Some Other Mathsy Stuff, and End of Year Reflection

I don't want to waffle with this, so I'll try to keep it brief. I am feeling a bit happy because I have finished reports, and the mural is complete and I didn't end up having to do the movie... (next year I should try harder to make time).
I just wanted to show a couple of things

An idea I saw on Pinterest, adapted a little, and was pleased with the results. Kaleidoscope names, lots of symmetry- reflection and rotation, and it was something that every single child was successful with.

A chart I made to calculate weight and age on the other planets in our Solar System. The photo is not so clear, and I don't have scales, but most of the children know how much they weigh. I velcro sticky dotted a calculator to the wall for those who needed it, and it gets used frequently. 

End of Year Reflection
I was not so sure about Gloss testing to start with. And I must say that it took ages to retest at the end of the year for final results, longer, I am sure, than it did at the beginning. This is probably because the children were able to answer more questions. Which means that they made progress. In some cases, heaps of progress!
I had a few children move from end of Early Additive, Stage 5, all the way to the beginning of Advanced Multiplicative, Stage 7! In a year! That is incredible!
Number Knowledge didn't increase massively like the Strategies, but there is progress with speed and accuracy in recall of basic facts.
I was amazed with the Gloss test results though. It really must be the problem solving groups, all the discussion, the talk moves, everything, because I saw some brilliant application of strategies during testing. I saw the children using what they had learnt, what they have practised, what they have retained throughout the year. I saw them calculating and problem solving in their heads, not needing paper or materials. I heard them use mathematical language to clearly explain their strategies. And I am impressed.
I still love number games, and we always have one at the beginning and one at the end of each session.
I confess to not doing Problem Solving Groups every single day, some days it's just nice to do other things in maths!
If it would work to include the other strands (statistics, geometry, measurement) with our numeracy classes, I am happy to try it out. But I really like to link strands to all the other curriculum areas we do in our own classes, especially Geometry, my favourite! Perhaps I could do it with both classes. It's just when the opportunities arise with my class, I can't help myself, we end up doing a mathsy/arty/literacy/sciency type activity because it fits with what we are doing!
Gosh I sound intelligent adding y to all those curriculum areas...not!
I'm going now. I have to think about next year, planning day this Wednesday, and if I focus very hard, I might be able to think of something to contribute!

We Did Do Science Too!

Appraisal indicators include Science, and I thought I'd best show evidence of this, and that we had actually done more than just our rock study and space study, all relating to Planet Earth and Beyond. While learning through Mantle of the Expert, we became geologists and then astronomers. But we also did lots of other Science stuff!

During Science Weeks, I, as a teacher, learnt a bit too! For the first Science burst I chose light refraction as a topic. This was really neat, the experiments were awesome and didn't end up costing a fortune (like the year I bought a whole lot of things like iodine and fizzy vitamin tablets and peroxide, and searched for some weird "ingredients" that you can't even buy anymore but the local chemist might be able to order it from somewhere...) so I was pretty happy I had everything I needed right there in my kitchen. Youtube had fabulous demonstration videos, the experiments were easy to carry out, and successful!  And we all Responded with Wonderment and Awe, we really did go "Wow," because it was like magic. I love anything to do with visual perception!

The broken straw

This worked with backwards words, arrows and patterns. Pretty cool!

The floating coin trick!

The following Science Week, I chose Sound as the focus. This too was pretty good, the best parts were the sound experiments using balloons and coins, making cup phones, amplifying sound with plastic cups, string and damp sponges, and exploring sound vibrations with string and teaspoons. Again, this cost very little, I only had to purchase cheap teaspoons! No photos though, I filmed that one, because you can't hear sound in a photo!  I can just put on a couple of screen shots...

Sound vibrations traveling up the string

The Chicken Dance! I put the music on and the children did the noises with their damp sponges run down string and amplified through the cups. Cutest video on our end of year DVD.

