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!