Ideas are blowing like the Wind!

This has been a crazy month!!  Science Fair, Auction, Report Cards, oh my!  The Sharks have been incredible through all of this!  I love how well everyone works together, and share a passion for learning.  I have been able to give them challenging tasks that use higher level thinking skills to complete independently and in small groups. 

This trimester, we are examining "Interactions among Living Things." I am choosing to focus on Native Americans as our social studies content, and botany for our science.  Observational drawing, measuring, geometry, and non-fiction writing are also integrated into this study. This week, I pulled out the microscopes and give the students an opportunity to observe and study a variety of seeds.  Afterwards, they had several questions about seeds for us to research and experiment.  Here are a few of them:
   
     Why are seed different sizes?
     Does the size of the seed affect how big it gets?
     How are seeds made?
     Why do seeds have different textures (ie: spiky, bumpy, smooth)

In addition, we are analyzing what life is like in the Northwest, by identifying key physical features, animals and foods that are unique to our region.  Later, we will examine other regions of the US, as well as learn how humans have interacted with their environment for survival.  Below some of the ideas we brainstormed about identifying objects that are natural vs. manmade.  The stars next to some was were some groups had different opinions.  Again, this is our foundation and will be revised throughout the rest of the term.

Tying it all Together-Collaborative Learning

This trimester, in addition to our classroom topics, we have collaboratively been exploring the idea of "communication" with the Superstars and Ladybugs.  We meet twice a week and share our personal experiences as we begin to assimilate new concepts and ideas.  Problem solving, cooperation, listening, asking questions, giving hypothesis's, comparing/contrasting and cause and effect are several of the skills that students use along with math, writing, reading, social studies and science.  The Sharks continue to make connections between the lesson of the day, lessons that have been covered, and incorporate them into new lessons as we move forward.  The result?  The students are sharing more, learning how to ask insightful questions, and interacting with each other to find their answers.  Below are several pictures of our past few weeks together, including our recent field study at the Post Office.

JT, VK and TV and testing their ramps as part of a letter sorting machine

CW and fellow Superstar making labels for mailboxes

Group Shot!

Mailing letters toLakewood to New York, Bermuda and United Kingdom!

How will be deliver the mail from the mailbox?

Writing Letters

A tour at the Post Office

More letter writing with our Ladybug friends

The other side of the mailboxes in the post office

Happy 100 day of School!

Today we celebrated the 100th day of school.  To honor the day, the students came up with ways to make $1.00 with coins, divided 100 cubes different ways, wrote about spending $100, made a list of 100 animals, make a 100 item snack, and drew themselves as 100 years old.  Here's how one student would spend $100:
If I had $100 to spend, I would buy wood and a factory, and a VIP room, and a car and house with a garage, chimney, basement, backyard, a yard, and a balcony, with a front porch.  An ipad, a TV, an ipod and a fountain.

Would I LOVE to find a house at that price!!  Here are some other things we did below...

Young Authors

We have read some great stories during snack time over the past few weeks...The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, and The Tale of Despereaux, both by Kate DiCamillo.  Both stories have amazing characters that experience many adventures through their interactions with others and their environment.  This has sparked our interests to write our own adventure stories. 
I had the students first begin with a storyboard for a prewrite, much like they do in the movies.  They broke down the story with a beginning, middle and end, and drew a picture to go with each event.  Then , they cut out their board, and began drafting each section, adding details to bring their story to life.  Currently, we are sharing with each other, and revising them by adding more details for clarification or interest.  They will be published soon and hope to invite all of you to be their audience. 
During their rest time, many of the students have been constructing a second story and/or continue to work on their original work.  I love when students are intrinsically movtivated to not only complete an assigned task, but to carry the work beyond my expectations as they see the value and personal fulfillment in the work!

