what we know about coins

The Grade 1 students in Jenna Loewen's class at Garden City Elementary have been happily singing away to the classic song "Canada in my Pocket" by Michael Mitchell as they have been learning about the Canadian coins.

When I visited their class on Thursday, they could tell me all about the values of the coins, what colours they were and what animals or boats were on them. One student was also happy to share all that he had learned about the caribou...

We had small collections of pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters. The students enjoyed examining each coin and feeling the difference in their textures. They looked closely at the numbers, words and pictures on the coins. Each team of students took turns taking photographs of the coins using the iPads.

We then used the app Haiku Deck (like powerpoint for the iPad) and the students created captions describing each coin.

Here is an example of a group project created in Haiku Deck:


Created with Haiku Deck, the free presentation app

Our redesigned curriculum in mathematics has re-introduced aspects of financial literacy beginning at the grade one level. Learning to identify and describe Canadian coins will be one of the curricular content pieces at the grade one level and this is an example of a task that will support student learning in this area.
~Janice

showing what we know in math...first time using iPads

On Thursday, I introduced iPads in the classroom to Tina Grigoriadis' grades 3 & 4 students.  Garden City has 8 iPads (with more on the way) and the students were very excited to use them for math. They worked so well in groups of three, collaborating and sharing.

The class has been learning about multiplication and has just begun to learn about division and its connection to multiplication, specifically looking at arrays. Tina had many visual supports up in the classroom to support students with their mathematical understanding.

We introduced the students to the MathTappers iPhone app called Multiples. It has options for working with different levels of factors and practicing both multiplication and division, with ten frames and hundred charts as visual supports.

 The students then worked together, creating three different arrays using math materials. They learned how to take photographs with the iPads and then import these photographs into an app.

We then taught the students how to use the doceri app to use photographs, diagrams and the students' voices to represent and share their understanding of multiplication and division through the use of arrays.

 Some students preferred preparing a script that they could read as they recorded their voices on the iPad.

Here are some examples of the students' screencasts:

These screencasts reveal a "first-timers" use of the app - figuring it out, seeing what it can do. Most of the students described multiplication and division equations for the array they had photographed. A further extension (maybe for second-timers) would be to further explain their thinking about the connection between multiplication and division and how an array supports their understanding.

When we asked the students what they liked about using the iPads, one student commented that he was having fun but then he realized he was learning at the same time. As educators, we know that engagement leads to higher rates of learning and retention of information and these kinds of experiences that are hands-on, minds-on and collaborative are highly engaging for students.

~Janice

water cycle simulation in grades 2&3

The McNeely grades 2 & 3 teachers continue to explore ways of using iPad technology to capture students' learning in science. On Monday in Anna Nachbar's class, we discussed the water cycle - precipitation, collection, evaporation, condensation. We had lots of recent examples of precipitation to refer to - rain, sleet and snow.

We simulated the water cycle using the classic boiling kettle and cold cookie sheet demonstration. We poured the water into the kettle (collection), turned the kettle on and boiled the water, watching the steam come out (evaporation) and then watched as water droplets formed on the bottom of the cold cookie sheets (condensation) to the point that the poured down the cookie sheet and onto the desktop (precipitation).

The students worked in pairs and took photographs of each stage of the demonstration. Some students also took photographs outside as it was a very rainy day and there were good examples of collection (puddles), precipitation (rain) and condensation (clouds).

 The grades 2 and 3 students then were introduced to the app PicCollage and the students included four photographs, one for each stage of the water cycle. They added text to label or explain the stages.

With PicCollage it is easy for students to email their project as a jpg file and the following are some examples of the students' work:

Two students did some "app smashing" and used the image they had created in the PicCollage app and used it in the ShowMe app to further explain the stages of the water cycle:

 In Deanna Mayotte's class, we did the same simulation but this time, the students used the screencasting app ShowMe to document and explain the four stages of the water cycle.

And I liked how these two students connected each stage of the water cycle to what was happening in the real world outside!

During this professional inquiry, the teachers and I have talked a lot about the value of having the students develop a repertoire of apps that they can use to represent and share their science learning. After spring break, we intend to introduce another app or two and then maybe decide on a science task we can do and have the students choose the app they would like to use to share their learning.

~Janice

looking closely at snow and ice

I asked Jenna Loewen's Grade 1 students at Garden City what they had noticed about snow during the week. We don't get snow very often so the students were excited to tell me about making snowballs, forts, snowmen and snow angels. When I asked them more specifically about that they had noticed about the snow, they commented that it was white and cold.
We ventured outside to look closely at what remained of our big snowfall. Most of the snow had melted by Friday but we were still able to find patches of snow which made for interesting questions as to why some snow hadn't melted yet.

I brought along a tub of magnifying glasses and loupes to help focus the students and take some time to actually look at the snow in some detail. I also had my olloclip macro lens ready to get some "zoomed in" photos. The students were also excited to find lots of ice outside.

Some students found some animal tracks in the snow and we looked across the field to find the likely matches - mallard ducks!

The students brought some ice back into the classroom and we used the zoom usb microscope to look closely at the ice. The zoomy magnifies things up to 43X so we got some really close looks at ice.

After looking closely at the snow and ice, we asked the students to share their observations and choose words to describe what they noticed...their descriptions had grown significantly from "white and cold" to: sparkly, watery, curly, shiny, crystals, golden, silver and the ice had smooth edges.

The students made some connections to some crystals they grew in their classroom:

With snow in the forecast again, maybe these students will get another chance to look closely at snow and see it from a new perspective.
~Janice

Primary Scientists: looking closely at our practice

A large group of primary teachers in our district are taking part in the third year of Primary Scientists, a professional learning series focusing on process-based science and initially created as an implementation series to support the development of the Coast Metro Science Performance Standards. Teachers are all engaging in looking closely at one aspect of their practice in terms of science teaching and learning with an overall group focus of thinking about how we assess process and inquiry-based science experiences.

Using the science performance standards and assessment tools from the current K-7 Science IRP and the teacher resource book we are using for this series, teachers are asked to try different ways of assessing science performance tasks.

Teachers have chosen different aspects of science to focus on this year as part of their own inquiries into their professional practice: taking learning outdoors, looking closely (a national collaborative project), the processes of science, observational drawing and place-based learning using indigenous knowledge.

Based on the Looking Closely books by Frank Serafini, several of the teachers created their own versions of the books with their students. With her grade one class at Garden City, Jenna Loewen created a class book using garden photographs and having the students brainstorm what they could be.

April Chan at Blair took her students outside to look closely and create a peekaboo page with a hole cut out on the front page to take a peek at the illustration the students did of something they observed.

Sharon Baldrey and Kathleen Ellis from Lee Elementary looked closely at ice with their kindergarten classes. After freezing blue-dyed water into globes of ice, the students used salt and flashlights to investigate the properties of ice and how it melts. The teachers commented on how engaged the students were and what great inquiry questions came up during their investigations. Amazing photos of an amazing experience!

Louesa Byrne's K/1 class at Thompson looked closely at leaves in the fall and inspired by Ann Pelo's book, The Language of Art, observed and represented the leaves in using multiple forms of art materials - liquid watercolours, crayon rubbings, technical drawings with fine line markers and creating leaf forms with wire.

April Chan at Blair did a similar focused study of leaves with a small group of primary students. The students used the PicCollage app on the iPads to document the different ways they created representations of their leaves.

So as we engage our students in looking closely at the world around them, we too are looking closely at student learning in science.

-Janice