MakerSpace for Math Class

As the 4th graders embarked on their journey to learn how to find the area and perimeter for triangles and quadrangles, I wondered if there was an activity that they could complete in our MakerSpace to truly have them build, create, critically think, or problem solve something that would put their area and perimeter knowledge to good, real-world use. After meeting with our MakerSpace teacher and finding out that she was truly using her area and perimeter knowledge at home to build her dog a doghouse, we thought, "Let's have our kids construct doghouses out of cardboard boxes!" 

So often math revolves around the following: 

• whole group lesson (I am going to show you on the white board how to solve these problems)
• independent practice (AKA- worksheets)
• graded assignments 
• tests

Many times we miss:

• real-world application
• true critical thinking (rather than, regurgitation of equations and inputting of numbers to solve a problem)
• constructing of something by putting that knowledge to the test

When we began the project with our students we simply thought that the objectives would include using area and perimeter to create a doghouse along with collaboration, communication, creative thinking, problem solving, inquiry and so on. However, what came out of the project was so much more than that!

To start, I told the students that we were going to work in groups to construct a doghouse that would house my dog, Macy. The only parameters for the project included the following:

• students had to give me a blueprint with all sides, base and roof measured out in inches 
• area and perimeter for each side, roof, and base must be provided
• doghouse must be big enough to house Macy but not too big (I provided her measurements)

As the students began to create their blueprints, I noticed the variety of methods they set about within their groups to construct the doghouse. Had I passed out a worksheet, they all would have, for the most part, solved the equations the same way, silently at their seats. I would have collected the worksheets, graded them, retaught the lesson to students who did not master the concept and moved on. However, with this assignment, the students were sprawled out on the floor. Some were using rulers to measure out the house, others were using pencil and paper, and many chose to find apps that allowed them to create an actual blueprint on their devices. One of my favorite things that came about with this project was the following conversation that took place with a student:

"Mrs. Read, can the doorway be a circle rather than a rectangle?" (When you assign a MakerSpace project, you must be ready to provide, "Yes and," answers rather than, "No, you can't do that," answers. You must allow your students some freedom to explore and learn.)

"I am not going to say no, but I will warn you of this. I asked that you provide the area and perimeter of each shape you use. I have not taught you how to find the circumference of a circle just yet. Keep that in mind."

No more than 5-10 minutes later, the student comes back to me with his piece of paper and says, "Mrs. Read, I know you said you hadn't taught us how to find the circumference of a circle, but I googled it. When I googled it, I discovered that there was a formula. Well, I didn't understand the formula so I watched a video. After watching a video, I went back to my worksheet, figured out the radius of the circle, and solved for the circumference. Here is my work."

Ummm... what?! Amazing! Would this kind of thinking every played out had I handed him a worksheet? Nope. 

As the students worked through their constructions, I heard conversations amongst students such as:

"Wait, you measured that side wrong." "It doesn't really matter." "Yes! It absolutely does! If you measure the side wrong, it will throw off all of our calculations when it comes to the area and perimeter! Please measure again."

"What if instead of making your typical 4-sided doghouse we make a doghouse that is an octagonal shape?" 

Results from the project:

• higher level thinking
• extreme collaboration
• communication
• critical thinking
• problem solving
• inquiry
• fun
• hands-on learning
• authentic learning
• group work skills

Once the projects were completed, I instructed the student's to give an "elevator speech" describing their project. (Elevator speech= presenting your topic in about 30 seconds to a minute. Coined the name "elevator speech" because it is about the same amount of time it takes people to ride up or down an elevator.) During their brief speech, they were to try to describe what their group did well and what they needed to work on in the future. After each group presented, I had the students complete a self and peer evaluation to rate how well they worked with their teammates and how well their teammates worked with them.  I confidentially shared the feedback with the students but did not tell them which students voted them which score. 

6 Picture Story Update

Recently I posted about the "5 Picture Story" idea, which you can read here. Our 6th grade English teacher adapted the idea to fit her project which she is calling, "6 Picture Story."

