Kiker's Strength-Based Learning Cohort

Stealing the kids' responses in our ROW notebooks...this week has been EXCITING, SURPRISING, and most of all...FUN! We have enjoyed a few days to make our special gifts for our families. We look forward to sharing them with you! In reading and writing, Fourth Grade finished their novel, A Long Walk to Water, and dug deep in some closing activities and questions. It is amazing to see the level of thinking they can get to, and how they are beginning to make meaningful connections to the world around them. Third and Second grade worked on paragraphing and responses to Literature. We read several stories of the season which left us thinking about kindness, giving, and caring. In math fourth and third graders have fun playing a division math game called Leftovers. Second graders enjoyed playing a money game that helped them identify coins and adding money. We read two exciting biographies in social studies and science. We were inspired by  Mercedes and the Chocolate P...

Hour of code! We had a great time learning the ropes and trying our hand at coding! Thanks, Mr. Regan and Mr. Johnson for lending a hand!! Nutcracker at the Long Center We helped out with Student Council's food drive for the Capitol Area Food Bank. It felt great to be philanthropists! In reading, we all worked with Bloom's Taxonomy -- thinking levels and questioning. Second grade learned about the different strands and answered questions using their book, The Winds of Kislev. It was exciting to go from Knowledge based, through Analysis, to Evaluative Questioning! Third did a similar activity using their book, The Amazing Christmas Extravaganza. Fourth grade took it to a deeper level by first ranking the Taxonomy from surface to deepest thinking on their own and justifying why they believed it was that level. Next, they developed and answered questions for each level...

Part One: Perspective Look at the images below. What do you see in each picture? Keep your ideas in your brain until your teacher asks you to share with your lunch family. Part Two: Fairness With your group, choose a scenario below to role-play. Practice what you would do if you were in the situation.Work with your group to explore the consequences of possible solutions. 1.       You are waiting in line to use the water fountain. Someone cuts into the line ahead of you. 2.       You and a friend are playing a game of checkers. Your friend keeps telling you what moves to make. 3.       You are sitting by a friend during lunch. When you get up to get milk, someone takes your seat. 4.       During music class, a friend begins to tease you about the way you sing. Photo source: http://hubpages.com/

Click on the link below and scroll down to Hour of Code for All Ages . Choose an activity you'd like to try. Remember to take turns with your partner! https://studio.code.org/ Here are the links from Tuesday's lesson: Flappy Birds - you get to actually program the game. I like how it introduces event based programming and thus multiple blocks of code. https://code .org/api/hour/begin/flappy Frozen - this is a slightly more advanced project than the star wars one or the minecraft one, because it teaches the kids how functions can be given some direction (like  how far  to go forward).   https://code.org/api/hour/begin/frozen Minecraft: https://code.org/mc

We started our week with the opportunity to share all our wonderful interviews. The students were so proud to share what they learned about their interviewee! Third and Fourth Graders had a chance to show what they know with Benchmark Testing. Fourth took writing and math, Third completed math and reading. Fourth will finish up with reading next Wednesday. Third and fourth graders also reviewed for the math benchmark this week. Second graders found the value of a collections of coins. On Wednesday, second graders enjoyed a gorgeous day at Westcave Preserve. We learned so much about this natural wonder and the wildlife that inhabits it.  We learned about different types of rock like limestone, shake and flint. Ask your second grade scientist what Pedernales means! We got to go behind a waterfall, explore caves, and see trees that were over 300 years old! Our canned food collection is growing quickly! We love how the kids are joining in the spirit of giving and bringing items to do...

Math Mania Monday!! We had a great time focusing on all things math-related! We began our day by identifying and sharing important numbers in our lives (birth dates, how many people in our family, how many pets we have, etc). In Mrs. Forrest's block, we discovered a very wise little girl who tricked a king with mathematical doubling. She asked for a single grain of rice the first day, and then double each amount on consecutive 30 days rather than a lump amount. She ended up with rice in the billions! We investigated how much we'd get if we got a quarter a day, doubled each day, for the 12 days of Christmas...my advice to you: DON'T AGREE! ;) In Ms. Reiman's block we explored with geoboards and played different math games to practice the skills we've learned so far. On Tuesday we solved Thanksgiving story problems and worked on   Thanksgiving turkey trot math problems. In Mrs. Blake's class, we played a few rounds of Buzz, one of our favorite m...