Let's Get Graphing

These lessons were follow-up to the graphing lessons last week.

As I felt that we'd ended on a negative note with our graphing (and I'd had opportunity to reflect as I wrote my blog post) I decided to revisit graphing again this week. One of the boys from my class asked to have a circle time lesson so I taught the Maths this way instead of a traditional lesson. (If you are new to circle time, you can check out the other circle time explanations by typing circle time in the blog search in the top left-hand-side of this page.)

Check In: My name is ... and I feel ... about data collection and graphing.

Mixer: Change places if... (you have a brother, you ate cereal for breakfast, you have Foxtel etc) The student in the center of the circle calls out the requirement and then has to try to find a place when students change places. The last one to find a place becomes the new caller.

Activity: Explain the difference between 'favourites' graphs (those that ask about favourite foods, colours etc) and other surveys (such as hair colour, eye colour, pets owned etc). Students pair off and select a non-favourite style survey to investigate.

Debrief: In preparation for the next day, show students how to enter data into Microsoft Excel and create a graph.

Energiser: Human Graphs. Students form lines according to criteria (eg. amount of teeth lost) and teacher takes photo. Upload images to the interactive whiteboard and discuss the graphs straight away.

Check Out: Any questions about graphing with Excel the following day.

This lesson went REALLY well, except for a couple of the survey topics. One pair chose 'type of car your parents drive' which was a bit tricky for some students to respond to. Another pair chose 'how many letters you have in your letter folder' which proved difficult since the room was set up for circle time and students had limited access to their desk trays where their folders were stored.

The human graph part was hectic, but lots of fun. I was amazed by the differences in amounts of teeth lost. Some still hadn't lost any, while one had already lost nine!

Today we created the graphs with Excel. I did another quick demonstration to review the lengthier explanation from the previous day and set students to work. (The reason I did the two explanations was because we only get 30 minutes in the lab and I knew a 5 minute explanation wouldn't be enough for a new skill, but as a review would work well.) I was impressed by how quickly and capably students worked with this task. They were very proud of their work and I encouraged them to try making their own graph with excel at home.

NOW we're ready to move on from graphs as they have been left with a positive, successful experience.

Teddy Bears' Picnic

Today my class had a teddy bear picnic and teddy related activities to celebrate reaching the next marker on our class goal chart. As a behaviour management strategy/award system, I give 'ticks' on the chart when I see the sort of behaviours that I want to encourage. These could be from individuals, groups, or the whole class.

Often I will reward students for walking silently in the corridors, working quietly at their desks, helping out in a special way, showing kindness to another class member, working cooperatively - whatever I think is appropriate.

I read about this in the work of Spencer Kagan as one element of his Cooperative Learning. I like for the students in my class to work together toward a common goal. After 20 ticks on the rainbow chart, the class reaches a sticker point. They then open the envelope to discover their reward. This time...it was a teddy bears' picnic. The class is always very excited about opening the envelope and it can be something as simple as 15 minutes of free drawing and they will still be happy to have achieved that goal.

This time, as we have been learning about their grandparents' childhood, and singing The Teddy Bears' Picnic, I thought it would be fun to bring in teddies and eat lunch together. I was going to leave it at that, but I ended up doing more with the teddies than initially planned.

We began the day by singing some songs to the teddies (as seen in this photo). I took a photo of each child with their bear as they introduced them to the class. After that, we read "Boris and Borsch" by Robin Klein. This story is about two very different boys, with two very different bears and the adventures they got up to when they accidentally swapped houses. The children discussed with a partner which bear they are most like and which home they would prefer to live in.

Students then wrote a description of their bear using prompt words: is, has, does. For example, Fred is a big brown bear. He has soft fur and white paws. He cuddles with me when I am sad and helps to cheer me up.

Some children wrote three sentences, while others wrote many. We then stuck the photos at the top of the pages and bound them together to make a book about our bears. As students finished their writing, they found a quiet place in the room to sit and read a book with their bear.

We went to a special part of the playground called "The Native Garden" where native plants have been planted. The children sat with their bear and their friends and ate their lunches under a big tree. Once they finished, they played with their bear in the garden. Of course, one little boy's bear decided to 'climb' high up in the tree where the little boy couldn't get him! (I went back and climbed up to get him down when the children weren't watching! I still like to climb, but not in front of kids!)

After lunch we had a circle time with our bears and explored a few things with Maths.

Check in: We went around the circle and each child took their turn to say: My name is ____ and I think my bear is bigger than/smaller than/the same size as ______'s bear.

Mixer: We compared the sizes of bears in the circle, ordering them from smallest to largest around the circle. Students sat with their bear in this new seat.

