First Grade Update: Detective Work, Tangrams and Brainfocals!

This semester we've been meeting several different characters from the fictional "Crystal Pond Woods." Each of these characters represents a particular type of thinking. The students learn the uses of each type of thinking and practice using it to find solutions to problems and scenarios.

We started with Dudley the Detective, a dog who loves to solve mysteries using logical, or convergent thinking. Dudley inspired us to find solutions that required linear, logical, deductive reasoning. 

Next, we met Max the Magician, a rabbit who is totally passionate about visual/spatial reasoning! He loves puzzles, patterns and visual eye-teasers. After meeting Max we explored tangrams and other geometrical tools for thinking. We even made ourselves little Max the Magician hats. :)

Most recently, we met Isabel the Inventor--she is a master of divergent thinking (generating several possible solutions to a problem). We were introduced to brainstorming as a thinking tool and made our very own "brainfocals"--special glasses that help us see the world from new angles!

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January Update: A Busy Month Culminates in Applied Technology

I found myself with access to a stack of iPads this week and couldn't let the opportunity pass. I quickly updated my plans to incorporate a technology piece that was a perfect extension of the work and explorations we'd been doing at each grade level. Here, then, is a quick summary by grade level of what our January has been all about and then a note about how we used tech this week to enhance and extend our learning.

1st

We've transitioned into visual/spatial reasoning in January, which is a fancy way of saying we've been developing the problem-solving muscles in our brains that utilize visual information to find logical patterns in forms, shapes, colors, etc. We've used two classic geometrical tools to do this: tangrams and pentominoes. This week with the iPads we focused on 3 nice apps to apply these developing skills: Blockaders, Zentomino HD Lite and Zen HD Lite - Relaxing Tangrams. They are all free, find them for your devices!

Tangrams consist of 7 pieces

Pentominoes consist of 12 pieces of 5 sections each

2nd

2014 has been all about roller coasters! We started with some of the basic science, like how coasters get their speed and what "G force" is. Then we went into research mode and dug up some detailed information on famous coasters throughout the world. On the iPads this week, we found the perfect app to begin testing our own coaster engineering skills: Coaster Frenzy. Students have to design, test, and modify their track in order to increase speed and make the ride fun. There is also a wonderful creative aspect to designing a coaster that would be safe AND fun.

3rd

Using Benjamin Franklin's fascination with magic squares as a trigger, we've been playing around with "magic math," especially different types of magic squares. That led us over to a cousin of the magic square, sudoku, and all 3rd graders have now been formally introduced to that classic (and addictive) game. The apps we used this week were ProMagic Square and Sudoku 2. There are probably several thousand sudoku games out there, but this one was a hit for its easy interface.

4th

Well, pentominoes and more pentominoes! As you know, students created 3-D pentominoes at home using 5 6x6x6 inch cubes. We are using those in class for real-life architecture challenges, like the reading nooks we have lovingly called "pentominooks." This week with the iPads we stuck on the theme of pentominoes but with a special creative twist: students used the app iMovie to create movie trailers in which the characters, theme and title all centered around pentominoes in some way. I will share those soon in a separate post.

5th

OK, 5th is the one grade that didn't indulge much in the iPads. We've been busy, though. In January we kicked off a long-term unit on Mindset--a way of framing and perceiving the world and yourself for long-term success and growth. At the same time, we are continuing with our civilization projects. Most recently, students designed (with elaborate detail) the fictional fruits that are the basis of their civilizations. We got some inspiration for our fruit creations from a documentary called Fruit Hunters. We only saw the trailer in class, but Mr. Koch has seen the whole thing and recommends it (Netflix)! :)

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1st Grade Update: Stop Motion Movies

Our research on Thomas Edison led us into the fascinating world of early animation and some of the tools early animators used to create the illusion of movement and hence, "motion pictures." One of these early tools that Edison himself was inspired by was the thaumatrope. In a previous post, you can see that we made our own thaumatropes. 

A more advanced early animation and motion picture tool was the kinetescope. It passed a series of still pictures through a view finder and gave the illusion of a movie to those who watched. We learned that the more still pictures (frames) you pass per second, the more smooth and realistic the movie is.

We applied this same concept but with help from a little modern technology. The LEGO Movie app allows you to create stop motion animation in much the same way these early machines did. It was tough to learn from all of our mistakes in just one hour, but I was very impressed with what the students created in such a limited time! Their videos are below:

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1st Grade Update: From Light Bulbs to Motion Pictures

Since our opening unit on learning styles and multiple intelligences, we've covered LOTS of ground researching Edison and related inventions. 

We started with some traditional research using the text Thomas Edison and the Light Bulb and gathered our data into a class "big book."

One of our major research questions was to discover what material made the best filament inside the light bulb for it to last the longest. Originally, light bulbs used cotton thread for the filament. You can imagine the problem with that. After experimenting with THOUSANDS of different options, the best material Edison found for a long-lasting bulb was bamboo! Today, tungsten is the most favored material for a filament in a traditional light bulb.

We balanced out the analytical thinking required for our research with a creative challenge: design a light bulb of the future using LEGO pieces!

Next, we applied our growing knowledge of light bulbs by using the classic picture book The Important Book as a model to create our own "important pages" about the light bulb. We also illustrated and diagrammed the major parts of the light bulb to go along with it.

Then it was time to move beyond the light bulb and look at another project that Edison played a role in: the motion picture (AKA the movies!). We discussed the concept of persistence of vision that early animators used to explain how a series of still images could seem to move. Edison was fascinated during his life with one particular, very simple animation device called a thaumatrope. Here's a video with the instructions we used to make our own. The students learned by trial and error which methods worked best and created some very fun, animated scenes! 

Our next step is to take a technological leap but use the same basic methods to create a more complex movie. We'll be using a stop-motion movie maker app on the ipads. Our next update should be some movies for you to watch!

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1st Grade Update: 8 Kinds of Smart

What does it mean to be "gifted" at something? Does being gifted mean being smart at everything? These are some basic but very important questions we've been answering with some bibliotherapy (using literature as a self-learning tool) the first few weeks of 1st grade GT.

We used a series of wonderful books by the actor John Lithgow. Each book is centered on a character with a special, but specific, type of giftedness. For Farkle McBride it's musical talent. For Macawber it's artistic talent. And for Marsupial Sue it ends up being intrapersonal intelligence.

After reading and enjoying the journeys of these characters, we took our own inventory called "8 Kinds of Smart" based on Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences. After, we completed some reflection questions and graphed the results to get a visual of how our 8 types of smart compared.

Since this was a self-reflection, results may not have been completely accurate. However, the important thing was the process of reflection and the understanding that giftedness comes in many shapes and sizes.

We've now begun our study of inventors by researching the life of Thomas Edison. The challenge level will be high and we'll be looking to push our limits as first grade learners.

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