Starting a New Book Club

Today was the start of P3's new 'Book Club'. Last terms book club was so successful that we decided as a class to start a new one. The kids enjoyed opting into a book of their choice and completing different tasks independently. We looked at about 10 books (most that were series to encourage reading, and most were dystopian because that is the new 'thing'), read the synopsis for them and watched some trailers. This helped narrow down the selections to six. 

In a previous post I showed off some of the work my student's had completed independently during book club time and how I run it.

The student's read the first chapter and began working on a blog post about their new book - why they chose it and what they think is going to happen.

This term the books we are reading are:

Point Value Art

Ms. Lopez in the Art Room has some amazing resources for implementing art into your classroom.

I found a Point Value art project when exploring her site.

 'This project works well for many grade levels and is a good opportunity to teach kids not only about colour theory and different values, but about thinking outside the box.

The project began with students following some basic directions, such as "draw 4 lines that begin and end at the edge of the paper."
After the lines were drawn and traced with black marker, I got down to the demonstration.  We incorporated different shading techniques with analogous colours to fill each new shape that was created during the first part of the project.
In the end, each student had practiced thinking outside the box, practiced colouring and shading, and had a beautiful finished product.'

Explicit instructions:

Part I Directions (do this with pencil):

1. Draw four lines beginning and ending at the edge of the paper.
2. Draw five circles.
3. Draw four triangles.
4. Draw one diamond.
5. Add one line that looks like waves.
6. Add two lines that look like lightning.
7. Draw three lines that are curvy.
8. Draw six short lines.
9. Draw one long line.
10. Add four more shapes.

*Go over all your pencil lines with thin black marker, then erase your pencil lines.

Part II Directions (do this with markers and colored pencils):

1. Fill in an odd number of shapes with a dark colored marker.
2. Fill at least five shapes with gradation.
3. Fill at least five shapes with pointillism.
4. Fill at least five shapes with cross-hatching.

*No shapes may be left blank.

Rules for Coloring (use the part II directions to make these combinations):

1. Make red turn into orange.
2. Make orange turn into yellow.
3. Make green turn into yellow.
4. Make blue turn into green.
5. Make violet turn into blue.
6. Make violet turn into red.

*These rules may be repeated as necessary to fill the paper.

Here are some of our completed projects:

 

Flappy Bird - Coding our own game

Today in class P3 learnt about computer science and were able to code their own 'Flappy Bird' game.

I got the idea from Tracy Tindle (who I have also hitchhiked on her Minecraft Lifeforms Project) - check out her blog - http://misstindlesclass.wordpress.com/

They looked at the pros and cons of the current game and made improvements they thought would make the game more marketable.

P3 already have previous experience using scratch, they were able to move through the levels very quickly. There are 10 levels, each level adding in a new element for them to think about. The only challenge from them was that they hadn't realized that the green blocks were the event blocks and that they required purple and/or blue blocks underneath them. They also needed to ensure they didn't have any loose blocks in the creative screen.

My Flappy Bird Game

Next session:

- Binary code

- Angry birds game

PBL Session Three - Staff Meeting 19.05.14

Walt - Choose different approaches to scaffold our students in deciding on their option for exploration

Sorting out our options before making our final decision (in regards to initial classic brainstorm)

Why do we need to choose one option?
What do you need to be thinking about when choosing that option?

- Time frame
- Resources
- The option may not answer our PBL scenario and provocative question

We need to:

- Convince a family member or a sponsor that our exploration is important for the future of humans

Number the options
- Sorting the options out in different ways
- Share the processes (work out what works for own classes)

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Scenario: The future of humans depends on exploration. You are an explorer contributing to our future. You are to produce a plan for your exploration that convinces your family, class and a sponsor that this exploration is important. 

Provocative Question: What do you need to consider to be up to the challenge of planning an exploration that will get sponsorship today?

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These topics need a specific research question

Will not let us answer the question:

- How children talk to each other
- Eternal youth
- String tapping
- Frequencies

Will let us answer the question

Bold = The option we selected

- Underground rivers
- Outer-space (possibility of life, food sources, travel)
- Mining and its effect
- Marine Biology (food source)
- Other countries
- Food evolution (how food affects health)
- Medicine (new drugs to replace ones that no longer work, cure for cancer)
- Diets (gluten free, nutrition)
- Maui's travel (exploring local marae/iwi)
- Surviving hostile environments (natural selection, wars and conflict)
- Human evolution
- Antarctica (polar ice caps melting, conservation)
- Ways to help people in need (very broad - needs to be narrowed down - could get sponsorship if it was given a context)

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Other ways to narrow down the choices

- Travel versus non travel
- Look at the list of headings from the classic brainstorm and categorise them into the categories they see fit (e.g. - food, music, myths and legends, space, geography, relationships, biology, philosophy and religion)
- Create four questions within the scenario to ask for each of the topics in the classic brainstorm
- Can  the topic answer the provocative question?
- Will the exploration help us in the future?
- Is it likely to get sponsorship?
- Is it interesting?

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Next Step: Get a generalised idea on the research questions we need to ask to answer the provocative questions

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What to include in our report to the sponsors:

- Equipment and resources needed

- Purpose

- The people you want to take with you or work with

- Potential benefits

- The ways to explore and research - e.g. - People (interviews)

- Estimated cost

- Challenges and barriers

- Expected time frame

- Who is your exploration aimed at?

- Presentation method

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Put children into pairs and have them decide on an option - must be in pairs first before the decide on an option!

 - Scaffold their choices
- Can possibly pre determine the questions

How are you going to present your final product/findings (concluding performance to share their learning) - encourage creativity. 

How persuasive is their plan?

- Pamphlet
- Poster
- Skit
- Slideshow
- Documentary Film
- Mock Trial
- Lecture
- Designing a Tool
- Muesum

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P3 Groups

Bradley and Ash
Bryce and Hunter
Maya and Tegan
Josh and Shaurye and Michael
Tanner and Kyle and Anthony
Alexa and Estelle and Sacha
Marnie and Casey
Rawinia and Senna
Devon and Matthew
Thomas and Cohen
Ronan and Daniel
Cameron and Cole

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Reflection on Process for first two sessions:

Session 1:

- Was very broad and overwhelming to begin with, was unsure of where we were headed and what the final presentation was going to look like
- Classic brainstorm was successful - student's were able to share a lot of ideas (most on topic but some that need to be weeded out using the process above)

Session 2:

- Hugely successful!!
- The decision making process encouraged a lot of discussion and tied in perfectly to our novel study
- Students were able to work in groups and individually through this critical thinking strategy

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