The last four days of this school year were filled with end-of-year activities. Among the various activities children opened our class "time capsule", filmed sock creature movies, had a Speed Stacking contest, learned how to use a knitting corker and watched a film adaptation of one of our read aloud books!
At the beginning of October last year, the children made little personal books about themselves documenting things like their heights and the size of their hands, wishes and predictions about the year ahead and including their photos and a "lucky" nickel. We also wrote a class letter to "the future Room 222". We bundled all these things into a box and sealed our "time capsule" to be opened at the end of the school year. On Monday, we opened the box and looked at what had changed (e.g., "My hair is so short!") and what hadn't changed (e.g., names).
The class learned more about the Italian mathematician Leonardo Fibonacci, who lived in Pisa, Italy over 800 years ago. Actually, the children talked about Fibonacci throughout the school year as he helped to promote the use of Hindu-Arabic numbers (using the ten digits 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9) over the use of Roman Numerals. He helped to introduce the digit zero, that is necessary for place value. Fibonacci also described a number pattern, 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8...New terms are created by adding the previous two numbers. This set of numbers was part of our calendar pattern for the month of June. These are also referred to as "Fibonacci Numbers" and can be found in nature.
The class calculated how many days are in this year's summer vacation. First, I asked the children to estimate how many days...and the estimates were very close. When I asked how their brains figured out their estimates, the children said basically that the summer holidays are in July and August and there are 31 days in each month, so 31 + 31 = 62. WOW! Applied knowledge in action! The actual number for 2019 is 67 summer vacation days, when you include the days at the end of June and the beginning of September.
The children worked very hard in small groups to plan and rehearse short stories to be filmed into movies. The students created sets and credits and. of course, the "actors"...their sock creatures that they sewed! The class commented on what the children did well (e.g., "I liked watching it because it was funny") and made suggestions for improvement (e.g., "Next time please speak louder because it was hard to hear you"). These movies can be seen in a separate blog posting.
The class watched the film adaptation of the book read aloud to the class last week, "The Iron Man". The animated film is called "The Iron Giant" and the students watched and commented on what was the same in the book and the movie and what was different.
Our class Speed Stacking contest, Stackfest 2019, was held on Tuesday. In the spirit of friendly competition, we held a double elimination contest for 3x3x3 and 3x6x3. The children improved so much with practice that it was amazing to witness just how fast they could stack and unstack those cups!
The students reviewed the contents of their portfolios. Each child picked two items to share with the class that he/she thought were examples of her/his best work. It's not easy to stand up in front of the class and talk about personal work and achievements, but the children did an excellent job. (One of the most rewarding times of my job as a teacher, is to listen to the students as they realize for themselves, how much they have improved in their writing abilities.) It was also fun to listen to them chat with their friends about their work, for example, "I remember doing this!".
Through the week, we had some time for the children to learn beginner knitting using the knitting corkers that they made last week. This is a great quiet time activity that promotes fine motor skills.
Finally, the students cleaned out their desks and washed the desktops with...shaving foam! The children spread the foam around, wrote their names and drew pictures in the foam before using a piece of cardboard to "shave" the foam off the desks.
Books read aloud this week:
Blockhead - The Life of Fibonacci by Joseph D'Agnese
Growing Patterns - Fibonacci Numbers in Nature by Sarah Campbell
The Iron Giant (DVD ) - book adaptation of The Iron Man by Ted Hughes.
Open This Little Book by Jesse Klausmeier
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