Extra M25 has been incredible this nine weeks because of Ozobots. Because of a generous grant through DKG Women Educators International, I was able to purchase ten Ozobots and develop lessons to aid students in honing critical and creative thinking skills. Ozobots are mini robots that provide a hands-on approach to learning coding. We began with observation about how Ozobot moves and what he likes, i.e., how he responds to various color codes. As students became familiar with Ozobot's habits, they launched into creative coding projects to make Ozobot complete a task. For example, one project that most of the elementary students completed was to make Ozobot travel around the first letter of their name--or for the older students--all three initials. Seventh and eighth graders worked on a checklist of Ozobot projects each week during small group time. They had to make Ozobot visit four presidents in chronological order; create a recycling path; make a project with spatial transformations; and, my favorite, create their own open ended project. This yielded a zoo visit for Ozobot as well as a trip to an amusement park, complete with a roller coaster. I will have the opportunity to share what my students I did with the Ozobots at the Fall Board Meeting of DKG International. I can't wait to use our Ozobots again next year!
6th grade ended the year by reading Across Five Aprils and broadening their knowledge about the Civil War. They successfully completed their Wordly Wise vocabulary series and did some poetry lessons and wrote original poems. The students have definitely grown in their writing skills and in their ability to analyze literature.
If you didn't hear about silkworms recently, then you are really "out of the 5th grade loop." 5th grade LAX students read a book, Project Mulberry, in which two friends do a project on silkworms. So, we just had to try our hand at raising silkworms, so I ordered the eggs. We watched, kept them warm and waited. Finally, after about two weeks, the silkworms hatched! We continued to keep them warm and well fed with silkworm chow. Special thanks to Ty, who silkworm sat over Easter Break. Last week, sensing they were ready to spin cocoons, we parceled them out to students who wanted to take one home and watch the development. I would say our project was pretty successful and beneficial!
4th graders opted to student flight during the last nine weeks, so they researched about the history of flight and engaged in some hands on activities to learn about flight principles such as lift and thrust. We have had a lot of learning fun with paper airplanes, balloon rockets, loop planes; and film canister rockets.
Probability was the subject at hand for third graders. We have rolled dice; kept data; made and played spinner games; read Jumanji; and played the game of Pig. All of these activities were designed to introduce students to how likely something is or not to occur. We discussed the term "equally likely" as well. They all ready to play board games this summer with their newfound knowledge!!
Second graders have been developing critical thinking skills by playing attribute games. The students are given blocks with attributes of shape, color and size. Given certain labels, they must place blocks correctly in a Venn diagram. Once they are comfortable doing this, I have them play without seeing the labels. So, they must really pay attention and deduce what the labels are as they place pieces in the diagram. This is SO complicated and SO fun. Eventually, students had the change to be the "Venn Master" and be in charge of the game. Finally, we played with three rings in our Venn, which is extremely higher level. They loved every minute of it!!
Pre-Algebra in first grade? Why, yes, first graders can learn basic algebraic concepts. We did a variety of hands on problem solving to lay a foundation for algebraic reasoning. This included unknown variables with input and output (during this lesson, one student commented that this was the most fun M25 ever!) and solving problems starting at the known end and working backwards. We also played place value cards games and did a creative thinking activity in which they were challenged to look at ordinary objects in a unique way.
