Forensic Science, Eyewitnesses, and The Case of the Sugar Shaker

     This week our CSI focus has been on questioning and eye witness accounts.  Students participated in various activities geared toward understanding quality questions in interrogation, the often unreliable nature of eye witness testimony, and the power of close observation.

     We also took a pre-assessment on forensic science and used last week's fingerprint evidence to compare with our suspect samples and determine the prankster that switched our sugar for salt.

     In math we worked on creating line plots with data and using the graph to find the median, mode, and range of the set.

     Finally we tried our hand at both word and figual analogies and looked for relationships between ideas.
Try this one for yourself:  tornado : scary :: ALERT: _________
A. boring
B. dull
C. green
D. FUN!

Median, System Wrap Up, and Dusting for Prints

We had our commencing Digging for Data math lesson and students looked at both their rights and obligations as we embark. This math curriculum focuses heavily on discussion, defense of one's thinking, and writing about concepts. Today, students collected data on their jumping rate. Each student completed three trials counting the number of leaps they could complete in one minute. We used this data to understand the concept of the median in a set of numbers and how if can be used when looking for a "typical" result in a set of output data.

We also finished our Systems lesson by drawing given systems and labeling their parts. Students showed off their understanding with our class Kahoot quiz to review. Click the link and see how you do!

The solar system drawn and labeled.

A pond ecosystem drawn and labeled.

The roads system drawn and labeled.

The nervous system drawn and labeled.

Finally, we learned some at home techniques for dusting for fingerprints. Next week we will check the prints we uncovered with our suspect samples to determine the culprit in The Case of the Sugar Shaker!

Systems Kick-off!

     This week we continued to focus on building a growth mindset.  Students used an online quiz to determine their current perspective on learning and we spent some time discussing failure and how to approach it.  We want students to believe that perseverance and challenge can really grow their brain.
Students enjoyed some challenging activities to practice these habits by completing the Set Game and Quiddler daily puzzles.

     We took the pre-assessment for our data unit so students could show their prior knowledge and get a glimpse into what will be coming their way in math.  We also looked at critical thinking using the Foundation for Critical Thinking's Child's Guide to Critical Thinking videos.  We saw three types of thinkers and evaluated them.  Ask you child about Naive Nancy, Selfish Sam, and Fair-minded Fran. Students should recognize quality thinking as accurate, fair, clear, relevant, and logical.

Some lovely notes on critical thinking.

My favorite activity of the day was kicking off our year-long theme of Systems. Students interpreted the definition of a system and worked in teams to brainstorm examples. They came up with some great ones! We also named the different features of systems (boundary, input, output, elements, & interactions). Next week we will continue the lesson by drawing and labeling the parts of a system, creating a list of generalizations about systems, and competing in a friendly kahoot quiz to show off what we had learned.

Brainstorming types of systems.

Mindset and the Brain

     This week we focused on meta-cognition.  (Thinking about our thinking!)

     We kicked off our Morphic Thinking morning routine where students warm-up with a spontaneous problem and boundary breaker.  We will be including these weekly.

Spontaneous Problem: A spontaneous problem is a brainstorming type problem to be solved in a specific amount of time and scored according to the number and creativity of responses generated. The point is to challenge students to be flexible thinkers, to elaborate on original ideas and to think fluently and creatively about a specific topic.

Today's Spontaneous Problem: Name things in the ALERT room.

Boundary Breaker:  A boundary breaker is a group experience which works toward creating a sense of community. Students gain an awareness of and respect for the opinion of others by the use of questions that go beyond superficial depth and have no right/wrong answers. Boundary Breakers also provoke a higher level of thought that merges cognitive and affective thinking.

Today's Boundary Breaker: What is thinking? Why is thinking important?

Carrying on with the same theme, students learned about the connections they make in their brain when they learn and how to strengthen these pathways. They were able to draw their conception of their brain, feel a brain, and use various resources to discover the parts of the brain and how they work together for your body to function. This year we want to be very intentional about building a growth mindset in students. It will be our goal to emphasize the part of effort and perseverance in learning and intelligence as something that can be grown or grow stagnant. To evaluate our current perspective on intelligence, next week we will take the mindset quiz at this link. Feel free to take it yourself! We want to turn "I can't do it!" into "I can't do it yet!"  

Demonstrating neural pathways. 

Touching a "brain".

   

NERDS!

     It's great to be back for our second week!  This week we explored our creative side by discussing and demonstrating the four keys to creative thinking.  We began by taking a simple figure, looking at it from various perspectives (flexible thinking), brainstorming what it could become (fluency of ideas), choosing the idea like no one else's (originality), and filling in the details of our picture (elaboration)! Our lesson was themed around our mascots of creativity the NERDS candies which the students got to enjoy while they worked. These creative pieces became the covers of our ALERT binders reminding us to "think outside the box"!

     Our other main focus for the day was looking into Art Costa's Habits of Mind.  We discussed these strategies of successful people and discussed ways we do and will use them this year inside and outside our classroom.  Student teams completed in a pre and post lesson matching game where every pair came out on top improving their understanding of the ideas.

     Other happenings were the creating of a class fingerprint archive just in case we need it for future suspects in future tomfoolery, putting the finishing touches on our writer's notebooks, and getting started on our learner profiles at RenzulliLearning.com.

Check out our adorable detective!

     I hope your student enjoyed today.  I did!