1st Grade Update

 We've been super busy since Halloween! It's been a whirlwind. 1st graders have been hard at work with both our Primary Education Thinking Skills and our Green Schools Quest project. 

We've been focusing on convergent thinking like Dudley, the detective.  Dudley uses patience and perseverance to find the correct answer. Dudley uses clues and thinks carefully and analytically. He uses deductive reasoning and does not jump to conclusions. 

Students have completed logic puzzles and other similar activities to think like Dudley. One way to think like Dudley is to build models with step-by-step directions and coding. Coders must try, make mistakes, and try again until they reach a solution. Students tried coding with Osmo and Lego WeDo Education kits. 

Playing games like Mastermind is also great for practicing this type of thinking.

Students thought like Dudley the Detective (logical/deductive thinking) and Max the Magician (visual-spatial thinking) when playing other games like Blokus, QBitz, and Quirkle during one of our sessions. 
Students have also worked on our Green Schools Project.  This year's theme is Biodiversity. We are working to preserve and protect natural ecosystems in our area. After discussing several possibilities, students decided to create nesting boxes and feeders that songbirds in our area prefer. The Missouri Department of Conservation and other sources have helped us understand the how's and the why's of the decline in the avian population.  

Phase One of our project includes creating two types of nesting boxes and feeders. Students researched two types of nests that many birds in our area prefer. Students worked on the first design this past week, with the help of mentor, Mr. Merril. 

Students will be working on the second design after the winter break.  In the meantime, we have begun collecting data by installing a deer camera (thanks to the Davila family) to help us track bird activity before and after our nesting box installation. 


It has been a great quarter in Idea Lab!  I sincerely hope the students enjoy their Winter Break! 

2nd/3rd Grade Idea Update

Our 2nd & 3rd graders were all very poised and represented our school so well at our First Lego League Explore event. So proud of them!

Several more parents reached out to share their creative hobbies/interests! Thank you to Zachary’s mom for coming to our class to speak to us about her creative interest- pediatric emergency medicine. She brought special tools for the students to try out—stethoscopes, thermometers, and flashlights. She became interested in becoming a doctor when her father, who was a doctor, performed CPR on her sister during an emergency. We really enjoyed learning about her creative interest! We've had a couple more parents reach out about their interests. Stay tuned! 

Students are presently learning coding skills with the Scratch interface. Scratch (created by M.I.T.) is the world's largest coding community for children. It uses visual block-based programming to create games, stories, animations, and even lessons.  

Students are creating a game that others can play. Students are welcome to access their Scratch accounts during the break to work on their own for a bit if they wish!

4th Grade: First Lego League Challenge

PROUD is an UNDERSTATEMENT!  These kids were simply amazing at the First Lego League Challenge event! 

The Universal Turtles: 

Team Innovation Problem & Solution: Help improve comfort when playing soccer by creating a special undersock that goes under a soccer game sock and helps to prevent friction and wicks moisture-- therefore preventing blisters. This undersock can also protect the skin from moisture-related problems when using shin guards.

Click HERE to take a look at the highlights video for the Universal Turtles.  
Also here is the Innovation Project presentation for this team in case you missed it.  

The Traffic Transporters: 
Team Innovation Problem & Solution: Help alleviate traffic at concerts and other big events by 1. Creating robots that will help direct traffic and send GPS directions to your phone after scanning your ticket to prevent traffic clusters.  2. Suggesting the creation of an app that if used will give you a 15% reduction in the concert ticket price and will direct you to purchase a subway, metro, or bus ticket to the event. This will help to reduce the number of cars on the road heading to big events. 

Click HERE to take a look at the highlights video for the Traffic Transporters. Click for the Innovation Project presentation for this team in case you missed it! 

Both teams nailed it!  Way to go, Spoede! 

4th Grade: Idea Lab Update

Fourth graders have been hard at work in Idea Lab! We're competing with the other 4th grade Idea Lab classes around the district this year-- so we have kept our projects a little under wraps. We hope you will be pleasantly surprised when you see our presentations on Saturday, December 9th at Old Bonhomme Elementary School. Please SAVE THE DATE!

