Just before Christmas we had a secret santa gift exchange in class! Students brought in gifts that were either new or gently used from home. Isabel made our beautiful paper Christmas tree and we all circled around to begin the exchange. Even Santa stopped by! Check it out!
At this time of year, students are busy creating Christmas crafts as either gifts for their families or to decorate their homes. I decided to put a bit of a spin on this tradition with my grade sevens by incorporating inquiry into their crafts! I asked the students to just bring in three random items from home that they could “mess up.” They were not given any further instruction on what these items would be used for you as you can imagine we had some pretty usual items enter the classroom the following day! Students brought in everything from egg cartons to pipe cleaners to googley eyes! Then the real fun began. I gave them a list of only 5 things they could use along with their items (felts, paper, glue, tape, scissors) and challenged them to create a Christmas craft. The students responded with some original, one of a kind crafts that were truly amazing. For example, Jordan’s “Solar Panel Sleigh” incorporated the hand warmer and circuit board he brought. This was a great way to engage students in the inquiry process while embracing the festive season. Have a look at some of the students hard at work! As a Christmas craft we created our very own 'Elf on a Shelf' figurines! Not only were they absolutely adorable but they also starred in iMovie trailers in every genre from action adventure to horror to romance! Students used fishing rods, pencils, strings and other contraptions to puppeteer their elves. Some elves even did stunts, including, parachuting off a slide, bouncing off hallway walls and even a high speed chase! Check out some photos of the preparation that went into making the movies! I should warn you, there were elves injured in the making of these films, nothing a bit of glue couldn't fix though! We decided that the gym needed some pizzazz for the Christmas concert so we immediately went to work on some giant sized decorations. Check them out! I can't even begin to explain how excited I was to come across the Sir Cumference series of books written by Cindy Neuschwander and Wayne Geehan! They are very cleverly written to include many of the concepts that are covered in our Circles and Area Unit. Such an amazing teaching tool! Here's a picture of us reading the first book in the series as an introduction to our new math unit. Sir Cumference and the First Round Table!
Why just answer a math question on a worksheet when you can explain every step to solving any given math problem using an app on the iPad? Our thoughts exactly! This week we created videos, on the Explain Everything app, of the step by step process that we take to answer fraction, integer, and algebra questions. Not only was this an amazing assessment tool from a teacher's standpoint but the students were extremely engaged! Check it out! |