Her key learning objectives for this project:

1. understand the importance and use of images in conveying a story (visual rhetoric of sorts)
2. using words strategically to convey an idea (mini grammar, rhetoric, and communication focus such as limited words)
3. learning and using new technologies, specifically the Pages App

To introduce the lesson, she began by asking what you need to tell a story and prodded their answers until someone came up with "words." She then told them that we weren't going to be using many words (specifically 6) to tell an autobiographical story. They talked about the use of images and how we could use visuals to also depict a story. She then presented her example that she had created. (As teachers, we tend to leave this step out. We assume that if we provide an example to our students, this will inhibit their creativity rather than foster it. I myself do not love providing samples for this very reason. However, I have noticed that by not providing a sample, many times the outcome is not pretty. The kids drop the ball and really, it was me. I dropped the ball by not providing a sample to allow them to guide them through the process.) Next, the students followed all the steps of the writing process (brainstorm, plan, draft, and revise) for their Pages document, brainstorming and planning the 6 words and images separately before drafting and revising the final product. Next, they peer reviewed the documents and then she gave them a short lesson on presentation skills allowing time for a presentation practice run. Finally, each student presented their finished product to the class. Below are a couple student samples from this project.

A Trip Around the World in Math Class

Math Learning Objective:
Learn how to add and subtract large numbers

Normally I would have:

• led a whole group learning session on how to add and subtract large numbers
• practice on white boards
• complete graded activity 

This time I:

• still led a whole group learning session on how to add and subtract large numbers

Here is where the change came into play... instead of having them practice on their white boards, we pretended that we were going to take a trip to Cairo, Egypt. However, we had two choices: we could fly to Africa via way of Rome, or fly to Africa via way of Athens. The students had to now research: 

• distance from DFW to Rome
• distance from Rome to Cairo
• distance from DFW to Athens
• distance from Athens to Cairo

Not only did the students learn how to add and subtract large numbers, but they also had a chance to learn about our world. This math activity led to, "What would we do while we were there? What type of clothing should we pack? What types of foods would we eat?" My learning objective was met, but in a much deeper sense. I have learned that all of us have creative juices flowing, we just have to be willing to think of things differently. Keep your learning objective at the front of your mind, but ask yourself, "How can I meet this learning objective in a different way than the traditional way?"

Google Earth

The time time has come for our 6th graders to learn about Ancient Greece. Instead of just reading about Greece, how about we "visit" Greece this year? That sounds more exciting, engaging, and authentic to me than opening a textbook and reading about how Greece came to be. But how? How can we "visit" Greece from the great state of Texas? Welcome Google Earth!

By using Google Earth, you can virtually fly to anywhere in the world in real time. To learn more about using Google Earth, visit this Google support page. 

Ideas of how to use Google Earth in the classroom:

1. When you begin studying a new region within the United States, visit that region to learn about different landmarks.
2. When students share about their summer, winter and spring vacations, have them share by taking the class on a tour of that location.
3. Science- When teaching about different parts of the world, coral reef, volcanos and so forth, use google earth to view that part of the world rather than simply talk about it.

Links for ideas of using Google Earth in the classroom:

1. http://digitalexplorer.com/2010/01/12/40-ideas-on-using-google-earth-and-maps-in-the-classroom/
2. https://www.pinterest.com/farrahrosenthal/google-earth-ideas/
3. http://k12teacherstaffdevelopment.com/tlb/google-earth-in-the-classroom/

Google Drawing Ideas

Google Drawing Lesson Idea

Lesson: Prior to learning about the founding and colonizing of Europe, students will find a picture of Jamestown and insert speech bubbles guessing what the American Indians and/or Europeans would have said. (They could then post their pictures to www.padlet.com so that everyone in the class could view.) After reading about and discussing the founding of Jamestown, students would then go back to their image and correct their speech bubbles to represent history. 

You can find my drawing sample here.

I created a template that could be used here. 

10 Ideas of how to use Google Drawings in the classroom:

Taken from Shakeuplearning.com

Remembering the Why

"It's hard!"
"They layout is weird."
"We have to write in first-person from the viewpoint of a historical figure and it is really hard to do that."
"Can't we just take a written test instead?"

We could take a written test instead, but we enjoy torturing you kids. ;)

The quotes above were just a few of the complaints we heard from our 7th graders after their first few posts on their blog. A few months ago I blogged about a Cross-Divisional Blogging activity occurring between our 4th and 7th grade students. You can read that blog here.

