MS. DETERRA'S MAKER STUDIO

Hello Everyone!

Some of you are still working on finishing the math tasks, which is fine, but you may need to use more of your personal time now to catch up. Come show me your completed tasks as soon as you are done.

For those who are ready, please begin working on your own math game!

Learning Intention: Create a game for a specific audience that will teach or practice specific math skills.  

Requirements:

• Choose an audience for your game. It could be our class, intermediate students, or primary students, such as our buddy class.
• Choose a format for your game. It does not have to be something complicated. Think about all the games we experimented with during our unit. 
• Think about what will make a game appealing. When you compared games, what kinds of things did you notice will make an interesting game?
• Many of you said you enjoyed critical-thinking games that involve strategy. What strategy will you need to use to win your game?
• Think about a unique idea. Avoid playing another version of a pre-existing card or board game. You can use elements of games you have played, but we are not copying games.
• Determine what materials you will need. Either create or gather what you will need to play the game.
• Write a set of rules for the game on the computer in size 12 font. Rules need to have the game title, game objective, game materials, game strategy, the math you are practicing through the game, and the steps you will need to play the game.
• Have someone play your game. 
• Evaluate your own game for its success!

Last year, we made complicated board games for the human body unit. The purpose of those games was to practice specific knowledge from the unit. For this project, however, the intention is to use math actively, and to involve critical-thinking skills and strategy! So, the game can be more simple in its format, but you need to put some time into how the game is played.

I look forward to seeing what you come up with!

Ms. D

Hello Everyone!

As we finish our unit on the concept of STRUCTURE, we are going to communicate our understandings using the tools of PowerPoint or Google Slides, our presentation voices, and the research we did during the unit on an animal’s structure.

Earlier in our unit, we discussed the human skeleton and how its form is related to its function. We then expanded our thinking to look at animal skeletons, observing how they are different from the human one, and thinking about the function of their skeletons based on habitat, adaptations, predators, etc. Each student chose an animal they were interested in and did research to answer these questions:

1. What is the form of the animal? (Skeleton, features, etc.)
2. What are the adaptations of the animal? (Adapted to environment/habitat and protecting itself from predators)
3. How does it get its food source? (what form/features does it have that help it get its food)
4. Any other interesting facts about your animal?

This was a great introduction to research we will do throughout the year during our inquiry projects. We talked about how to use a question to drive your research AND how to document findings through note taking in the journal.

NOW….we are going to make a PowerPoint or Google Slides presentation to show how form is related to function.

If you are new to PowerPoint, here are the things we are learning how to do. (Know the basics, and then if there’s time, use other fancy features. The fancy features are not required.:

1. Create a PowerPoint by choosing a theme/design
2. Insert and add to text boxes
3. Creating titles
4. Using different fonts and changing size and colour — making fonts clear to read!
5. Adding images from the internet (and not using copyrighted images!)
6. Changing the colour of a background on a slide — but not using red or black!
7. Viewing the slide show
8. Changing order of slides
9. Limiting slides to title, image, 1-2 sentences or bullet points

Most students chose to do their animal for this PowerPoint, while a few decided to do a different object or animal, and that is fine. Just take into mind that this choice results in a bit more work to do the research part again! For those new to PowerPoint or in grade four, I highly recommend you do the animal we already researched to save time.

For the presentation, please include:

1. A title slide — title, name, date
2. A theme or design you use throughout the presentation
3. Talk about an animal or object, and how its form follows function.
4. Have 10 slides maximum.
5. Talk about:  What is the form? 
6. Talk about:  What is the function?
7. Talk about:  How are form and function of this animal or object connected?
8. No bibliography is required for this presentation.
9. Keep text to 1-2 sentences or bullet points per slide.
10. You will be presenting this out loud. If you want to add notes to slides to help, you can do this.
11. Remember, PowerPoint is a visual tool! We use it to illustrate the things we want to say! You can always SAY more than you WRITE when you present.

Please let me know if you have any questions!

Ms. D

Hello Everyone!

As we investigate the concept of STRUCTURE in numbers, I have provided a variety of independent and collaborative tasks to explore our math content and curricular competencies.

The tasks involve playing games and analyzing them, making visual representations of math concepts, creating a math rap, answering math questions online and in a book, and more.

Students have a lot of choice, and they can complete tasks in any order. Depending on how they feel, they can work with a partner at a large table, or choose to sit alone for a bit at a private desk. I hope it will provide everyone with the appropriate level of engagement they need to explore our math curriculum with depth and complexity. If anyone needs help with the questions, I am here to guide and to teach students one-on-one.

The task list is kept in the red binder. Red binders can be taken home as long as they come back to class each day. I will give time in class each day and all games and tools are available in class. Websites to explain the games, as well as more complex topics, are available under “Math” in the Articles of Interest.

