Creativity Festival January 2016

Sixteen students in grades 3 and 4 traveled to the University of Minnesota to participate in a daylong Creativity Festival. Students were able to attend three sessions during the day on a variety of topics. Sample offerings included Gamelan, Gelli Art, Urban Heat, Be a Veterinarian, Snake, Rattle and Roll and more. It was a fun day of new experiences.

Symbols

After spending the school year analyzing poetry in our fifth grade language arts group, the students were asked to create symbolic comparisons for themselves. Here are a few of the responses:

"I am like a cactus because I am brave and willing to try new things and I have endurance because I can come through in tough times."
"I am like a girder because I am hard to knock down. I am strong and I help build things up."
"I am like a brick because I am hard to break, kind of quiet and it takes hard work to build me since I'm hard working."
"I am like a fern because ferns represent sincerity and I am sincere in what I say and do."
"I am like the number -10 because the negative numbers can represent depth below sea level and I have qualities below the surface that are very important and that define who I am. I also enjoy swimming."

In which book did.....?

Sixteen students in grades 5 and 6 competed today in Battle of the Books. Students read from ten preselected titles throughout the year. During the competition, the teams "battled" to see who could correctly answer questions about the books. What a fun way to read a variety of books in different genres. A little competition can be a fun incentive!

The winners!

STEMLink5 was another big event this week. Thirteen fifth grade students accompanied me to Normandale Community College to participate in a day filled with science activities. This day opened up the possibilities of STEM careers in the minds of the attendees. Some options for classes included:

dissecting cows' knees to learn how bones, muscles, ligaments, tendons and blood vessels work to keep knee joints working,

learning kinesthetic awareness to discover how vision, vestibular function and proprioception play a role in balance,

launching a pneumatic cannon to learn about Newtonian physics,

learning how industry uses control systems through experimenting with wires and test control devices to control lights and motors.

This is just a sample of a few of the offerings. Truly, a remarkable experience for these fifth grade students.

Young Authors and More

On March 19, sixteen students in sixth and seventh grade accompanied me to Bethel University to the Young Authors Conference.  This event, Jumpstart Your Writing,  allowed students to participate in three breakout sessions dealing with outsmarting writer's block. These sessions were presented by professional authors, playwrights, spoken word artists, journalists, etc.  The students had a great day and continued their discussions about writing on the bus ride home.

In order to attend, students submitted a paragraph about the role writing has in their lives.  Here are a few excerpts:

"I would love to go the the Young Authors Conference at Bethel College. I want to learn more about the writing process in order to become a better writer. By expanding my writing capabilities, I will be able to express my ideas more creatively."

"I would like to go to the writers workshop because I enjoy writing. I also know that being able to write is important, and I think that this workshop could help me become a better writer. My favorite part of the writing process is printing my final copy. This gives me a good feeling that my work is as good as I can make it."

                                 The event had a little time to unwind and dance to some calypso beats.

                                               Others thought a conga line might be fun!

                                                The Highland Catholic School group

                         Sixteen students on the entire bus and these five stayed cozy in two seats!

Fractal Fun

Sixth grade math math students in the Resource Room have been exploring three-dimensional structures. This week, students explored the math principals associated with fractals. The classes built the ever-expanding components to build the following structures. Next week, it will be put together to make a larger replication of the original fractal.

Creativity Festival

Happy New Year

The weather may be cold outside but the thinking of the Resource Room groups has been on FIRE! I am so proud of all the students' hard work. A few highlights include:
Grade 1 has been challenging their math skills by working with large numbers and trying to answer quickly.
Grade 2 has begun to individually solve multi-step logic problems.
Grade 3 has been working on a unit about faces.  In language arts, they are currently pondering if they show the world asymmetrical or symmetrical faces and relating their opinion papers to a Shakespeare quote.  The math group will begin computing in a base three number system.
Grade 4 language groups are beginning to work on a research project in the form of a logic puzzle or a project on space. The math groups are diving deep into the process of factoring.
Grade 5 language groups have really been impressive! After dissecting Maya Angelou's poem, On the Pulse of Morning, students will write about how the poem fits into our unit on cycles of change. They are really showing some deep and insightful thinking.  The math group is creating fractional representations.
Grade 6 math students are moving from drawing three dimensional representations to creating mat plans.

Our brains are hard at work exploring new ideas and problems!