MS. DETERRA'S MAKER STUDIO

Today, we had our first Class Meeting. In the past, class meeting may have been an opportunity to discuss issues that have come up in the classroom, which we will still do; however, we will also use class meetings as an opportunity for students to learn leadership, to learn how a business meeting is run, and to propose events for our class. The meetings will have a student leader each week, as well as a meeting recorder who takes minutes. Students can add items to the weekly agenda and make motions to discuss certain issues. Today I modelled how to be the leader of the meeting, and next week I will ask someone to run the meeting in my place. We formed committees to take action on our discussion, so the Halloween and Gingerbread House committees will present their ideas around those two events next week.

Students also did a Think, Pair, Share activity. Rather than have everyone read all articles on the nervous, urinary, endocrine, and immune systems, as well as an article about the skin, we broke into groups with 5-6 students per article. They had to read it, highlight it (and students were reminded that highlighting does not equal painting the paper yellow, but only indicating the important information), and then meet with their group members to figure out how to share information with the class. All of the articles can be found on the Kids Health website. We will present these tomorrow.

Ms. Carson from the Advanced Learning Team came to visit us as students demonstrated the Question Formulation Technique. Students used the technique to brainstorm questions about our unit focus statement. When asked what they enjoyed about the activity, students said they thought it was interesting how many questions were asked, how they came up with so many deeper questions, and how hard it is to not give commentary (or value) to particular questions. Many of them liked the fact that questions were not judged and were instead just collected, as it allowed them to feel more like sharing. They showed a strong understanding of closed and open questions, which will help us as we get into more independent research.

For the afternoon, students did another journal entry, and we went over journal criteria together. This criteria can be found for your information under Notices and Forms.

Then we completed part 2 of our art project we started on Friday. They demonstrated their math measurement and geometry skills by cutting twelve, square panels from their art produced Friday and then evenly spacing them on a piece of black paper. It was encouraging to see students helping one another as they shared knowledge of how to use measurement tools to make perfect squares. These are now displayed above our whiteboard, and the class is looking more personalized every day!

As students finished, they also completed any work left from their Body Stations packet, which is due to Ms. DeTerra on Friday.

No homework today; however, agendas need to be signed, scholastic orders are due Friday, and forms from the office (the student verification form and larger packet sent Friday) are due ASAP. Students are collecting money for the Terry Fox run this Friday, and the suggested donation is at least $1. Reminder: the Carnival is this Thursday! And our Parent Night has been changed from this Thursday to October 8th. Please do see me during office hours tomorrow, 3-4:30 PM, if you would like to speak with me.

Hope everyone is enjoying the weekend despite the rain, although I think the rain is lovely given how dry our summer was. Since I am originally from Alaska, I enjoy the cold and wet! So, today, I broke out my new boots and wool hat!

Speaking of rain…please make sure your child gets some rain boots or a change of shoes. It can be a good idea so they can change after outside breaks. Otherwise, our portable area will become a big mess during the day.

Friday was an energetic day full of activity! First, we reviewed the digestive system. I had asked each child to think about the journey of a cheerio through their digestive system as part of Thursday night’s homework. In the morning, everyone worked in small groups to show me their understanding of digestion. By showing, I mean that they were given 15 minutes to prepare a quick dramatic skit, using their bodies and words, to show the journey of the cheerio. Afterwards, each group presented to the class, and we discussed their understandings or any details that could be added along the way.

Then, we began working on a two-part art project. It is important students gain a sense of the elements and principles of art, and our focus at the moment is LINE. We also had opportunities to discuss COLOUR as a review of art they may have had in the past. We are each making a nine-panel display that will be made up of different pieces we created on Friday. Students chose either all warm or cool colours for the activity and completed six stations designed to experiment with different media and line: 1. Find a quote and write it in handwriting on black rectangular paper using chalk, 2. Use oil pastels to make a lined pattern, 3. Cut paper of all different types into lines and glue it in a pattern on another rectangular sheet, 4. Paint large swirls using acrylic paint, 5. Make black circle pattern prints using cups and black acrylic paint, and 6. Make interesting lines on paper using chalk and then smear it using fingers or tissue. Using our math and measurement skills, we will be taking these papers and cutting them to make a larger display of evenly spaced squares. Our classroom is quickly taking shape with the decoration provided by student work!

After recess, we had a math assessment. The students in MACC 4/5 have all come to the class with differing levels of math, and it is important I know exactly where to begin or where curriculum may need to be reviewed. To this end, both Mr. Rodgers in the MACC 6/7 class and I have been using some short math assessments. These are not for marks and are only for the purposes of ensuring I am focusing my efforts in the right place! If the math assessment for the current grade level is passed, I will ask students to take the next levels, taking note of where improvement or review is needed.