          

This year's theme is First Lego League Unit-- Masterpiece!

The First Lego League Competition in 4th grade involves 4 parts.
Innovation Project: How can you use technology and the arts to help engage others and create participation in what you love to do? Teams will develop an idea together, create a prototype, design a display board, and deliver a 5 minute presentation to an audience & judges.

Robot Design & Robot Game: ​Teams must complete ​successful robot missions in a 2 1/2 minute match at the robot table with a robot that they design. Teams score points based on the difficulty level of the missions.  ​Robots must be coded to move around the mat on their own. ​

Core Values: Teams must show excellent teamwork, discovery, impact, inclusion, and have fun!

Teams have been working well together.  We are excited about our project ideas! 

More details will be coming about this event!
Please mark your calendars for December 9th from 8:30-11:00 a.m. 
You won't want to miss it! 

Idea Lab: 3rd Grade Update

Third graders have been hard at work this quarter! We got our creative juices flowing right off the bat!

We jumped right into our First Lego League Unit-- Masterpiece! 

First Lego League involves a bit of convergent thinking-- building models exactly as shown in images to try out robotic programming as well as divergent thinking-- building models and creating robotic programming using our creativity and imagination.  

Students are designing creative ways to share their creative hobbies and interests with the world.  We spent some time researching careers in the arts. Students presented their research to their classmates.  Careers like shoe designers, cake decorators, cartoonists, interior designers, animators, theatre managers, graphic designers, curators, fashion designers, art therapists, and more were discussed.

We've asked parents to come to our classroom to share their creative hobbies and interests with us.  

Addie's dad talked to us about his creative hobby: flying helicopters.  He showed students how one of the helicopters worked.  Since he was young, he had always had a dream of flying and found that helicopters gave him that feeling, unlike airplanes.  I told Addie's dad that if my high school physics teacher had allowed us to use something like model helicopters-- I think I would have had a waaaay better understanding of the physics principles!

Bode's mom has wanted to be an artist since she was a little girl.  When she was Bode's age, she taught her first art class to neighborhood kids who signed up to take her class from an advertisement that she created. She saved enough money to buy all of the supplies that were needed for the kids' class. She learned that she had a passion for teaching as she got older, and now she can combine her passion for art and teaching as an elementary art teacher! She brought many of her own masterpieces to share using different media, including a beautiful portrait of Bode. 

I think the students are LOVING having our parents come to our classroom, and they will be inspired to try many new hobbies.  Please let us know if you have a creative hobby or interest that you would like to share.

The goal for the FLL Masterpiece season is for students to create a Team Model that showcases their team's passion and interests.  The Team Model must include a robotic component, show innovation, and have an impact on the world.  
Team members must work effectively together and of course, have fun! 

Some teams have picked a team name and are beginning to design a team logo. 

After our Team Models are complete, we will work on a display board and produce a presentation for judges and an audience. We are excited to show you all of our learning and discoveries on Saturday, November 18th.  More details will be coming about this event!
Please save the date. You won't want to miss it! 

2nd Grade Idea Lab Update

 Second graders have been hard at work this quarter!  We got our creative juices flowing right off the bat! The students were challenged to create something that represented themselves using only one piece of paper, scissors, and coloring tools. 

Then, we jumped right into our First Lego League Unit-- Masterpiece! 

First Lego League involves a bit of convergent thinking-- building models exactly as shown in images to try out robotic programming as well as divergent thinking-- building models and creating robotic programming using our creativity and imagination.  

The goal for the FLL Masterpiece season is for students to create a Team Model that showcases their team's passion and interests.  The Team Model must include a robotic component, show innovation, and impact on the world.  
Team members must work effectively together and of course, have fun! 

After our Team Models are complete, we will work on a display board and produce a presentation for judges and an audience. We are excited to show you all of our learning and discoveries on Saturday, November 18th.  More details will be coming about this event!
Please save the date. You won't want to miss it! 

Welcome new 1st Graders!

