A somewhat quieter than normal day

Today was a school day! Yes! Why did only 14 of my 22 students showed up for class today? I'm kidding, right? Ah, no, not kidding. Yes, I had a lovely day with the 14 students who did come to school today.

First of all, why were there so many away? Well, I don't live in China, but there are many people of Chinese descent in Cambodia, and both yesterday and today the markets were closed (apart from all the people who moved as much of their stock as they could outside or who had outside stalls) along with many businesses for Chinese New Year! Last year we closed too, but with so many holidays it was decided not to take this one (which wasn't compulsory like some of the others). Unfortunately for me, our local photocopy shop was one of the business that was closed, so I had to do a little improvisation, but we got there. After school I went to a big photocopy shop a little further away as was suitably impressed with the speed and quality of their work and the price was the same as well. The material I was copying was all designed to be copied, so no problems with copyright.

As I knew last week that I would have three students absent all week this week, plus one more definitely away today and tomorrow, I decided to do a mini-unit on Chimpanzees this week. It fits in perfectly with our Biomes curriculum content, and the material I discovered incorporates maths, science and language arts, so I'm not feeling bad about diverging from core curriculum for a week. Pity I wasn't more organised with my printing and copying.

Something I like to do, and which was suggested in the curriculum guide I'm using, is to start the unit by creating a KWL chart. For the non-teachers among you K = Know, W = Want (to know) and L= Learned. Today we did the K and W sections. At the end of the week we will complete the L. It's always fun doing this, and I usually discover some interesting knowledge already existing among my students as well as some erroneous knowledge. That was certainly true today. In doing the K section, I don't discard anything, but rather hope that, as the unit proceeds, the students will discover the errors themselves. Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn't. Mostly it does.

So just what did my students think they knew about chimpanzees. Here's a snapshot of what I got on the whiteboard.

As for their questions. Wow! These kids had some amazing questions. Once again, I try to record them all, eliminating overlap as far as I can. Here's what I got down, and they actually had a few more which just wouldn't fit.

So what do you think of those questions? Aren't these kids great thinkers? I'm really looking forward to the rest of this mini-unit. I already know we're going to answer a lot of their questions. Hopefully they'll be encouraged to go searching on their own for those which we don't answer.

Tomorrow I plan to create a poster with this information, leaving lots of space for the L section. On Friday I'll give students small pieces of paper in various shapes so they can record what they have learned and put it all together. You might want to check back next week to see the final product.

Learning about Biomes

One of the interesting parts of moving to a new grade level, is getting to know the new curriculum requirements. This year, I've had some fun, developing material to help my students learn about various topics. We've just finished a unit on Biomes. Now when I first heard that we were to study "biomes", I'll admit that I didn't really know what a biome was. I think I know a bit more now, and hopefully my students know a lot more.

Rather than try and direct teach a topic that I wasn't really familiar with, I decided to set up some project-based learning, using a variety of multiple intelligence tasks, where each small group of students would study one biome in depth, and then at the end of the unit they would teach the rest of the class about their biome.

Generally the students were enthusiastic, although they weren't all thrilled about the groups I'd put them in. Sometimes I let students choose their own groups, but for this project I assigned the groups. They then had to choose 8 tasks to complete out of 27, one from each group. They also had 8 key questions that they needed to answer. Finally they had to present their biome to the rest of the class.

Some groups did really well, and one group actually completed 10 tasks. Other groups didn't do so well, and their progress (or lack thereof) taught me a valuable lesson. When you are managing small groups it is really important to factor in regular briefings with each group.

On Friday, it was presentation day, and after 3 days of planning, preparing, and practising it was all systems go. Ooops, didn't get the computer and projector working together properly before I started. Should know better than that! Never mind, we eventually solved that problem. Oh no, now the electricity is out! Life's like that, we'd better keep going as best we can. Hooray, recess time. Let's have a break and play Math games after recess until the power comes back on. Fun, and good practise of our division strategies too. Power's on! Let's get these presentations finished in time for swimming. Way to go, Grade 4.

Yes, they all did a good job. Some did better than others, but that's to be expected. Overall, the class showed that they had learned a lot about biomes, and also reminded us of some of the things we need to do to care for our environment.

The teacher learned some valuable lessons too. The main lessons were about managing group work better, and about planning project based learning so that all students cover all the essential points. Will I do it again next year? Yes, but with a major rewrite of the activities, and also a little more direct teaching at the start of the unit.

The ultimate question remains. Did the children learn? Yes! They learned content, and they also learned about working together. Several students also discovered that the presentations weren't that hard when they were prepared and practiced, and I know they will be more confident next time they need to do a presentation.

And now it's time for our next adventure in learning together! Inventions and Inventors. This is going to be lots of fun.