When we were offered a Mister Science super science trial box, I jumped at the chance. This was truly an awesome resource and I hope we really do get them for the future because it was so easy to use, all of the equipment and materials were there, and instructions on how to use it, and there was enough for the whole class. The best bit... kids actually tried it out at home after carrying out the experiment in class, made changes to the experiment (fair testing even!) and brought their slime to school to share and discuss.

Slime made with the Mister Science kit. Guar gum, water, food colour and Borax. You can get Borax at Bin Inn, and guar gum I have seen at Indian supermarkets.

Example of childrens experiments at home, - slime made with Elmers clear glue instead of guar gum!

What I've learnt:
Science links really well with the other curriculum areas, eg. maths - statistics, ART! literacy - reading and writing, social studies, ICT can be used throughout... the list goes on!
It was really nice to not limit the little science bursts to Planet Earth and Beyond. We had lots of 'unplanned moments' (like trying to open a coconut - biology/seeds/forces) and sharing a pomegranate (originally intended for literacy, but only 1 child out of 21 even knew what it was, let alone what it looked or tasted like, so the whole biology thing happened again with the seeds, plus they all got to predict, smell, taste, write descriptively, read Persephone and the Pomegranate Seeds, and paint, with the fruit as a subject for art!). We made butter (changing state of matter). We did some work on seasons as they changed. We did some work with fabric, tie dyeing and bleaching. We had our Cabinet of Curiosities which was continually being added to, and promoted further inquiry.  
Science made me wonder, it made the children wonder, and it's really fun trying to find the answers to our wonderings together. It's ok to not know all the answers as a teacher!...
Like my WOW moment back in October, when I saw a moonbow! For real, this was really amazing, I didn't even know they existed until I saw one. I had to go online and research! I took photos...as you can imagine, they did not come out.
The best thing about Science is that you have access to demonstrations for practically any experiment online, you just have to find the good ones!

Salt crystals in a jar, we tried lots of different types of salt

Imogen makes her own crystals at home after making them in class.

Ready to dye!

One of our salt crystals. Pretty pretty!

Shake the cream, make the...

...butter!

Miniature Museum Displays

I am so impressed with my class! The final commission was to create a mini exhibition display for a fictitious museum. The "experts" agreed to travel to planets within the Solar System, (there were tensions and issues along the way) collect rock/dust/gas samples, return to Earth and create the displays. Criteria for the displays was written and agreed upon out of role. The Creating, Imagining and Innovating Habit of Mind was applied along with Thinking Interdependently, as the class decided to invent aliens to go with the planets they were researching. Each display features an alien, suited to living on their particular planet, and I had some brilliant "factual" reports written about these aliens to go with the models. This is just a quick summary, the class are really excited about parents coming to view their displays during our school wide Festival of Learning, and I think they will be impressed. They are pretty cute!

Papier mache was such fun, and the children were able to create display cases that matched their plans exactly!

Saturn in a box!

Planet Earth. No aliens here though!

Mercury's alien looks suspiciously like a cat!

The Sun. Olaf is not an alien, but he loves the sun!

Mars, with fuzzy aliens, and it's a good thing they are fuzzy because it is freezing cold on one side of Mars!

A Trip to the Moon

I forgot how much fun Mantle of the Expert is, and I admit that I haven't really done a lot recently. I could make excuses, I've been screen printing, doing batik with the class, painting the mural at home, (I am so enjoying this but wish I could just spend all day every day working on it, rather than a bit here and a bit there. I am too impatient!) and trying to get this darn movie underway! Today I had 3 recording devices either go flat or die on me (luckily Yvette managed to get the footage off it for me. Thank you, Yvette, you're awesome!) and then the sound wouldn't play on the green screen footage that I did manage to get. So I will just quietly tear my hair out...
Back to what I intended to talk about, Mantle. We took a trip to the moon to gather rock samples. I had begun with a picture of a space craft that I drew on the whiteboard, and like when the boat was drawn for us as teachers during PD, the children started to talk. In a circle they shared who they were saying goodbye to before leaving Earth to go to the moon (I did it the same as the boat trip, tap on the shoulder etc).
I think I will just put captions with the photos, so you can see how much fun we had today.