So excited to welcome our new 1st graders to Idea Lab!

We began our first couple of sessions getting to know each other and tapping into our creativity. We started by reading a book, Rosie Revere Engineer.  This book is about pursuing one's passions and learning that there will be setbacks along the way.  All of those mishaps help us learn and grow.  After reading this story, students were challenged to engineer their own creation of Legos that represents who they are.  

The LEGO creations should be symbolic of their own interests, talents, or hobbies.  The students would share their Lego creations with the class so that we all could get to know each other better. 

On the second day, students took a True Colors Personality Quiz and Learning Styles Quiz which helped students learn about themselves. After taking these self-inventories, students created a 3D Name Sculpture with all of the letters in their name. They used what they learned about themselves as well as their hobbies and interests to decorate the letters in their name.  We learned a lot about the students from their name sculptures.  

After getting to know each other, we were introduced to special P.E.T.S. characters from Crystal Pond Woods that will help us learn in new and different ways. P.E.T.S. stands for Primary Education Thinking Skills.  Dudley the Detective, Isabel the Inventor, Sybil the Scientist, Yolanda the Yarnspinner, Max the Magician, and Jordan the Judge will help us understand different kinds of thinking... like convergent analysis, divergent synthesis, visual/spatial, and evaluative thinking. We will continue to ask ourselves: What areas of thinking come easily and naturally for me? What are some areas that I can work on improving?.  

We began practicing our different types of thinking with the character, Max the Magician, and visual/spatial thinking. The emphasis is on stimulating each child’s spatial intelligence by analyzing spatial relationships, reconstructing the parts into new wholes, and making predictions.  Students are asked to look for patterns and find a solution that works.

Activities that help us with visual-spatial thinking include puzzles, like the special 7-piece Chinese Tangram puzzle. Students took home a paper set of Tangram puzzle pieces to practice.

We also learned to play the game, Blink. This is a fast-paced card game where students race to find matches in shape, color, or number.  The student who uses up all of their cards to find matches first wins.  

SET is a more difficult game that we learned to play. A SET consists of 3 cards in which each of the cards' features are the same on each card or are different on each card. All of the features must separately satisfy this rule.  Click the image to try the game SET. 

Katamino (Family) is a block puzzle game where two players race to fill in the puzzle with the correct blocks that fit. 

The object of the game, Kanoodle is to fit all 12 puzzle pieces on the board.  As the game gets harder, you start out with fewer and fewer puzzle pieces. 

Puzzles, in general, are great for practicing visual-spatial thinking. 

We also focus on social-emotional awareness in Idea Lab. We learned about positive self-talk this past week and how it can encourage us during challenging moments. If you would like to see some of the strategies we talked about, click HERE. 

We have really enjoyed getting to know each other in Idea Lab.  We look forward to having some fun challenges ahead.  We will keep you updated along the way.  

Farewell Fourth Grade: Final Video & Goodbye

 Students were able to share their ideas for their final challenge: How can we repurpose a vacant lot into a community gem? 

4th Grade Idea Lab students shared their ideas with 3rd grade students (who acted as our community members). 3rd grade students asked many questions and gave feedback on the students' ideas. 

Please ask your student about the idea that they shared. Students shared in many ways-- 3D models, digital 2D/3D rendering, slideshows, or I-movies. We were impressed with their creativity and their sincere desire to help create an idea that would help their community.

Prior to this challenge, students were given a chance to experiment with a digital floor plan. Students were asked to create a bedroom, bathroom, and closet that met exact size specifications. Once students finished this, they could try their hand at making a whole house floor plan.

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I may have to hire a few of these designers for myself one day!!!

We culminated our year with peer-voted awards and a video that shares some of our highlights together.

HERE IS THE FAREWELL FOURTH GRADE VIDEO

that we shared during our last class.

I will truly miss this group of students. Not only were they brilliant-- they were happy, funny, caring, and hard-working.

It is no wonder that they were winning teamwork and innovation awards. They have a special place in my heart!!!

Once a turtle...always a turtle.

Please don't be strangers and come back to visit!!