Finding Patterns in Poetry

"A pumpkin got bitten by a werewolf at night, and a cat with a rat found meat to bite." 

Perhaps not award-winning poetry, but not bad for a first-grader still exploring word and rhythm patterns.

That's what we've been doing in first grade this year -- patterns. They have found repeating patterns, sorting patterns, increasing and decreasing patterns, and patterns all over the school when we went on a scavenger hunt.  They have kept records of all their patterns in a digital journal, using the "BookCreator" app.

Last week, I read the fabulous poem, The Witch by Jack Prelutsky, to them. We identified all the rhyming word pairs, then found the patterns in the writing -- that the end word of every second and fourth line, for example, rhymes.

Then we used a tree map to come up with our own Halloween word rhymes -- even pulling in a rhyming dictionary to find rhymes for "pumpkin." This was definitely a challenging project -- but a lot of fun, too.

Releasing Creativity

My classroom is a mess this afternoon.

Paint spots on the table, clay fingerprints on the counter. A spare goggly eye stares sightlessly from under a chair where it fell, and small pieces of yarn have attached themselves to the carpet. Space critters in various stages of completeness dry on top of the bookshelves (safe from curious fingers).

I am exhausted, but must smile as I survey this scene, the culmination of a weeks-long study into outer space. We launched it all back in September with this great Reading Rainbow video, followed up with IIM research into chosen planets.  Then my third-graders had to create annotated diagrams of space creatures and exploration vehicles that would be specially adapted to their chosen planets.

As we worked through the research and planning process, I quickly realized my students' pacing was all over the place. I didn't want to hold back the fast workers, or frustrate the more thorough thinkers by hurrying them. So I drew on this summer's Langford training and created a modified capacity matrix, so kids could track their own progress through the project -- and know what's coming next.

I love that this project has been a blend of research skills and divergent, creative thinking. Now, to clean up the creative mess.

Facilitating Failure

This week, I posted about a cool LEGO math activity I did recently with my first graders. One of my kids -- a first-grader determined to learn square roots, as he believes himself to already be the master of lesser maths -- was not satisfied with a two- or three-digit number. Nope -- he wanted to go to five digits.

So, I let him. Did I know it would be nearly impossible to do in our limited time, with our limited number of LEGOs? Of course. And I didn't say yes because I wanted him to fail at his choice -- this wasn't a cheap opportunity to tell him "I told you so -- now, learn what I tell you."

Instead, I figured it would be a great "teaching moment" for him to really understand the idea of exponential growth behind place values.

First, he picked a number in the 50,000s. He quickly revised that downward to 10,000 -- still quite the feat to accomplish with LEGO studs.

We added. We skip-counted and multiplied (he is gifted at math). We never made it to five digits, but I think, using the available base plates, that we made it to around 2,000 studs before he had to go back to class.

Sure, he failed at his original task -- building a five-digit number. But he and the two girls with him all left with a great understanding of just how huge a number 10,000 is.

Sometimes we learn more by failing than succeeding -- an important lesson I try to teach my GT kids, and one I often need to remember myself.

Building Math Skills Brick by Brick

Algebraic thinking, numeracy, math sense -- these words are all foreign to me. I think I know what they mean -- in a vague sense -- but never really concerned myself with them too much.

Until lately.

I have found myself in demand as an advanced math resource person these days -- a position I never expected to have, with majors in journalism and history and a career of teaching those two subjects. Thankfully, those previous areas of study have given me major research skills -- which I've put to use in the past month looking for hands-on math activities.

I came across this fabulous post by Alycia Zimmerman on Scholastic.com, which sparked my interest in what can be taught with LEGOs. I tweaked her "part-part-whole" activity a bit with my first graders recently, who have been studying place value.

I pulled 1x10, 2x10, 1x1 and 1x2 bricks from my LEGO bins, as well as some plates and base plates. (If you just got lost on the LEGO terminology, check out this glossary post from thebrickblogger.com.)

Ready to start, I piled the LEGOs in the middle of the table, and handed the kids small whiteboards. First, they chose a random two- (or three-) digit number and wrote it on their whiteboards. Then, they got to build their number out of LEGOs. They used the 1x10 and 2x10 bricks for their tens place, and the smaller bricks for their ones place.

56 = 20+10+20+2+2+1+1

Wanting to expand their numeracy? skills (please correct me if that is not the correct use of that concept -- like I said earlier, I'm still a little fuzzy on the whole math terminology thing), I had them write out the equations they just built. For example: 56=20+10+20+2+2+1+1.

They loved it!

If you have any awesome ideas for using LEGOs in math, (or any awesome hands-on math ideas), please post them below -- I am always on the hunt for more.

You've Been Sentenced...to Practice Grammar

The fun, jazzy class drew my rainy Ohio feet.

The smelly girl, Cameron, jumped into the lake.

Suzy sneezed under the snake.

Odd sentences? Absolutely. Grammatically correct? Yes! This is the fun of "You've Been Sentenced," a great game for vocabulary building and sentence writing.