Problem Solving Strategies

I have been focusing on problem solving strategies in math over the past few weeks.  The students are using the skills we have learned in a real world setting, and having to think about the best way to communicate their answer to others.  The strategies I focus on are drawing a picture, writing a number sentence, drawing a table, and looking for a pattern.  Some problems lend themselves to a variety of strategies possible, while others have only 1 option.  It is interesting to see how the students begin to decide on their strategy, and then show their thinking.  In addition, tools, such as clocks, counters, etc. are used for additional support.

AS and VK are needing to understand fractions to solve their problem

AM uses a clock to count elapsed time for her problem

Excited about the Weather!

As I type this, two students are on the internet looking for weather maps.  Three students are gathered around a weather map, and giving reports (and asking for me videotape them:) ).  Another student is outside with the weathervane, trying to find out where the wind is coming from.  All in all, the Sharks are excited about being meteorologists.  Over the next several weeks, we will be collecting data from several sources to track and predict weather patterns.  We will be watching how this information is shared with others.  We are connecting geography to weather, noticing that the weather is not the same in all places, and how maps are a large way to communicate the weather patterns.  I am anxious to hear the questions that pop up as we gain experience with tools and concepts that we can investigate further.  Below are a few pictures of us hard at work using tools such as thermometers, anemometers, weathervanes, and barometers.

learning to read different temperatures

How warm is this water?

We love doing weather reports, just don't tape me now!

Check out this map, look at the weather in Alaska!

The wind is coming from the southwest right now.

Whoa!  It's really windy out!

A Conversation about Evaporation

One of the most challenging parts of teaching gifted students is getting a clear understanding of what these students know and understand.  Oftentimes, they have the vocabulary or understanding to some degree about a topic, but when you start to really ask what some words mean, you start to see the gaps.  Today, we watched a Magic School Bus video about the water cycle.  Afterwards, the class was explaining what they learned from it and used the words evaporation and condensation.  However, as I questioned further, I could tell from the conversation that they didn't really get how evaporation occurs.  Below is the conversation I recorded and scribed prior to conducting and experiment to determine the weight of hot vs. cold water.

As you read through this conversation, you will see that the students were relying on personal experiences, and things they have seen on TV, but didn't really understand why it happened that way.  Talking to each other was getting them closer and closer to the cause of evaporation, and we observed it in action to confirm our ideas at the end.

What was the big idea from this video?

AS: To learn what rain does.  First it evaporates, then it turns into clouds, then it goes back down, then it evaporates again and does it all the time

LR: first it starts out as water, then it evaporates, then it turns into a gas and then it goes up into the clouds, then it turns back into water to form the clouds, then it forms back into water and it drops down over and over again

What is our understanding of evaporate?

JL: to go from a liquid to become a gas

What needs to happen for evaporation to occur?

GH: It needs sun

LR: rain

CW: liquid

TV: sun, some clouds, some rain and needs to be water

What is the sun’s role?  How does it go up?

CW: It grabs with an invisible force and pulls it up

AS: It goes up because it needs to form clouds

TV: the sun brings it up

JL: an updraft

LR: a force

VK: a magnetic force

AS: The gas floats up because that’s the way it goes

CW: I know.  Water doesn’t weigh anything.

LR: Yeah, everything weigh something.

CW: Then how can you put your arms up so easy like this (waves his arms)

Mrs. Van:  you think this is no big deal (I wave my arms).  What is the difference in mass?

CW: Oh I get it, my arm is very strong and the air isn’t strong.

Mrs. Van: We have good ideas, but why does it go up?

TV: Because it’s cold up there?

LR:  Heat! Heat! Heat!

Mrs. Van: What about heat?

LR: Heat is a gas, and so it pulls, like a force and the gas and force interacts together and pulls it up

AS: The heat is really light so it brings it up to the sun, not really though…

AM: I think its actually gravity still

Mrs. Van: I think we need to find out what is heavy, hot or cold.

AS: In weird but true, it says that if you hit a baseball goes faster in hot air than in cold air.

Mrs. Van: Why?

AS: I don’t know!

TV: Because it’s heavier.

Mrs. Van: Here’s a chance to think like a scientist.  We have watched the video, talked about it, and now I have a question: Which is heavier, hot or cold?