Sculpting with scissors and Subtracting Traditionally

I have to admit that the most daunting thing about joining the brilliant Lewis community is Art Night.  I love Art.  I make Art.  I love teaching Art.  But teachers at this school teach some amazing stuff.  Fortunately my class is filled with a bunch of what we now called "creatives" - makers, designers, artists, and crafters.  Give them some materials and some tools and you suddenly have a room full of remarkable experimentation.  Art everywhere.

One of the projects we are preparing for Art Night is cut paper sculptures.  This emerged from student interest in a pop-up book that Dakotah shared.  We looked at some techniques for making three-dimensional figures out of paper.  Because we had already put in so much time learning Origami techniques, the students were able to jump right in.  Here are some of the initial experiments.

            

Third graders have been very diligent in taking their State tests over the past weeks.  Though we won't see the results of the tests any time soon, both Mrs. Zimmerman and I were impressed with how hard the kids worked.

Second graders have been working on adding and subtracting with larger amounts.  We have studied a few different techniques for combining and taking apart larger amounts.  None of these has been the traditional algorithm, aka how most adults were taught in school.  You may have caught wind of so-called Common Core math and how it is wildly new and different and confusing. First off, math teachers have been helping kids learn multiple ways to attach a problem for a long time - this is not something new or invented by the creators of Common Core.  Second, none of it is really confusing if you know that knowledge of multiple strategies is intended to build students' number sense - their grasp of our system of 10's and how amounts can be assembled and disassembled.  Mr. Lauer shared this video with us at a staff meeting earlier and I think it is worth watching again if you are interested in learning a little about why we teach arithmetic the way we do.

We have finally taken a headlong dive into studying the traditional method for adding and subtracting, carrying and borrowing.  This page from Khan Academy has some helpful tutorials if you are interested in doing a little online learning and practicing with your student.

Mountains on Maps and Reading on Computers

A student uses the "Stop and Think!" strategy while watching a BrainPop video.

It has been a real mindset switch for me having a full class set of computers for my students all the time.  So often a kid comes up to me with a big question and I start to answer or prompt their thinking and then say "I bet you could look that up!"  With this steady access, though, it is important that we give students the same level of skills and strategies for using digital resources effectively as we do for using print.  To right the proportion, I broadened the scope of our reading comprehension strategy study to include digital media.  We are now working on "Monitoring for Meaning" (knowing when you don't get it and working to fix that) with print articles, textbooks and online media.  It was revealing to me how much more easily some kids were able to apply the Stop and Think protocol and organizer with BrainPop videos than with National Geographic Kids articles.  Both were high interest and engaging, but I think there is something about the linear progression of video that makes it more concrete that you can pause.  You can literally pause!  With attractive infographic- and image-heavy layouts it can be hard to turn off the reading.

Our 3-D map is really coming along.  We took advantage of the sunny weather and did some 

papier-mâché mountain molding on our "front lawn."

I'm hoping everyone can join us Wednesday evening for the debut of our class plays.  We are counting on all students coming.  Please be at school by 6 so that we are ready to perform by 6:30.  There is a school day performance on Thursday at 2 PM if you can join us for that. 

These guys worked hard on this mountain but this batch of paste did not work out. They had fun anyway.

These three painted a small section of our map's West Hills.

Noodle tag!

Finding our terrain

To give students a sense of the built environment around them and how it works, we did a quick design study of building techniques using recycled milk cartons.  I rustled up four garbage bags full of milk cartons, a preponderance of them chocolate milk cartons, and borrowed a second hot glue gun from Ms. Speer. Thanks to Sophia's mom, Erica, Billy's mom, Sue, and Airamay's dad, Jahny, we were able to assemble some remarkable structures.

As ever the best element was the critical dialogue that happened between students who'd decided to collaborate.  There was a lot of putting together and taking apart, question asking and argument making. This quick immersion in architectural thinking will return later as we add urban infrastructure to our Portland map.

We also took a moment this past week to take stock of our class library.  There are a lot of books and a lot of books that no one is choosing to read anymore.  Table groups chose tubs to tidy and remove books that could either be retired or donated to another purpose.  I realized a beautiful Robert McCloskey book that had been read beyond salvation - loose pages and torn corners - would serve as good mentor art for water color landscapes later in the year and so I saved some of the beautiful illustrations.

Airamay's chicken coop, which has been the source of a lot of news recently, finally got a full presentation.  We learned all about different breeds of chickens, how to check their health, and what goes in to maintaining a healthy brood.

Maps so far

We have two big projects underway.  First is creating a three dimensional representation of the Portland Metro area, in the hopes of teaching students regional geography and history.  Last week we knocked out the giant canvas map project with great help from Megan Lee, Beckett's mom.  Mr. Lauer joked that I would be smelling tempera paint for days and sure enough, we used a nearly a gallon of green.  It turned out beautifully and I am excited to start adding features to it.  I already have a few volunteers to come work on it but would love more, if you find yourself with any availability.

The other project we started recently is a more personal set of mapping exercises that build students own sense of home and personal geography.  We started by creating maps of the school from memory.  Small groups worked to show as much as they could of Lewis' built and natural environment.  It was fascinating to see the spectrum of balance between small details and global perspective.  This is segueing nicely from the poetry we started recently, centering around identity.