Saying goodbye for real!

The excitement before lift off

Preparing to board the spacecraft

Walking on the moon

These are the expressions at lift off

2 children, new to the school, fully into it!

Upon return, the moon rock sample in Violet's hand is described in great detail!

So tomorrow we will receive a letter from Rose Teacup (anagram!) from the Museum of Fabrication, Invention & Pretence, asking if our company would be interested in travelling to other planets to collect samples for an exhibition. I will keep you posted, Mantle really is easier to write about than maths!

Between Zero & One

After a really great discussion with Dianne, I am back on track with everything. She gave me some examples of problems to use with the class, and although they solved the first two really quickly, it did become more challenging, and the children were able to really consolidate the new problem solving strategies as tasks became harder. The problems I had devised for them were taking too long to solve, and were more suitable for a higher level. But that's me... push them to the limit. Haha just kidding!
We also tried out the dotty dice game that was shown to us at staff meeting. The class really enjoyed it, and there was a lot of discussion surrounding improper fractions during the game. Then we adapted it. We tried out a number line with only zero to one, and the smaller number had to be the numerator, so no improper fractions. This worked really well too, and afterwards we talked about what worked well and what could be changed. The feedback I received was interesting. This is what they said...

• it is fun 
• we can compare the fractions
• we are putting them in order
• we can change improper fractions
• it is easy to play

Then a suggestion to try 3 dice, one as a whole number, the other two as a fraction, was given. They played this for what felt like ages. Funny thing is that when we talked about it, they said it wasn't challenging and that it was too easy to win!
So I was surprised when I asked them the following day what comes between zero and one, and I had responses like, "nothing" "9" and "ten numbers." We will get there!

4 in the group, I have 2 more in my class now, but I won't be changing my problem solving groups around. Dianne said it was OK to stay as they are. It works!

Too hard? They did get there eventually.

Ruby explains her strategy, but when you take out 1/32 and 1/32 from 32 jellybeans, the remaining fractions are not out of 30, it is still 1/4 of the total amount that is blue, and so on. This confusion made me realise how difficult my questions were for them!

And the best way to problem solve is to hang over the fitness ball!

Term 3 & Fractions

Term 3 has begun and I have not done much with the whole problem solving group thing because we have been playing around with fractions and while it is lots of fun, it is also time consuming, and the whole session just goes really, really quickly.
The children are loving using materials to explore fractions. Most sessions so far have been an introduction to fractions, and after I found out what the children already know, I realised that we had to take it right back to basics. We use the plastic fractions and fraction blocks to compare and order fractions. We have also used them to help us with decimals. We made our own fraction circles with compasses and two pieces of coloured card which can be spun around to show the size of easier fractions. The children really liked having their own fraction circles to manipulate and play with.
After comparing fractions, figuring out what the numerator and denominator actually mean, putting fractions in order, and discovering improper fractions, the children are now trying out some basic addition with fractions with the same denominator. We had a little bit of time looking at equivalent fractions too, so that will help when we get to some trickier adding a little further along in the term. The children are beginning to understand how important it is to know those basic facts, particularly division facts, and can now see why I nagged them to learn them! Fractions are easy if you know division facts.

The plastic fractions are awesome!

Yes, they are solving problems, even though it looks like they are just putting them all in order!

Fun Maths Assessment

I created this assessment sheet last year to see how well the children could remember what 'radius' and 'diameter' meant, after doing some work with circles. I also wanted to see them use exact measurements with a ruler, in both centimetres and millimetres, and apply the Habits of Mind Persisting & Striving for Accuracy. They all enjoyed using the compasses too, and for many of them it was the first time they had tried, so I am pretty impressed with the results.
The task was devised after I saw another really awesome idea on pinterest.

