My 5th graders spend the last semester examining their own beliefs, developing manifestos, and researching a Dream Team of people who exemplify what they stand for. We use some of the “This I Believe” curriculum to help them identify their values. Yesterday, my students and I listened to one of the short radio essays archived on the website for the podcast. It is called, “30 Things I Believe.” In this particular episode, a first grader, Tarak McLain, reflects on his Kindergarten 100th Day Project. While most students bring collections of 100 objects, Tarak brought in 100 things he believes. For the podcast, Tarak shares 30 of those beliefs. My students and I enjoyed listening to his earnestly read list, and talked about what they agreed/disagreed with. We also discussed which of Tarak’s beliefs might change as he grows up.
Tarak would be about 16 years old now. I wonder what his thoughts are on the manifesto created by his 7-year-old self.
Most of my 2nd graders finished up their Mother’s Day Cards yesterday. You may remember that I posted the idea of asking the students to design floorplans for Dream Homes for their moms. I wasn’t sure exactly how they would be presented when I wrote that post, so this is the design we ended up with. It is basically two pieces of cardstock folded “hamburger” style. For the inside one, we cut a tab to make a pop-up card. The pop-up was the design for the outside of the home. The top flap of this card was glued to the inside of the top flap of the other card. Then we glued the floor plans to the back of the inside card and the inside of the back card.
Okay, that sounds confusing. Maybe pics will help? Here are examples of 2 different student cards (Student 1 chose to make up her own haiku after learning about them earlier this year!):
Top of Card 1 (I printed out the short poem for everyone to glue to their cards.)Pages 1 & 2 inside Card 1Pages 3 &4 inside Card 1Top of Card 2Pages 1 & 2 of Card 2Pages 3 & 4 of Card 2
My gifted and talented first graders study geography and choose different countries to research. @storymamas recently tweeted about a book called, This is How We Do It, by Matt Lamothe, and I thought it would be a good resource to use with this class. Children like to see the differences and similarities of places around the world. A few years ago, I sent out a Twitter plea for people from other countries to add pictures of their playgrounds to this slide show, and my students enjoy comparing the sites to our own and finding the locations on a map.
Lamothe went much further than collecting images on a slideshow for his book. You can read about his writing process for This is How We Do Ithere. He created all of the illustrations in his book based on photographs shared with him by families in seven different countries. My students were fascinated with everything from how the featured children got to school to how they slept. They were surprised by uncanny resemblances to our own culture (they have a Smarboard in their classroom, too!) as well as unimaginable contrasts (an entire family sleeping in one bed!)
You can download a free activity kit to accompany the book here.
With two posts in a row related to Wonder Workshop it might appear that I work for them or get a commission. I don’t! The Undercover Robots Camp curriculum I wrote about yesterday could technically be used with a variety of robots, but I do like to use the Dash robots because they are so engaging and user-friendly for younger students. Today I wanted to review one of the newest products from Wonder Workshop, which is customized for their Dash and Cue robots – Sketch Kit.
Students love to program their robots to write/draw, but anyone who has tried to rig contraptions for this purpose knows what a nightmare this can be. It’s a good problem-solving experience, but not the best use of time if programming is your main goal. Wonder Workshop has solved this issue by designing a unique harness to attach to Dash or Cue. This harness allows the robot to lift a marker up and put it down – and the free app updates include these accessory options for coding.
The $39.99 Sketch Kit includes the harness, 6 dry-erase markers, and 6 project cards. The markers are customized to fit the harness, as you will note in the picture. Marker Refill Kits (6 markers) are $14.99. We haven’t had our kit long enough for me to tell you the typical number of uses you will get out of a marker.
As nice as it is to have the Sketch Kit, the whiteboard mat that I purchased for $99.99 is even more worthwhile to me. Mats for robots are expensive, unless you DIY, and this one screams out versatility. It rolls up fairly easily, but it is definitely durable. With measuring guides on the side (100 cm x 200 cm), there is plenty of programming potential. The marker erases nicely without leaving residual color on the mat. Knowing I will be using it with several groups of students, I feel that it was definitely a good investment.
Programming the robot to draw what they wanted proved to be more challenging than my students expected. I put my 5th graders in pairs and they had about 7-10 minutes in each group to create a program in Blockly. Before we ran the programs, we projected each one on the board so the students could try to predict what the robot would draw. This was great visual/spatial practice, and it was funny to hear the opposing ideas that were thrown out at the beginning. No one’s program was perfect the first time, so I also gave them time to “debug” after each initial run.
As regular readers know, I share a lot of freebies on this blog. Usually, if I’ve made a lesson or activity, I post it here for anyone to download. However, I sometimes create collections of my work and sell it on Teachers Pay Teachers. My “Undercover Robots – Spy School” packet is one of those collections. I developed it over two summers of doing Undercover Robots Camp using the Dash robots from Wonder Workshop. This packet is a 38 page PDF that contains activities that can be used in an after-school or summer camp with robots that can be controlled by mobile devices. It is designed for use with a camp that has 6 teams of students (2 or 3 to a team) from ages 8-11. The Dash and Dot robots from Wonder Workshop are perfect for this camp, but other robots could be used instead. There are 10 missions included in this packet with unique puzzles for each team. (Note: Most of the missions depend on using a vinyl map of the world on the floor. I have a link to the one I purchased from Amazon in my packet, but you can also DIY if necessary.)
I’ve found that younger students love to get involved in stories around these robots. There are ample opportunities for creativity (you should see some of their spy outfits!), and problem-solving as they work on the puzzles I provide as well as the programming. I give some ideas for differentiation in the packet as well.
I have other curriculum that I am still testing out, but will post as soon as I work out the kinks and get it organized.
The final math Digital Breakout that I made for my online students (4th grade Gifted and Talented) for this year is TV Tomfoolery. In case you have missed the series, here are links to all 5:
You can e-mail at engagetheirminds@gmail.com if you need the answers. However, I that you consider not getting the answers so you won’t help your students too much. It’s fun to do some of the challenges as a whole class so you can verbalize your own problem-solving steps with the students!