Activity: We sorted the bears in different ways and then used Microsoft Excel on the Smart Board to quickly graph the data. We sorted by fur type, colour, size and leg type/movement!

Energiser: We played a version of 'hot potato' using three of the soft toys - a turtle, a teddy and a kangaroo. Students had to pass these three toys around the circle and avoid being caught out with the kangaroo. The turtle moved slowly, the bear average, and the kangaroo fast. One student covered her eyes and called stop when she chose to. Whoever was holding the kangaroo was out. My class got too silly and rude during this, so I had to stop, but I think I would try it again another time.

Check out: As we went around the circle, each child said "My name is _________ and my teddy bear goes to bed at ________." They moved the hands on a teaching clock to show the correct time.

By the time we made it to the afternoon recess, I was quite beared out, so we didn't continue with the beariness for the last hour. Probably if I were to do the day again, I would consider prizes for different types of bears with the intention of covering everyone - spottiest, biggest, smallest, happiest etc... I would also have liked to had some games or races outside with the bears, or to have played "hide-and-see" like in the song.

All in all it was a great day. I'm sure you also may have done teddy bears' picnics, and I would love to hear about it in the comments.

Numeracy Education Day

On Friday we had our Numeracy Education Day. Students were organised into mixed-aged groups for a series of activities moving from one classroom to another. Teachers prepared a 50-minute lesson that they presented 3 times during the day - two before lunch, and one after recess. This ran similarly to the Literacy Education Day we had for Book Week.

Teachers selected math activities involving space, measurement, problem solving, and chance and data. The activities were predominately hands-on math tasks with students working in pairs or small groups. Those working with 2D shapes created pictures using tangrams or other shapes. Some students went out to measure distances in the playground using metre trundle wheels. Others created a spinning colour wheel using instructions and measurements in centimetres. One group tried to solve brain teasers like matchstick puzzles.

My group was subjected to another Circle Time! This time related to chance and data. The group consisted of children from Kindergarten to Grade 2. I organised it as follows:

Check in: Students said their name, their class, and then coloured in the appropriate square, above their classname, on a graph. We then discussed what we can determine from this graph. Which class had the most members in the group? Which had the least? etc.

Mixer: One student stood in the centre of the circle and said "I like [McDonalds]". All children who agreed with the statement changed places in the circle. The person in the centre had to try to find a spot, leaving someone else standing in the centre. The game continued until everyone was mixed up.

Activity: The Car Race - I made another graph with numbers 1-12 along the bottom and some cute little pictures I found of cars. Students then worked in pairs to roll the dice and add the two numbers together. They then coloured in the squares above this number. The 'winning car' was the first one to reach the top of the graph (where I had some cute little pictures of checkered flags!) Before beginning, I got the children to choose which car they thought would win the race.

Debrief: We went around the circle and each group told me which car won their race, and how many spaces car number one moved. We then discussed why car number one didn't get to move at all. (It is impossible to roll 1 using two dice!) We then looked at the chances of rolling the other numbers, paying particular attention to the "winning car" numbers.

Energiser: I found a toss-a-coin tool on my Smart Board, but could have settled with an 'actual' coin! We then played a game of Heads and Tails. Students put their hands on their heads if they thought the coin would come up heads, or on their tails if they thought it would come up tails. Students who got it right stayed in for the next round. Play continued until one player was left and declared winner.

Check out: Students checked out by saying their name and one thing they had learnt about Maths through this activity.

I was really satisfied with how well these activities flowed and the discussion that arose as students explored chance through the roll of dice.

For more information about circle time, click here, or search this blog for 'circle time'.

Book Week - CBCA Awards

Many Australian schools celebrate Book Week in the week following the CBCA's (Children's Book Council of Australia) announcement of the Books of the Year.

At my school this year, we did this through a day of book related activities. Each of the teachers in years K-2 chose one of the nominated books and prepared related activities to last a total of 45 minutes. Students in these grades were divided up into mixed-grade groups. We ran two 45-minute sessions before lunch, and one after lunch, followed by a sharing and reflection time in own class groups. This meant that each teacher taught the same lesson to three different groups, and each student experienced the lessons of three different teachers.

The talk amongst the teachers at lunchtime was all very positive. We enjoyed the opportunity to meet and teach kids from other grades. We had a chance to polish our teaching through the repeated lessons. And we had fun, developing lessons around the chosen text.
The reflection of the students was also mostly positive - focusing on the enjoyment of working with different people for the day. The negatives were mostly about not getting the teacher they wanted or being with the kids they wanted.

I tried out a circle time for the mode of mine, and again it worked really well. I found it actually worked particularly well in this setting because it seemed quite normal for everyone to be "Checking In" by saying their names, and this served a valuable introductory purpose for the group. One of the things that really stood out to me was how quiet and settled everyone was compared to my usual group! I felt almost as though I needed to tell them that it was okay to talk to each other and get to know everyone.

