & Pax will find each other at the end. 

PAX is a great book talking about sustainability & the effects of war. Highly recommended reading!

Vocabulary.com

I am hopelessly addicted to vocabulary.com I love words. I love new & interesting words. Discombobulated. Defenestration. Effervescence. The English language is just full of interesting terms. The High School English teacher showed off this website at our in-service last week, so I started doing it with my students as a center time activity.

I can create word lists like the words that I notice they are mis-spelling or mis-using or just a fun '3rd Grade Halloween Words" with words like phantom, ghost, pumpkin, haunted, glow, shiver, scary... I also put a list of our 3rd grade spelling bee words.

The kids can track who has logged the most points on our leaderboard. Since I play too, their target is usually to "beat teacher!" or a classmate. T logged 10,000 points last week! Our school is currently #2 in Alaska.

I caught myself playing this weekend. Words are awesome, I'm happy to share my love with the students :)

Happy Alaska Day!

Teaching local history & geography is so important. I have been surprised that most schools in Alaska do not close to observe Alaska Day and that most students did not know the history behind it. We used to live in Sitka and it is a big deal there (since thats where it was officially handed over). Seems like an important piece of history! 

The students have gotten pretty savvy with US geography through mystery skype (They use the mississippi river, pacific/atlantic orientation, great lakes, time zones to figure out where other classes are) , so for Alaska Day I arranged a mystery session with two classes in Alaska:  Nikolaevsk & Haines. 

Alaska is made of 5 regions: Far North, Interior, Southcentral, Southwest, and SouthEast. There are 6 major rivers: Yukon, Copper, Colville, Koyukuk, Kuskokwim, and Tananna Rivers. Also numerous State Parks, Wildlife refuges, mountains. I had fun discussing the difference between islands (such as Kodiak or the Aleutian Islands) and peninsulas (such as Seward, Kenai) 

It was harder trying to figure out what city rather than what state they were in, but it was fun! Added a different layer of difficulty.

On a side note: I have been learning beading through culture class. The Gwichin are well-known for their beautiful beadwork. 

 Here is my attempt #2. Starting to look like something. I really like beading because you start with the small individual beads and it grows into something more. 

I started a Donors Choose Project:"My students need a Wonder Workshop Dash and Dot Robot Wonder Pack, to build 21st century skills from traditional skills. My students live in a rural area. If they want to remain here, they will need be innovators. They currently love to code. Getting a Dash and Dot robot is the next step to be able to turn those coding skills into something more meaningful.

Athabascans are known for their beadwork; in a lot of ways, coding is also like beading.

It relies on patterns and problem-solving in on a small scale to create a larger picture. The students have a natural aptitude for it and I'd love to continue to engage them.

The first day of school, I had the students write goals for the year. A lot of them wanted to invent something. One student in particular wanted to invent a robot arm to test if chicken eggs were good to eat. I started coding with all the students and we would like a way to extend these written codes into some action!"

https://www.donorschoose.org/project/innovating-in-the-artic/2230952/?rf=link-siteshare-2016-10-teacher-teacher_3909731&challengeid=20846457

Mistakes are OK

 I hated math when I was in school mostly because you either had the right answer or the wrong answer. It was such a black and white process. I know there are a lot of criticisms about how math is being taught now and believe me, I have them too, but I do love how mistakes are OK.

We were discussing the 4 times tables. A students drew an array to show the answer, but miscounted and wrote "31" A mistake lead to a discussion on how 31 could not be an answer because 4 and 8 were even numbers and that the answer had to be an even number.

 Another thing that I continue to love is how math nowadays stresses how there are multiple ways to find the solution to a question. I always tell the students to "find a way that makes it easy for yourself to understand"

 I only let them come up to the board to share if they have a way that hasn't already been shared, so sometimes they come up with really creative ways to do it! I love how in this way, you are able to individualize math!

Kahoot

Kahoot has certainly transformed the way that I teach. It is great because it is such a fun way to do a formative assessment. This week, our big math concept was learning the Distributive Property. Needless to say, the students were just confused after the first day. It was reflected in their scores which hovered at 9 or 11 correct out of the 23 questions.

 What I love about Kahoot is that I can randomize the question order and the answers so there really is no way that they can just "memorize" the right answer.

 This week, I had questions quizzing them on the commutative property (they get it!) and several different types of distributive property questions. I did team mode last time so that the kids could problem solve with each other. Today is Wednesday so we did it individually...

There are definitely some that are getting it! Last week at the end of the Commutative property Kahoot, there were 2 students who had a perfect score. (They get bonus points for how fast they answer too)

Its nice because the kids ask to do it. Its a fun way for them to continue to review them. We stop and explain the answer after every slide. I let the students choose a nickname as long as they have their initial in there so we can tell who it is. Black Panther was popular today.

Class Pet Project

Again, one of the best projects that has happened was something that happened organically. 

Last week, I had my discussion questions all ready for my morning meeting, but the students came in all excited because they had heard that the 4th Grade was "adopting a Panda" (and became convinced that the panda was actually going to be next door!) and wanted to have a class pet. 

I explained we had to ask the principal what the rules for pets were, how much it would cost for the pet and all the supplies/fundraising, and the pros/cons different types of pets. 

We had our 3rd Grade Arcade last Friday. We raised $107. The principal told the students to write her letters about what we wanted. We broke into 3 groups to write letters. 1 group wrote to convince her that a hamster was the best pet. Another group wrote about how a gecko would be a good pet and one student wanted to write a letter about a rabbit. Writing letters for a genuine audience made the project so much more interesting. After 30 minutes, they were still coming up with more reasons. 