When we introduced the lesson, Mr. Millians, the 7th grade history teacher, and I were so pumped to create this relationship between two grade levels and were also excited to challenge our students to think differently than the traditional "let's read section 2, complete a worksheet, and take a test" history class. But... man oh man did the kids challenge us! When we started to feel their frustrations and push back, we questioned ourselves as teachers. "Is this worth it? Should we continue? Are the kids right?" Anytime your students act as though they do not enjoy a lesson, you always reflect and take a few moments to really figure out what is going on in their minds and how we can comfort them. After reflecting upon a class period where the students shared their emotions with us (and good grief, 7th graders will be honest with you about their emotions!), Mr. Millians and I felt as though this activity was more necessary to continue than ever before. What we realized they were saying was, "Ugh! Why are you making us think differently? For years, you have taught us to sit and listen, complete a worksheet, take a written test, and move on to the next chapter. Now, you want us to actually think and apply?!" The kids were frustrated with the concept of application. Not the concept of a blog. At first, I thought they were frustrated with the platform we were using, but then I quickly realized they were frustrated that we were breaking a cycle that we, as teachers, have engrained in them for so long. We were adding depth and application to a history class. (Insert audible gasp from students here.)

Looking back, I wish we would have added in the "why" when we introduced the idea of the blog and collaboration project. I wish we would have held a detailed conversation about why were doing this activity and been 100% honest with the kids. I wish we would have talked about things like:

• Research a blog and look at their style of writing
• What is the purpose of this activity?
• Why are we having you write from the first person point of view of a historical figure?
• Why are we not simply having you read chapter 1, and summarize on a blog post?
• Why is it important to write from that person's perspective?

I truly think adding in the "why" into our preliminary conversation with the students, could have helped with some of the frustrations the students were feeling. Would it truly have avoided these feelings? No. Why? Because 7th graders like to (insert word deleted as a wonderful, former teacher use to always say) complain. However, it would have at least shared with them the reason behind us challenging them as thinkers. 

Virtual Valentine's

In January, we decided to take a leap and sign up the three, fourth grade classes to take part in a "Virtual Valentine's Day" exchange.

What is a Virtual Valentine's?
By taking part in the Virtual Valentine's Exchange, our class was agreeing to:

• create virtual Valentine's for another class
• respond via email to the other class
• share our virtual Valentine's 
• figure out how far in miles we were from the other class

Why take part in this type of exchange?

When we originally signed up, our learning objective was to flatten the world and expose our students to another set of students within our world. We were hoping to be connected with a class far across the country or even in another country. However, our learning objectives grew drastically. By taking part in the Virtual Valentine's exchange, we not only flattened the world, but our students were also exposed to:

• weather discussions
• technology skills (copy, paste, a new website, embed) 
• writing practice
• inquiry

We truly never expected our kids to learn so much from a simple Valentine's exchange. It was evident that our kids needed more practice with technology skills as this assignment exposed those gaps. Our students had never embedded a link before and this activity taught them how to do that. They also learned how to use a new website and brainstormed ways that we could use this website in class.

So what did the Virtual Valentine's exchange look like?

The teacher from New Jersey reached out to my class via email.

We responded to her email as a class.

Her class asked us a few questions.

As a class, we responded to those questions and then asked her class questions.

Mrs. S's class responded to our questions and my students found it funny that they had to research rodeos. It was a great discussion of life in the south versus life living in the east coast. We talked about ranches and farms that exist here versus what their land was like. Since we have been discussing the 13 colonies in social studies, it was perfect timing to talk about New Jersey's land offerings and what jobs people hold now that they also held back in the 1600s and 1700s. 

At this point, our classes began working on their Virtual Valentine's "gift" or creation. The Virtual Valentine's team provided us with these ideas on things we could create for the other class:

Since we had never used Buncee before, our class decided to give it a try. It ended up being a super easy website to use and our kids loved it! In fact, the day after using this website to create virtual valentine's, the science teacher used bungee in class. She had her students demonstrate similarities and differences between vertebrates and invertebrates. 

Here are a few examples of the buncees our students created. 

Mrs. Seidler's class, the class we were matched up with, chose to send us a fun video. Watch video here.

What a fun experience that I hope to continue in the future!  As I said earlier, our learning objective originally was to flatten the world and simply do something fun and different. Something to break the traditional learning day. This project became so much more than that. The students learned about another part of our country, but also learned a few new technology skills as well. I challenge you to break the daily cycle and try something new and different with your kiddos!