The tasks allow us to investigate math content and curricular competencies across subject areas. As they work together or alone, students will be able to:

• Practice and discuss elements of good learning and work habits
• Use critical-thinking skills to obtain information and mathematical understandings
• Exchange ideas and build shared understandings about the math content.
• Integrate language arts and math, using language in creative ways to express math understandings.
• Answer critical-thinking questions, ask questions of their own, corroborate inferences, and draw conclusions using evidence.
• Collect simple data to provide evidence about their thinking
• Use graphs and venn diagrams to make comparisons and organize the data.
• Develop mental math strategies and abilities to make sense of quantities (Magic Number activities, Sumoku game, Quirkle).
• Visualize to explore mathematical concepts (Quirkle, Blokus, Venn Diagrams)
• Use technology to explore mathematics (iPad videos, Math is Fun website, Domain of Science YouTube Channel, and more.)
• Develop, demonstrate, and apply math understandings through play, inquiry, and problem solving.
• Communicate math understandings in many ways.
• Work with addition and subtraction, multiplication and division, and multiples and factors according to their abilities and grade level.
• Explore patterns found in numbers and how they can be represented both visually and numerically.
• Investigate number concepts such as types of numbers (irrational, rational, integers, etc.), number lines, prime and composite numbers, and more.

Enjoy our math tasks!

Ms. D

Hello Everyone!

In class, we have started working on a project related to social studies, applied design, science, and language arts curriculum content and competencies.

Each student is inventing their own world to show an understanding of the concept of STRUCTURE as it relates to how our own world is organized to support human life.

We are working in partner groups, and the creative thinking is going well!

As you create your own world, here are the things you need to think about to show a complete understanding of STRUCTURE as it relates to how we organize ourselves:

• Where is your world situated in the universe? What universe? What star/sun is supporting life with its radiant energy? Are there other planets around it?
• What is the name of your world?
• What is the topography like on your world? What kind of land features, continents, bodies of water, etc. will your world have?
• How does the world support human life? (It can have other life on there, but the world must support humanoids.)
• Focus on one city on one continent. What is its name?
• Who lives in the city? Why do they live in that location?
• How is the city organized? (Government, Police, Services, etc.)
• How do people get the resources they need?
• How does the city make money to create things and live? Do the people make something specific and sell it? Do they sell resources?
• Does the city have a specific currency or trade system?
• How do people communicate? What is their language?
• Is there anything else about culture you can tell us about to show the STRUCTURE of how people live?

Once you have thought of all these things, then you need to present the information to us. First, you will need writing to address everything in the list above. How and where you write it will depend on the format you use for showing us your world. Here are the options:

• Create a poster of your world with pictures and writing
• Create a 2D model of your world with a piece of cardboard, and then use clay to represent the land and features. Then do some writing to explain it.
• Use the Book Creator app to put both pictures and writing together to show us your world.
• Create a 3D model of your world, and then use writing and other items to explain and show features of your world.

Lots of choices, but the important thing is to talk about the bullet points above. Steps to getting this done are:

1. Brainstorm with a partner details of the world.
2. Decide who is going to write on what features. Split up the work so each person has three things of their own to write about. That way each of you has a role.
3. Decide what format you will use for showing information. Gather any materials you will need and talk to the teacher about materials available in class.
4. Do some writing independently and then come together to talk about what you have written. Edit the writing and add any details. Make final drafts after editing.
5. Decide who will build which features, so the work is split up. Then come together with your features to make the main project.
6. If you need help sorting out roles, please talk to Ms. D
7. Keep checking the lists above to ensure you are on track and have addressed all the important questions about your world somewhere, either in the model/pictures you are creating or the writing.

Have fun! We will be using lots of core competencies during this project, such as communication and personal awareness skills as you work with a partner and balance your work, creative thinking skills to create the world, and critical thinking skills as you make thoughtful decisions about where to place your world.

Ms. D

Hello Everyone!

This is just a quick entry to summarize what we are doing for LANGUAGE ARTS as related to our concept of STRUCTURE.

Reading Around the World: This activity will be going on all year long to help provide structure for the 20 minutes of reading recommended every night. Thank you to the many students who are already using their green duotangs as a guide for choosing new reading! Ms. Ho is also there to help you on Wednesdays when we go to library, and she has made photocopies of encyclopedia entries for students who ask. Remember, our objective is to read a variety of different types of material. Try a newspaper, magazine, journal, non-fiction article, etc. Thank you for your reading efforts!

Tuning In Articles: Students received a yellow duotang, that needs to stay in their backpacks each day, for our Tuning In program. The focus is non-fiction articles, which are found on the Articles of Interest Page. Six reflections are due by October 12th. Time is given in class, and students may also work on it at home. Please use the guidelines in the duotang for how to write reflections. Our goal is to use critical-thinking and metacognition skills while reading. 

Vocabulary Building!: While we do not do regular spelling tests, we do introduce a variety of new vocabulary during the course of a unit. These words are recorded in our journals, repeated often, and written on the board, with the hopes students will use them when talking about learning in their e-Portfolios. In the yellow duotangs, students also have a Byrdseed Vocabulary Builder List, which for this month is about HOMOPHONES. Many homophones are frequently mixed up and misspelled. There are a series of tasks we will do to review the words, and the first one is to create puns or jokes!

Skill Share Project: Each of us has a skill we could share with the people around us! As we practice quality structure of sentences and paragraphs, students will be making mini-presentations to share a skill with others. So far, each student has brainstormed what kinds of skills they may want to share. More details to come in a separate post on the specific criteria for the project.

Create a New World: Students will be using many curricular competencies from language arts as they do their socials-related project around STRUCTURE, which is creating a new world with a partner(s)! Look for details to come in a separate post.

This is a small snapshot of the many ways we use both curricular content and competencies from language arts throughout our unit and school day. Thank you for your support of these skills and tasks at home, as well.

Ms. D