A group of fourth graders came to visit me recently to work on their grammar and writing skills. I pulled this game off the shelf, handed them some whiteboards, and the giggling commenced. 

The basic premise of the game is to draw cards and make sentences using as many of the cards as you can -- which leads to great use of clauses and adjectives. By mixing in the whiteboards, I forced the students to practice their punctuating skills -- something they were more than willing to do to prove how "correct" their sentences were. 

They were quick to point out when clauses were under- or over-punctuated, or when basic sentence components (like verbs!) were missing. The players quickly corrected these problems -- I only saw sentence fragments twice, as the kids made sure to include verbs from then on, so they could earn points!

I also really love the silly thinking involved in the game -- for example, Suzy's snake allergy problem.  Players can challenge each other as to the validity of their sentences -- both content-wise as well as grammatically. In this case, the writer of Suzy's sentence had to come up with a scenario in which Suzy would find herself sneezing under a snake.  She said the snake was in a cage in a classroom, and the cage was on top of the table. Suzy was under the table, and started sneezing.

Fun, divergent thinking, while still practicing and improving basic grammar skills.

Down the (Glowing) Rabbit Hole

Did you know that scientists have learned how to splice jellyfish DNA into furry creatures' DNA to make glow-in-the-dark critters? I had no idea, until my fourth graders started researching DNA this fall. And oh, what a fascinating, complex study it has become.

I envisioned this project oh-so-simply. The yearly theme for my fourth-grade GT class is "structure." Of course, we will do the toothpick bridges and famous buildings, but how interesting to add a biological component to this theme. And what is more integral to living creatures' structure than DNA?

I figured we'd do a little research, present what we learned with a PowerPoint, Keynote, maybe a sculpture or two...and move on.

Not so much.

This is the joy and difficulty of teaching a GT class. As we delved into this fascinating topic, my students' paths shot out like the tentacles of that glowing jellyfish. Suddenly, we're looking at DNA, RNA, cloning, mutations, GMOs, genetic engineering...and on and on and on. By our second day of research, I realized a quickie presentation was not going to cut it.

"How would you guys feel about making this our semester project -- and creating a DNA museum?" I asked them. Cheers! Excitement! And so it begins...

We used a Circle Map to define a quality museum exhibit.

"Digging" Science

Yes, ok, the title is a little punny -- but if you've ever met my dad, you know I couldn't resist a good (or bad) pun. My second-graders are in the middle helping to build a school garden. We've been doing research on plants, but I knew if I didn't get their hands dirty soon, there would be issues.

The big garden is not quite ready yet, but I figured a window herb garden would be just the ticket -- and if I could mix in some scientific methodology, even better.

I started with plastic cups, dirt (just a bag from the local box store -- nothing fancy), some seeds and some water. I also put together these gardening journal pages so they could document the process -- just like scientists do.

They had to measure, in grams, the amount of soil they added to their cups. They had to measure the depth they planted their seeds (in centimeters), and they had to measure, in milliliters, how much water they gave their plants. They loved it!

Plus, they will come every day to document their plants' progress -- because this is what scientists do. They measure. They observe. They document.

When their plants start to (hopefully) grow, we will work together to draw conclusions about what worked, what didn't, and what we may do the next time.

Their Directions

Soil Measuring Station

Seed-planting Station 

Watering Station 

Stealing Ideas

I played a really mean trick on my students recently -- but for a good reason.

As they walked in the door, I told them, very excitedly, that we were going to have a drawing contest. Being the competitive GT kids that they are, they were all super excited, and immediately got to work drawing the best space-scape, plant or structural drawing they could. They were really into it -- hunched over, shielding their amazing, winning drawings from prying eyes.

They had five minutes -- timed. Then I had them trade their drawings with another person, put their names on that person's drawing, and hand them in. This is where it got a little mean.

"Oh, John!" I exclaimed, looking at Stephanie's drawing. "What color! What imagination!"

"Oh, Gina! What beautifully rendered leaves!" while looking at Maria's drawing.

This garnered predictable results.

"That's not hers -- that's mine!" "I don't like this!" "But, that's mine!"

"But...it has their name on it," I'd reply every time, then picked a "winner." Inevitably the winners felt guilty for being recognized over a picture they hadn't really drawn, and the real "winner" felt extremely irritated.

I debriefed with every group afterwards -- a necessity, because confusion and hurt feelings happened in every class. I apologized, but explained that this was the point -- that your brain is much more likely to remember something it learns when there is a strong emotion attached, and this was a lesson I never wanted them to forget.

Plagiarism -- the bane of every teacher who teaches resarch, from first grade through post-graduate studies. Now my students from ages 7 through 10 have an extremely clear understanding of the issue. We followed up this activity (which I learned from a training this summer in the IIM research method), with a Brainpop video and circle map about plagiarism.


We began with the end in mind. I want them to be good researchers for life -- which means confronting the issue of plagiarism now, before bad habits form. A little mean? Yes. Are they better researchers for it? Absolutely.