There seemed to be a common thread weaving through all of our work
in 4L this week and that was the value of peer insight.
It started during writing time when we went back to revise our
writing process to add Peer Conferences. These conferences allowed students to
share their writing work and get authentic and meaningful feedback in a timely
manner from their classmates. We took notes from a couple of videos we watched
where different children’s authors explained how they revise.
Notes from the authors Mo Willems and Daniel Kirk
We sat
together reading our writing aloud, and our peers listened for any places where the
writing ‘didn’t work’. In some cases that meant offering suggestions for how
the composition could be improved; in others, it was simply letting our
partner know there was a need for revision in certain spots.
Aleksandras edits his final draft, Steven applies peer feedback in the form of revision, and Eva and Migle work through a peer conference
As I tuned into conversations between the children, I realized
that the feedback was extremely valuable because: 1) it was given by someone
who was currently going through the same process 2) the exchange between
peers allowed for more honest feedback because there was no assumption that
there was a 'right' or 'wrong' answer to a question (as they often feel is the
case with an adult).
Elena, Rojus, Migle and Benas work on typing out their second drafts with revision, while Steven edits, and Yelyzaveta and Sofija work through their first draft in writing
In fact, several students found the conferences so helpful that
after revising their work based on feedback they had received, they sought out
a second peer for further insight.
We also had the special privilege of having Ms.Jurga join us as we worked on Friday Letters. The students found this task a bit more challenging in Lithuanian language, but kept a wonderful growth mindset as they discussed
the value of being able to express themselves accurately in both languages they
use at school. Thank you, Ms.Jurga, for your support!
Ms.Jurga offers feedback to Sofia and Nora as they compose their Friday Letters in Lithuanian this week
In mathematics, we came to understand the value of peer insight during a number talk when I was struggling to clarify a solution we were
investigating. As more children joined the conversation, it became apparent to me that there is great value in the simplicity with which they are able to
communicate such complex thinking sometimes!
It was at this time that I pitched them the idea of peer
teaching. Those who were feeling confident with the new concept of open
sentences were encouraged to reach out to someone who needed more support. They
rose to the occasion and did a fantastic job! This method was beneficial for
both parties because: 1) the students doing the teaching reinforced their own
understanding, 2) it allowed for individualised learning, 3) students 'speak the
same language’ making it easier to understand new concepts 4) students were generally more comfortable taking risks and making
mistakes in pairs, 5) it promoted trust between students to strengthen relationships.
4L works in pairs as peer teachers and students
Krista talks through her strategy on a whiteboard, while Veronika demonstrates her thinking for Eva
Elena and Migle find the value of challenging one another's solutions
We concluded after trying this method that we all gained learning
from this interaction. Those who were ‘teachers’ learned how to see problems
and solutions from new perspectives, and to appreciate that being able to do
something does not always make one able to easily teach someone else! Those who were
‘students’ practiced expressing where the problem solving was breaking down to
get instant feedback, and gained new strategies for solving open sentences. Together
the pairs found mathematical patterns in their problem solving and achieved
much greater success as they invited new ways of thinking.
In unit, we looked back on Unit of Inquiry 2, Sharing the Planet,
and used a Visible Thinking routine called ‘Generate-Sort-Connect-Elaborate’ to
identify our enduring understandings. We began by brainstorming a list of all
of the activities we had completed during the unit.
Each student was then given a sticky note and was asked to write one big conceptual understanding they thought they gained over the past six weeks.
Shourya shares his conceptual understanding from Unit 2
Rojus, Nora and Krista reflect on their conceptual understanding
Next, we came together as a whole group where we had our
central idea and lines of inquiry on the board. As each student presented their
conceptual understanding, they posted it next to one or more of the lines of
inquiry or central idea, and justified the connection they made.
Krista shares her conceptual understanding as Veronika, Sofia, Gerda, Benas and Liza look at our central idea and lines of inquiry to see where they believe this idea connects
As a
collaborative effort, we elaborated through short discussions to make further
connections between our thinking or to give examples that supported our
thinking.
The green sticky notes represent each child's conceptual understanding connected to our central ideas and lines of inquiry. The orange writing elaborates the thinking we shared.
Finally, we went back to find any recurring themes among the ideas
we shared. Our final list of enduring understandings was as follows:
Habitat changes are connected to species adaptations
It takes a long time for a species to change and the changes are
very small
Some species don’t change (living fossils? We’re still not sure
how we feel about this idea!)