For those interested in the actual lesson, it went as follows...

CHECK IN: Hi, my name is _________ and I am from class ______.
MIXER: Students lucky-dipped a bookmark and found someone with a matching bookmark. They sat together while they coloured-in their bookmarks. This was also how I formed the pairs for working together later as well.
ACTIVITY: I read the story "Parsley Rabbit's Book about Books" by Frances Watts. (As the title suggests, this is a book about books!) We then discussed favourite books, and students filled out a worksheet about their favourite books. Their partner helped with spelling etc. If they finished early, they could choose books from the displays to read with a partner.
DEBRIEF: Students told their favourite book.
ENERGISER: We danced to an old song about a rabbit. (Sorry, but I don't remember the title. I recorded it back in the days of cassettes!).
CHECK OUT: Hi, my name is ________ and I like to read books that ________.

We have a Maths day coming up in a few weeks, and I think I will use circle time again - this time to teach concepts in Chance and Data. I'm really looking forward to it.

Circle Time

Last Thursday and Friday I attended a Professional Development course on "Circle Time". My previous knowledge going into this course was that circle time is a touchy-feely way of dealing with the social-emotional aspects of classroom learning. This course, however, took it beyond the emotional literacy aspect, to explore it as a strategy for teaching all areas of the curriculum. This idea really got me going.

Circle Time is generally run with the whole class (including the teacher) sitting in a circle in chairs. For me, this means rearranging the room each time - moving the desks to the edges so there is space for the circle. My class is getting much better at this.

There are 6 key parts to Circle Time:
Check In - This is where each student says their name, and completes a sentence as pre-determined by the teacher. eg. "Hello, my name is Sarah, and I can spell the word frog." An object is usually passed around the circle to indicate whose turn it is to speak.
Mixer - This is essentially a game of some sort that gets everyone to move about and end up at a different seat to where they started, and preferably with people they don't usually work with (hence the name - Mixer).
Central Activity - This is where you teach the content, and have students work on a task related to the content.
Debrief - Students report back/share the work they completed.
Energiser - This gives everyone a chance to move around and shake off all the concentration they've just had to apply. Any game or activity that achieves this can be used. I try to find a way to link it to the theme, if possible.
Check Out - This is much like the Check In, except that children share something they learnt from the session, or suggest an application of the new knowledge.

So far this week, I have run a circle time each day.

On Monday, we had a Spelling Circle Time. The Check In, Energiser and Check Out were all spelling focused. For the Central Activity, students were given their new spelling words and worked with a partner to discover strategies to help them remember how to spell their words. For example, one girl pointed out that for 'cart', you just spell car, and then add a t. Another said that 'down', is own with a 'd' at the start. As it was my first circle time, I was pleasantly surprised to hear back what students had gained from the session, despite how wriggly they were.

On Tuesday, we had an Integrated Inquiry Circle Time. The Check In, Mixer, Energiser and Check Out were all related to The Legend of Nian (a Chinese dragon), which the students read last week. For the Central Activity students worked in pairs to colour a dragon head and design the body using scraps of coloured paper. We looked at some pictures of dragons on http://www.flickr.com/ to get some inspiration. Again the students were engaged and enthusiastic about their new learning. (By the way - this ties into our Olympics unit of work as we are exploring the culture of China.)

Today I ran a Maths Circle Time. The main concept was Position and 'the garden' was its vehicle. For Check In, students described their own gardens at home. The Mixer was some flash card practice of adding 9. During the Central Activity, students did an interactive activity I'd made on the Smart Board where they followed instructions to add clipart pictures to photos of gardens. Then, in groups of 4, students made plasticine gardens, within the constraints of a list of instructions that I gave them. For example: Put some fish in a pond. Put some rocks around the pond. The Energiser was a ball passing activity where students passed the ball using the positional terms - over, under, through, around etc. Finally, during the Check Out, students said what they learnt from the experience, and there were a lot of great comments about the value of cooperation.

So far, I feel that this is a successful strategy because ALL my students have been engaged and excited about the central activity. They have been working cooperatively with people they don't usually choose to play with. Secondly, every child is getting a chance to voice their thoughts and ideas. Usually I have about 4 students who insist on being heard, and I miss out on hearing what other students are thinking. Thirdly, I get excited by the whole thing. It's a much more interesting way of structuring lessons, and I finally feel like I'm remembering to conclude my lessons properly!
On the down-side, I'm not sure that it is time effective yet. As it is early days, and we are still getting used to the process, I expect that we will get quicker with time. But at the moment, I find it hard to get through the whole circle time within an hour.

Please contact me if you want any more information about 'Circle Time'.