Investigating the heart and our building skills!

Today we started the day by checking in on our homework, as students become accustomed to Ms. DeTerra’s check system for assessment. Our main focus today was understanding the flow of the blood through the heart. Students were given a variety of materials, including clay, straws, foil and popsicle sticks, to build a model that would show their understanding of the heart’s blood flow and four chambers. Another focus was learning group work skills essential to cooperative work environments. We discussed how this is an essential skill for many of the professions students said they would like to pursue when they wrote me in their personal letters last week.

After recess, we worked on the definition of a good question. Are there bad questions? What kinds of questions are google-able and easy to answer with a yes or no? Which questions are deeper, require more thought, and may ask us to look for information in more than one resource?

To practice our questioning, we did the question formulation technique. Students were placed in groups of three and given a piece of blank paper. We discussed that during the brainstorm, several rules must be followed. 1. There are no bad questions and all questions are good. (no judgement of questions.) 2. As questions are written for the brainstorm, no commentary can be given to indicate that a question is “great,” “excellent,” or “silly.” Again, no judgement and no value can be given to the question. 3. All questions should be written down — anything that comes to mind, no matter of its format or who says it in the group. And all group members can write at the same time, as there is not an assigned “writer” or “recorder.” 4. All questions should be written verbatim as they are said. We discussed how these rules are designed to help us practice not having a filter for our own questions, as we tend to judge what we will say before it even leaves our lips, and it may have been valuable toward the discussion!

Students were given the focus statement “Boundaries are a necessary part of recess time at a school.” They then had 10 minutes to fill a page with questions related to the statement. Afterwards, they had to review their questions to see if any of the things written needed re-wording to actually be considered a question. Finally, they sorted their questions by labelling them with O or C — O for Open-Ended and C for Closed. Students defined open-ended questions as those requiring more thought, deeper discussion, or more than one answer. Closed questions are those whose answer is found in one resource and may have a quick yes/no answer. We will be using this technique, among others, as we find questions that guide our studies throughout the year.

For the afternoon, we had MUSIC and PE. Music folders are purple duotangs, and these folders will most likely always be kept in Ms. Hetrick’s music classroom during the year. We will always have PE on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons in the gym from 2:15-3:00, which means students will end their day in the gym and be walking back from there as the bell rings. It also means that students have the option of changing into gym strip, as some students go directly home and may want to change there.

Homework: Please read the digestive sheets from the body works packet and answer the questions and label the parts of that system. Tomorrow, be prepared to explain what would happen to a cheerio from the moment you eat it to the time it passes from your body (what is left of it, anyway!) Students received agendas today. Parents should sign them daily so we know you have seen the homework; however, if parents need to communicate with Ms. DeTerra, it is better to email me directly versus relying on the agenda.

HAPPY Friday tomorrow! and Happy Birthday, Max!