Summer Adventures!

A trip to the zoo led to the creation of a book! Thanks for sharing your adventure with me C.M.! I am so proud that you decided to write about it! 

Enjoy the summer!

Kathryn and Peter's Wedding...Celebrating the amazing creativity of our students!

It all started with a class sharing of D.S.'s amazing creation of her parent's wedding day at the sand table. I asked her what made her think of designing such an event? She responded that she was looking at some pictures of her mom and dad's wedding and wanted to make the event herself.

All it takes is one spark to fuel new ideas and creativity. It wasn't long until the students started asking Ms. Powell personal questions about her big day taking place this August! They wanted to know what her dress looks like? What Peter (Kathryn's fiance) would be wearing? They even asked Ms. Powell for pictures of what her hair will look like! Funny enough, she had some hair trial pictures on her personal iPad and showed them to the students. The construction of Kathryn and Peter's wedding took the students a few days to perfect, using various materials to create the beautiful event. They then decided to practice the ceremony, since in real life people need to know what they're going to be doing. Lastly, they selected the perfect song to sing as a class for the wedding dance. They created invitations, and even a cake made out of plasticine. They were so excited for us to video tape this grand production! 

Kathryn and I were blown away by how much self directed planning went into this entire creation, done all on their own! It's amazing how much learning and understanding our students are capable of, but none of it would be possible without letting them freely explore, providing them with creative materials and experiences, and most importantly, using their sense of wonder and curiosity!

"Be curious. Read widely. Try new things. What people call intelligence just boils down to curiosity." Aaron Swartz

Without further ado, Kathryn and Peter's wedding! Performed by our wonderful students!

June Adventures!

Before posting the June adventures video, I decided to show the students the video accompanied to a few different songs. Since it is their work, I wanted to post the video to the song they most enjoyed. So we watched the video to each of the three songs, and did a survey to determine which song would be played with the video on the blog. We had such a close result that students wanted to show the same video to both songs.

What a memorable learning adventure! Thank you to our families, and most importantly our students, for enlightening us with joy and wonder everyday!

Hugs!

Mrs. Ralph and Ms. Powell

How many different 3-D figures can you make?

Creating Unique 3-D Figures: A Lesson in Discovering “Sameness” Through Flips, Turns, and Rotations

By: Welcome to the Math for Young Children, The Blantyre Lesson Study Team, Public Lesson, 2012

This activity, which lasted for a couple weeks, supported students in understanding that certain 3-D figures, although different in orientations, could be flipped or rotated and be made to look the same. In discovering how and why some 3-D figures were the same, students also learned how and why some 3-D figures were different.

As some students progressed from building with 3 interlocking cubes to eventually building with 4 or 5 interlocking cubes, they were increasingly challenged to think of the multiple combinations in which the interlocking cubes could be combined to create new and unique 3-D figures.

Blantyre Lesson Study Team, 2012, pg. 4

The students were very engaged and worked tirelessly trying to figure out how many different 3-D figures they could create if using 3, 4 or 5 interlocking cubes. It was wonderful to see the level of camaraderie that developed during this activity. 

"If they are flipped it looks different." A.T.

"I put this one like this and I put this one a different way, they looked different. I flipped them around and I could tell they were the same shape!". O.S.

 

"You can't make so many shapes, there are only certain ways to make the shapes with three cubes!" D.S.

"There are four ways because if you make a chair with two on the bottom and one on the top, you can flip it and make it into something else." G.B.

"No, it doesn't change the shape because you are just flipping it and you don't take it apart. They're all the same, you don't pull it apart, you are just flipping it over and over. You can only make two shapes with three cubes." A.M.

"It was a little harder to build with the four cubes because it took long to make all the different shapes. I thinked it and then I found that this shape was missing." M.P.

"Once you get past six shapes it gets hard!" E.H.

"I got it! This one is missing!" A.P. 

"Oh yea! It was pretty hard because on the last one I could't have anymore ideas and I tried and tried and I didn't know how to do it. I saw that two were the same and then I was trying to fix it but I had no more ideas and M.P. and C.D. helped me." H.S.

With minimal teacher guidance, students explored, investigated and started helping others when they were stuck. They naturally started working in pairs and groups, reasoning with each other, comparing, and debating, in order to accomplish the task of figuring out as many different 3-D figures as possible.   

This is a great challenging activity that can be continued at home. All you need is some interlocking cubes! 
*Hint: 2 possible 3-D figures if using 3 cubes, 8 possible 3-D figures if using 4 cubes, and 29 possible 3-D figures if using 5 cubes! Good luck! 

Extending our inquiry learning...

What a wonderful surprise! Today G.B. was excited to share the book she made about rocks with Ms. Powell and I, as well as her class friends!  

"I got some rocks at my birthday party, and I got the idea to make a book because those rocks were so cool. I thought maybe I can write about what they could have been, like the purple one could have been an amathyst, and the blue one could have been from aquamarine, and I thought the pink one would be from the red gem stone called ruby. In my back yard there is a big rock and it sort of looks like a fossil, so I thought it could be a real fossil so I wrote about it. We have a fossil in our class and it looks the same like the one in my yard!" G.B. 

Real authentic learning is even more evident when it extends outside the classroom. Following students' interests in kindergarten supports engagement and motivation and encompasses many curriculum expectations!

G.M. brought in his rock kit to share with the class.

We love when students share their learning with us!