The assessment sheet / instructions. I probably should add in a bit for them to fill in about what they did well, and what they would change next time, and a space for my comment too.

Scrapbooks and Gloss Testing

After meeting with Dianne (quite some time ago sorry!) and discussing where to next, I decided that it would be ok to really challenge the children. I had originally thought I was asking too much of them by putting more than one problem to solve within each problem solving question, but Dianne said this was ok. So then I got all carried away and created a whole story about a chicken farmer with his eggs and this lasted all week because every day there would be a question relating to the solution from the previous day. This week it's a story about a party.

Some serious problem solving happening!

 The scrapbooks are working brilliantly, I can see at a glance who is doing what, and this made mid- year report writing so easy!
A few things I noticed...

• the gloss testing provided interesting results for some, compared to what they do in class
• the children are getting better at explaining their strategies
• some keep reverting back to additive strategies, or earlier, when they are faced with trickier problems
• 5 minutes silent time for problem solving at the beginning of each task is working well, it discourages the whole group from using the same strategy (this was an issue when we first began)
• revoicing and repeating (talk moves) only seem to work when the children are really focused. Even though I use the ice block sticks, sometimes they just aren't listening! (But I do that too sometimes, just switch off for a bit, so I can't be too annoyed about it!)
  
  
  

  

  See! I can see the whole week, check out each child's strategies and progress, and make my own notes too! It is good!

Muesli Bars!

This is just a quick post. My class had a big discussion about muesli bars some time ago, after a scary amount of muesli bar wrappers kept ruining our chances of winning the trophy in our Zero Waste school. To solve the problem they decided we should make our own, (which we have not yet done) and then we got to talking about health and nutrition and cost. This resulted in a collection of empty muesli bar boxes arriving at school on a daily basis, with which nutritional information was compared, and so I just had to make the most of it all and do statistics (even though statistics was not planned for this term!) At the end of it all, we now know

• the difference between histograms and bar graphs
• how to use "pages" on the computer, to produce a professional looking graph
• pie graphs weren't the right graph to display our findings
• what and x and y axis are
• graphs need titles and labels
• pictographs look nice but aren't so easy to read when you have lots of data
• that you need to be accurate
• Pam's Fruit and Nut bars were the best value for money, and the healthiest!

  

  Yes, Griffin's 100's & 1000's Muesli Bars was voted "Most Attractive Packaging" by Room 7!

The Superness of Pinterest

I am just quickly posting this while my class are busy creating graphs and charts for statistics. Two ideas I have used from Pinterest that work really well...
1) Bazinga - a game I found that another teacher created, it is an awesome game that can be used for any curriculum area but I am using it with my numeracy group and it is fun! I had to make it up myself, and even went as far as laminating the cards for it so that it will last. I really like it and the class love playing. It is a group game so involves everyone in the group, and I can use any questions I like. I don't watch telly so I didn't know Bazinga is taken from some telly show until someone pointed it out, but oh well!

2) Bottle of Dice - the other idea that I found on Pinterest, and love, is to put dice in a little bottle of water! I have been searching for the little bottles that I saw earlier in the year at The Warehouse. When I returned to get some they had none left, but last week one of my students said they had seen them there again. So I bought 2. It was the absolutely most revolting sugar free, zero calorie, fruit flavoured water drink ever, my husband managed to get his down, I tipped mine out, all for the sake of having a cute little bottle to put dice in. But they are adorable, and it stops the noisy, land on the floor and roll under furniture problem with enthusiastic dice rolling. Also, I can find the dice quickly, they don't get lost and put in the incorrect boxes, and I can change the amount of dice in the bottle to suit the game we are playing. The dice faces look magnified through the water too. Now I just need to get another few bottles. I wonder if the kids would drink the water?