The Hamster a good pet? Its cute. We could read to it during reading time. We could do our social studies reports to it. We could sing nursery rhymes to it. We could build a cardboard house for it. We could teach it tricks. We could call him Caine like the boy who made the cardboard Arcade. We could name him Muffin. Fluffy. Deddy.

The Gecko would be a good pet? It could eat all the mosquitos, we could learn science from its skin. Its coldblooded so we would need a heat lamp or heat rock. We could draw pictures of it and write poems about it. We could make it an obstacle course. We could name him Gax. 

One reason that a rabbit would make a good pet? Afterwards we could shoot it and eat it. I guess the same reason a chicken or a pig would make a good pet)  Also the poop is really small so it would be easy to clean up. 

Once she picks a pet, we will call Petco over skype to get a quote. If we have enough, we can get it next month or if we dont, we will have to have another fundraiser. Seriously, such a great cross-disciplinary project. Love project-based learning. 

Reading & Writing are interconnected

We tried out the App "Book Creator" this week. The students had a lot of fun creating their own books. One of the twins wrote a story about her twin and another student wrote this story about me! Seriously, what a great bunch of students! 

Another student wrote an illustrated this book called: Bad Days. 

We only had the free version, so we could only make one book. I will have to submit a request to buy the full version. This is such a great fun way to make a story. They had the option to type or use the paint pen. 

On the flipside, I also had the option for them to create a book in the makerspace using paper & stapler. I've always loved student-created books. Its such a great way to teach reading & writing as an interconnected process instead of two separate processes. 

I mean, as a teacher, you create spelling lists based upon the errors you see when they are creating the books... And then you create Language arts lessons based upon the errors you see with punctuation, grammar, or structure.  and when you create the books, the books are at their level and about topics that they are interested in. 

This is why it is so important to use these samples as formative assessments. You are seeing where they are and where they need to go. It is more valuable than having them just do spelling/grammar drills or worksheets that aren't connected to what they are actually doing. 

Reading & writing is about constant editing. That's what professional writers do: They keep rewriting, taking the best of their ideas and eventually publish... Its such a fluid process, a life-long process... It needs to be meaningful!

Constantly Evolving...

NEW this week:

-Quiver (AR): This was a fun app. Some of the boys need to strengthen fine motor skills, Quiver provides some fun pages to color. Afterwards, you can "scan" the page and it creates a 3D model of their coloring page. It was a fun center activity for kids that finish early.

-Musical Spelling (I have done musical math. Musical spelling seemed the next logical step. The students really seemed to love doing regular spelling drills, but with holding musical instruments: 1 beat per letter) I am rotating between music spelling, white board spelling, and spelling "bee." They actually seem to enjoy spelling especially the rules: "Q & U stick like glue" "EA makes the sound E" "E is a bully & makes the vowel say its name.."

-NewsEla (I have been using timeforkids or CNN/BBC to show news articles. I love that this has reading levels, so I can have the students read it)

-Played around in Aimsweb/Powerschool. (Found where to do progress monitoring. I love that the class size is small enough that this is possible. Really makes me worry about doing it in larger groups)

Painted Sky

It is very grey here. The dirt roads are grey and it blows onto the trees and makes them look grey. Its very barren here. There are no mountains. The river is hidden. The houses are very basic. In a lot of ways, its depressing.

But every sunrise and every sunset, the sky gets bathed in these majestic colors. Its always gold, pink,  and purple. Would make a great art project sometime...

Every night, we get Auroras and they paint the entire sky and dance around in majestic arcs & swirls. There is something so magical about witnessing these things. The sky is so alive that you almost dont notice how grey it is.

A fun note: We took a four-wheeler drive to the end of the road. There is an Aurora Observation Station. (http://www.gi.alaska.edu/auroraforecast) I wonder who to get into contact with, it would be a fun field trip to take the class there. Also great science discussions on how this phenomenon is formed. 

#CardboardChallenge

http://imagination.is/our-projects/cardboard-challenge/

A couple years ago, I watched the youtube video of: http://cainesarcade.com/ An inspiring 9 year old boys creates an entire arcade from cardboard boxes. I love cardboard boxes, they are the best and for years, I'd bring them into the preschool classroom with me.

In the Arctic, we have no shortage of cardboard boxes. Everyone does food orders from Amazon, Walmart, and Fred Meyer.com. So this was great way to use up a very common resource!

The students here immediately began work on their cardboard arcade. They were so excited and creative. We had an unexpected economics lesson when we talked about how much it would cost for people to come in, what the cost translated to tickets, and what each individual game cost per ticket. One student wanted it to be $100/10 tickets, but the other students said that a lot of people wouldn't have $100 so we should make it cheaper like $1. The student in charge of tickets practiced writing the word "ticket" over and over, but then decided to just write T when she realized how many she had to make. She put the tickets in the bowl and still wondered if it would be enough. She wrote up a sign stating the price for each game and that we were going to have a raffle every 10 minutes. (Then the kids wondered what they were going to give for prizes for the raffle) 

Some kids didn't want to tell the other classes, they wanted it to be a surprise. Others said that we should make posters so that they will know and they will want to come.

The level of creativity was astounding too. They just kept adding more details. A ticket booth got an "Employees only" sign. Each employee got a badge.

One of my quiet little girls made a basketball game. She put pieces of tape on the ground so that other grades would know to stand. The Kindergarten got to be closer and the High schoolers would have to stand way farther back. She even put a piece of tape with the number 1 right next to the box because that's where my son could stand if he came :) That thoughtfulness really touched me.

What a great project. I am excited to continue it throughout the year to see what else they will create!