Many students have strong computational math skills; however, understanding math vocabulary or using applied math in problem solving is more challenging. We will focus on both computational and applied learning, while trying to find common project work that can be done by all students at varying levels. While sometimes students will need some independent math to learn new skills at their specific level, my hope is that we will all be able to work together on project work that can involve everyone’s level of math strength. It will take time to investigate strengths and areas to focus on together, as I explained to the students.

After lunch, students had MUSIC! They have music on Thursdays and Fridays directly after lunch. On Thursdays, it is with Ms. Hetrick, and on Fridays, it is with Mr. Wilson. The two music teachers will both be working together closely to provide a dynamic music program.

On Fridays, we will often have OPEN CHOICE TIME. This time will be sometimes dedicated to open, community-building time, during which students will have a choice of many different activities to do with partners or by themselves. As the year progresses, this time will also be our SPECIAL PROJECT time, during which students will be working on an independent, more self-directed passion project. This Friday, students were involved in active games of chess and Blokus (Ms. DeTerra enjoyed Blokus, too, as it is a fun tetris-like math game!), drawing in small groups, working on some marble mazes constructed with materials in the classroom, putting together a human anatomy 3D model, reading, writing, or working on experiments from our Body Stations Packet. It was also Max’s birthday, so thank you Max for bringing in cupcakes for everyone! Happy Birthday!

HOMEWORK and IMPORTANT NEWS:

• Read the article on the respiratory system from the Body Systems packet and finish labeling that system (many have this done already.) Be able to explain how the respiratory system works for Monday.
• Read 20 minutes and continue Reading Around the World.
• Look over the yellow student verification form sent home, and if there are errors, please send back to school with corrections. A large packet was sent out on Friday from the school with forms that need to be completed and returned.
• Terry Fox is on Sept. 30th at 2:00 PM, and starting next week, the school will begin collecting donations toward the Terry Fox Foundation for cancer research. The suggested donation is to send at least a loonie.
• I sent out Scholastic Orders, but if your child didn’t take one, I have more copies in the classroom. Orders for this month are due at the end of next week.
• The parent information night for MACC has had to be changed once again due to the Carnival and also in response to parent concerns about attending. We apologize for the inconvenience. I will put a separate post regarding this, but it will now be on October 8th at 6:00 PM. That said, please stop by during my office hours or ask to make an appointment if you need any clarification or explanation of how I do things in class.

Have a great weekend!

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!

As our unit focuses on personal choices, we brainstormed the types of personal choices that can have an impact on our health. The students suggested sleep, eating, healthy food, hygiene, exercises, stress levels, and more. Afterwards, we divided into groups to take on a math challenge. Each group was given the task of making a graph to represent certain information about the class, as related to all of the students’ personal choices. For many students, this was a review, and it allowed Ms. DeTerra to see what they knew about: graph making, types of graphs, gathering data, making a survey, and communicating information visually in a clear manner. Those students who understood how to do so added percentages to their graphs, and some groups worked with Ms. D to convert their data to percentages. The activity allowed us to begin exploring personal choices and provided a snapshot of strengths as regards the computations and processes behind data collection.

Our next project for art was designed to learn about students strengths, passions and interests. We also discussed the idea of abstract versus realistic or literal art messages. Ms. DeTerra provided a large number of materials and discussed how they could be used to make 2D and 3D collages on paper. Students were encouraged to find abstract ways to represent themselves or their interests. Some converted the piece of paper into a mini marble maze. One student had a trampoline and a book built on her paper. Others had fun making creations with hot glue guns. Ms. DeTerra enjoyed watching students use their creative thinking skills with alternative materials and posted them in the classroom to see.

Finally, we continued working on our body systems packet, finishing experiments from yesterday. HOMEWORK tonight, if it is not done already from class time, is to finish reading the three pages of Kids Health on the Circulatory System, answer the quick questions about the circulatory system, and then label the heart. Many students are done with this already.

Agendas are coming! We have them, but we are waiting for a notice from the office regarding payment, as there is a small fee for them. Thank you for your patience. See everyone tomorrow!

Today we had another great day! First we started to get ourselves organized for work by getting our binder and journal systems set up. Students have binders for three things, and these binders typically stay in class. One is blue (the unit work), one is red (for math and other stand alone work), and the last is black (our portfolios.) Students also have a red journal booklet for writing and a blue booklet as an art journal. We went over criteria together for the writing journal and Ms. DeTerra introduced her pie writing starters, which students chose from to receive writing prompts today. The art journal will be for doodling and also for trying out art techniques before using them in larger projects.

For the afternoon session, we did some human body stations in small groups. Students rotated between different tasks designed to learn about the different human systems, whether it was labeling anatomy, reading about the systems, measuring their breathing rate, determining the length of the whole digestion system, or discovering their lung capacity using water. Please ask your child to tell you about the lung capacity experiment today!

Homework: All students have been asked to bring something in related to our unit to share. This can be an internet article they print, a link to an article they send to me in email, a book from home that has something related to the unit, a past project, or anything else they can brainstorm that may be related. I look forward to seeing what they bring in!