What Makes a Great Hero?

In 4th grade ELA, students are engaged in Problem Based Learning.  Each student is tasked with creating their own superhero and writing a "pitch" to Marvel Comics to explain why he or she will be the next great hero.  In order to prepare for this, students are reading a series of non-fiction articles about the characteristics of a great hero.  After reading our first article, students answered text-dependent questions such as, "According to the article, identify one characteristic of a great hero.  Explain how this characteristic contributes to making the hero great."  Students then used our reading response goals to color-code their answers.  In purple, students underlined, where they used "part of the question in their answer."

In orange, they underlined where they provided specific evidence from the text to support their answer.

Once students demonstrate mastery of the first two reading response goals, we will add a new goal (and colors) to our board.  Some of our future goals include:

• I use "because" or a variation of it.
• I use a variety of sentence types and lengths.
• I use interesting words and advanced vocabulary.
• I extend my answer with my thoughts and ideas.
• I use proper conventions.

Next week, we will continue exploring our essential question, "What makes a great hero?" through non-fiction articles, advertisements, and a short documentary.  From there, students will be ready to create their hero and write their pitch.  Stay tuned to learn more about the writing criteria involved and the rubric students will use to craft and reflect upon their work.

Building a Classroom Community

We had another great week in our new classroom!  This week, we focused on building classroom community. Our first activities addressed team building and communication - specifically respectful listening and speaking.  Below you can see pictures from the "Paper Tower Tournament." In this challenge, students collaborated in randomly selected groups to build a tower made of printer paper.  The goal is to create the tallest, free-standing tower using only 3 sheets of paper and 12 inches of masking tape.  No additional materials or supports can be used.

After 10-15 minutes of group work, we paused to reflect. Using our guidelines for group work rubric, we evaluated our behaviors, considering areas of strength and places for growth.  After setting personal goals, we were back to work.

At the end of the contest, we celebrated our many successes!  Awards were given for the tallest, most unique, best design, and most creative use of materials.  We then had a really great group discussion about what went well, what felt hard, and things we might do differently when working in a group - and on difficult tasks - in the future.

Our next challenge posed the same goal: build the tallest, free-standing tower.  However, this time, the materials included dry spaghetti and mini-marshmallows.  Once again, teams were randomly selected to encourage students to work with, enjoy, and appreciate the styles of different peers. 

Again, we used the rubric at the beginning, half way through, and at the end to set goals and reflect.

Students were intrigued that their personal goals and reflections often changed based on the team with which they worked!

We had another very thoughtful post-discussion.  Again students considered what went well, what areas were challenging, and appropriate goals for the future.  (We are always trying to Be More Awesome, right? :-)

Our final community building challenge of this week was based on a free set of dice from Chik-fil-A.  For real!  (Inspiration comes from many places!)  Each side of the die had a theme: fame, family, best, worst, most embarrassing, etc.  Under each theme was a series of questions to help us learn more about each other.  Even though many of my 4th and 5th graders have been together since Kindergarten, I think it is important for students to not only know each other, but to feel "known."  This helps to create a safe environment where children can try new things, take risks, make mistakes, and be themselves - all critical building blocks to success.

I typed up the questions on cardstock and, using a modified version of Kagan's Cooperative Grouping Strategy "Fan, Pick, Read, Answer," we set out to learn more about one another.  (Again, with the goals of respectful listening and speaking in mind!)  

Students, again worked in randomly selected groups to promote understanding, friendship, and respect.

Questions/prompts included:
- Tell about a time you laughed so hard you could not stop.
- Describe the worst hair cut you've ever had.
- Have you ever had to speak or perform in front of an audience?  How did it make you feel?
- Tell about something you did that made you feel proud.

Next week the upper grades will begin Math Quest, Problem Based Learning, and a dystopian book study.  Stay tuned!

Be More Awesome!

4th and 5th grade students began pull-out classes last week.  Our first order of business was to set goals for the new school year.  We began with a pep talk from Kid President, who inspires us to learn, teach, change the world, and be more awesome.

After watching Kid President, we examined some of the ways we are awesome.  As you can imagine, many pieces of paper were needed!  We then looked at ways we could be "more awesome."  I shared my personal goals for a more awesome year with the students and modeled how I tried to create goals that were meaningful, specific, relevant, and realistic.  (Not exactly "SMART" goals, but in the same spirit!)  Using a "Be More Awesome" pennant, each student brainstormed personal goals for the first nine weeks.

Our completed goals are on display in the classroom! (Well, 5th grade is; 4th will be up later this week :-)  I encourage you to come by and check them out!

Thanks for checking in!
Christy