Archaeology Part 1

Spontaneous Problem: Name things you can catch.

Boundary Breaker: After watching the You Can Learn Anything Video, students responded with the idea about learning that struck them the most.

Today may have been the best yet!  Our big focus was on Archaeology.  We read the book Archaeologists Dig for Clues by Kate Duke.  That gave us insights into how archaeology is done. Then students were able to model the organized process by simulating a dig site, dividing it into coordinate squares, excavating, and recording the location of artifacts that were discovered.  Our "dig site" just happened to be a pan of cosmic brownies. 

Here are the key takeaways:

• Archaeologist don't just dig holes, but carefully organized and measured grid squares.
• Most excavated finds look more like trash than treasure.
• Archaeologist work slowly and carefully with small tools that won't damage their finds.
• Careful record keeping is a must.  Knowing where something was found can help explain why it was there and what it was used for.
• An artifact is anything that has been made by man.  
• Midden is ordinary waste from archaic life.
• A feature is archaeological evidence of a place or dwelling.
• All artifacts are carefully bagged and numbered to be taken to the laboratory.
• Carefully mapping your findings in an area helps give a bigger picture of what the space looked like years ago.
• In the lab, artifacts are carefully measured, examined, and tested.  Archaeologists spend more time in a lab than at a dig site.

In our math unit, students competed to build the largest two digit number in our game Card Capers. Students had a tens space and ones space to fill as well as a discard space. When a 0-9 card was turned, they placed the digits one at a time in the space of their choice. without being able to switch and not knowing what the next flip would reveal.  We talked about strategies and the place value of digits affecting their magnitude.  Students were tasked with finding out how many two digit numbers could be created, considering there was only one of each number and zero could not be used in the tens place without resulting in a single digit number.  There was lots of great idea sharing and discussion!  We are continuing to work on expressing our thinking and problem solving in writing that is clear and uses mathematical language.

We also were able to work on our "Where I'm From" poems and learn to hunt out patterns in our Set Game tutorial.

Critical Thinking

Spontaneous Problem of the day: Name things that are hidden.
Boundary Breaker of the day: Is being gifted right side-up or upside-down?

Our morphic thinkers.

We focused today on qualities of critical thinkers.  We discovered that a critical thinker needs to...

• Be fair
• Be accurate
• Be clear
• Be relevant
• Be logical

We used videos from the Children's Guide to Critical Thinking to highlight different types of thinkers...

• Naive Nancy- Doesn't care about thinking, follows the crowd, takes the easy road
• Selfish Sam- Uses thinking to manipulate others and get his way
• Fair-minded Fran- Thinks to understand and solve problems, considers others

Students were able to take some notes and share examples that helped them realize the benefits of practicing critical thinking.

Students got to use our new Nearpod accounts to participate in our interactive lesson that got them started on their "Where I'm From" poems.  They are modeling their writing off the poem of the same name by George Ella Lyon.  I am hoping to be able to share some completed poems on our blog next week!

Lastly, students took their strength assessments as a prerequisite for beginning to interact with our Thrively online content.

Meniki Neko Bank

This morning we warmed up with the Spontaneous problem, "What do you need to Explore?"  and shared about some of our own recent discoveries.  Students were able to share their personal artifacts and think about assumptions future archaeologists might make if they uncovered their item 3,00 years from now.

Next we got to crack open our M^3 (Mentoring Mathematical Minds) text in order to begin unraveling the case of the Moli Stone.  This fictitious stone was just uncovered in an archaeological dig in China.  Throughout the unit, students will build on their knowledge of place value and number systems in order to decode the symbols and unravel their hidden meaning.  Today we counted the change in a Maneki Neko bank and explored the different combinations we could use to total the 47 cents using only dimes and pennies.  Ask your student about the rule they discovered.  I am already impressed with their ability to problem solve, identify patterns, and communicate their thinking!

Our Habit of Mind focus was on Managing Impulsivity.  We read My Mouth is a Volcano by Julia Cook.  Students then practiced managing their impulsivity as they participated in a relay race to come up with the biggest list of good and bad examples of the skill.

We wrapped up by breaking in our brain stretcher packets and trying our hand at some analogy practice.

Exploration

This week we kicked off our morning routine of Morphic Thinking 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: What could you find on the imaginary planet, Twinkle?

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.

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

We also engaged more with our year-long theme, Exploration.  We read the book, Why Explore by Susan Lendroth and students brainstormed and discussed reasons why people explore and how there is an innate explorer in all of us.  We compiled those ideas to share our learning with the school on our fancy new hallway display!  

We were also able to finish our math pre-assessment, organize our new materials,  and practice our persisting on this tricky brain teaser...

Side columns each total 15.  Top and bottom rows each total 25.  Arrange number 1-10, one in each white space to make these statements true.