Animals can have physical and/or behavioral adaptations to survive
Here is our full flow of thinking through the 'Generate-Sort-Connect-Elaborate' routine with Enduring Understandings
We had the pleasure of spending our snowy Wednesday morning at the
park with 4A again. This week the students went all out and brought
old-fashioned sledges as well as a giant inner tube! This encouraged new
playtime inquiry as the students investigated approaches to make the fastest
run, explored new parts of the hill with various inclines, and found the most
effective way to ride the different sleds. It was remarkable to witness how the
students built understanding of velocity, speed, friction, and other complex
scientific principles related to force and motion as they experimented through
unstructured play! Moments like these are good reminders that we should never
underestimate the value of real-world experience. This is how children make true sense of the world around them!
Finally, we ended our week with Genius Hour working on our Passion
Projects. We are in various stages of completion. While some of us spent time
making video compilations of our process and basked in the glory of finished
products, others realised our undertakings might have been overzealous and
continued to troubleshoot through research.
Elena creates a new sketch of a creature for her game
Benas creates a new door element in his game
Aleksandras creates a stop motion animation movie using characters from drama class
Migle puts together a video of the process she used to investigate flight
Shourya finishes up his song lyrics
We agreed that next week we would share
our progress thus far, regardless of what stage of our project we’re in because
it’s the process that counts. It has been amazing to see how supportive and
encouraging the students have been towards one another throughout this journey, and to see what some of them have accomplished with all their hard work!
Nora presents her completed project- a house, complete with scratching post, for her cat, Urfin!
This week in 4L, we spent a substantial amount of time focused on why revision is important, no matter what we are studying. In Unit, we revised our thinking about whether or not living things need to change to survive. In math, we revised our thinking as we focused on using estimation to evaluate whether our solutions made sense. In writing, we moved from drafting to revising in our process. In Unit this week, we continued to investigate our 3rd line of inquiry about enduring species. To further our understanding of the idea of evolution, we used Lego toys and built a 'Lego Tree of Life'. The students got into groups of 3-4 and created one simple 'animal' with 3 Lego blocks. This was Time 0.
Migle, Steven and Yigit share their Time 0 animal
Shourya, Rojus, Gerda and Benas show their Time 0 creation
Each group got a set of cards. These cards dictated what happened during each time period. The cards said one of the following:
Mutation: Change a body part
Mutation: Add a body part
Mutation: Subtract a body part
Split: Mountain range or River divided the habitat
Extinction
Students built the model of their tree with Lego and connected ancestors with straws. They also documented the tree on paper in case any of the Legos needed to be removed and used for future generations.
Krista, Antanas, Eva and Aleksandras think through what is happening in their family tree
'Lego Family Tree' up close
We moved through 5-6 time periods and then stopped and summarised what we noticed using these questions:
How different are the end animals from the common ancestor?
Pick a branch of your evolutionary tree and describe the pattern in the animal traits. (Try comparing them to species that are not descended from the same ancestor)
Why would it be good to have different features? (tails, wings, long necks, legs, etc?)
Why might the animal have gone extinct?
How long do you think it would take to go from the top to the bottom of the evolutionary tree?
Liza, Basel and Elena discuss and reflect on their 'family tree'
We then began to explore 'SO WHAT?' What was the big idea or what did we take away from this activity? The students worked in their small groups once again to share their personal learning. Some groups came up with one enduring understanding, while others shared each member's thinking.
Antanas explains his thinking when we consider...SO WHAT? What did this activity teach us?
Rojus, Gerda, Benas and Shourya discuss their big ideas or enduring understandings
This sharing sparked very a rich, in-depth roundtable discussion where students connected back to living fossils, natural selection and invasive species. They connected, inferred, and drew conclusions to discover deeper learning about enduring species. It was an exciting conversation to behold!
We also got to learn with Mr.Jos again this week! Last week we learned about birds mostly from desert habitats. This week we learned about birds from a variety of habitats. We connected each bird's features to their diet, predators and habitats. Mr.Jos never fails to amaze us with strange and peculiar facts about birds of the world. This time we even learned about some that live right here in Lithuania!
Mr.Jos shows us a monkey that shares an ecosystem and habitat with birds of the rainforest
Here Mr.Jos explains about ultimate disguises like this butterfly that looks exactly like an old, dry leaf!
In writing this week, we went back to our writing process graphic. We realised we had spent a lot of time planning and drafting, so we thought it was time to move to the revision stage.
