Learning and Growing...All of Us!

This week we had to get back in the groove after a week of swimming. It was a little bumpy! Some routines we roll right back into like our morning letter. It has become mostly student led now!

Morning Letter

#mtgr2 at work

 We also became involved in out Twitter chats again, as well as started a new one. We are hosting #k2tweetpals which is a global chat for primary students.We answer 2 questions a week. We are involved in two math chats. We post one question a week for #mtgr2 and #gmttc2 has a problem to solve daily! 

  

Birthday celebration

Reader's Theater

Using Epic


We also made some great connections. We learned a great deal from a meteorologist in New Orleans. We practiced finding the main idea with Shark Scientists. We also ate lunch in our room to catch a National Geography explorer in Madagascar. We were a part of a major Skype event to kick off the #NPHCBlogit project! We actually had some issues and listened in on a Periscope instead!
On Wednesday we found out we had a full page article about the Skype session we had with the South African sea bird hospital that cares for penguins! Connected Education is amazing!

National Geography Explorer

Meteorologist: Changes in the last 100 yrs

When Friday rolled around there was an excitement for our next Hour of Empower. I kicked this hour off by reading this wonderful book, The Most Magnificent Thing. It is perfect the perfect read for our Hour of Empower!

I wasn't sure what to expect. I knew the students were excited about putting their plans into action, but I knew we had to work on those plans. I have been trying to use Google Classroom, and honestly, it isn't going well. The first week I had used forms for them to answer questions about their plan. However, some had not finished and therefore their forms were not submitted, so their work was lost. So, just like in this book, I tinkered, hammered and changed my plan. I made a google document, knowing their work would be saved. So they all opened up the document I had posted on their page in Google Classroom and began to type. That is when I realized I had made another mistake! It was one document and they were all typing on it. Quick change in gears I had them take out a notebook, and asked them to write. Within ten minutes I felt the energy and enthusiasm dwindling. So, I pulled them together, threw that document up on the screen and I wrote my plan as a model. I wanted to explore my curiosity about computer science.

I had purchased an Ozobot kit over summer and purposefully didn't open it. I wanted to be as clueless as my students when we opened it together. This is a new feeling to me in many ways. This is extremely unfamiliar to me to use tools such as this. I was a little unsure, a little nervous and a bit excited as well!

I am so glad I did! As we opened it, and briefly looked at the directions, we just began to explore and try it out. We revised our plan when something didn't work, and just had fun figuring it out. I showed them how we were using science and observation. We were working with coding and technology! We were intrigued, inspired and motivated to do more. It wasn't my plan for the day, but it worked out perfect. Look at the wonder in their eyes!

Ozobots are so cool!

Guess what everyone wants to do in our next Hour of Empower!?