4L's original Writing Process chart with added revisions as we've gone thorough the process
An interesting conversation prompted us to explore the difference between revision and editing. We then brainstormed some ways we might revise our writing. We implemented peer conferences to solicit feedback on our work.
Krista seeks feedback from Elena regarding her writing
Benas shares his feedback with Antanas regarding his writing
The feedback here was that the falling action seemed too swift- so the revision begins
We are now in various stages of the writing process where some of us are drafting, while others are revising and still others are typing out those drafts for editing.
Steven and Yigit conference as Veronika and Eva draft on paper, while Shourya begins his second draft on the computer
In mathematics this week, we continued to work with multiplication and division. We wrote a blog post about Number Talks where we shared our favourite or most successful mental math strategies for multiplication and subtraction.
One of the quietest times we experienced in 4L this week was blog time!
We spent one number talk reviewing our subtraction strategies and were delighted when one of our classmates shared a new strategy we had never tried! Our confidence continues to grow as we build understanding of why we use certain numbers as opposed to simply plugging them in and completing algorithms.
Aleksandras shares his strategy for subtraction and "blows our minds" as we try more examples off to the side to see if this method will work for any problem with any amount we choose to take away
The student request this new, user-friendly strategy be added to our subtraction strategy chart and Aleksandras achieves one of his math goals!
We also moved into measurement. We practiced measuring in US standard measurement so we could get some practice with fractions. We measured distances around the globe and used a map scale to calculate distances in real life.
Migle and Aleksandras guide Yigit and Shourya through how to measure and calculate the distance from Washington, D.C. to Tokyo, Japan
We also worked with solving number stories by using these 5 steps:
1. Understand the problem
2. Plan what to do
3. Carry out the Plan
4. Look back
The students participated in the Hour of Code this week. While some of them were just beginning to understand this concept, others demonstrated that they are very adept at coding and are currently using their skills to build games or programs for their Passion Projects.
Mr.Thibault assists Sofia and Gerda in their coding challenges
Basel swiftly moves through his first coding challenge before moving on to more complex coding
Genius Hour continues to be a success. Most of us are making steady progress in our inquiries as we continue to work on developing our 21st century skills.
Antanas, Krista, Veronika, Eva and Steven continue to progress on their Passion Projects
Migle tests a new type of plane - this time applying research skills to create the farthest flying plane
Sofia and Gerda use the beats they've created using software they found to practice singing the song they've written together
As students in 4L grow more independent, they strive to build their own understanding of new and complex concepts. This week in Unit, we began to investigate and explore line of inquiry 3: There is historical evidence of enduring species. We began by exploring the idea of evolution. I drew a little creature which all the students copied. From the variations of creatures, we chose our favorite one collectively. All the other pictures were removed and we discussed how the swamp dried up and all the ones that were removed had sadly died.
Elena and Shourya copy Generation 0
Yigit's interpretation of Generation 0
Generation 1 top left and all of his 'relatives'. Students chose which one of these mutations would best survive the desert habitat change
We kept our favorite one (termed 'Generation 1') on the board, and students all copied this new creature.
Steven and Benas copy Generation 1
Again we posted all of our work and this time we selected the one that we thought was best adapted to survive in the desert. Different students volunteered to justify why certain versions of our creature would thrive or die until we were down to just one again- we called this 'Generation 2'.
Nora explains why this particular species would or would not survive in a desert climate
Shourya shares his thinking about another relative
We continued this process for several rounds as the habitat changed from desert to forest to mountains, and finally ended in the deep sea.
Migle shares her Generation 5
Veronika works on her Generation 5 creation
The outcome was a visual representation of 5 generations of the same creature.
Generation 0-5
We followed this activity with a discussion of what the students thought evolution meant. There were many interesting thoughts on what had just happened to our little creature! We then broke into pairs to analyse the changes we had seen our creature go through by annotating one graphic of the process. During a whole group discussion, students theorised about what might have created such changes/mutations and how those mutations might have promoted survival over time.
Our understanding began to change as our discussions grew more complex, so we dug a little deeper. We looked back at the central idea: Over time living things must change in order to survive, and tried to connect it to our thinking. In groups of 3, we watched videos on:
We answered a few questions and then summarised our big understanding using the 'Headlines' routine from Making Thinking Visible. Again we engaged in thoughtful discussion around our big ideas, and continued to build understanding toward our central idea.
Our transdisciplinary work for Unit 2 continued as we saw our imaginary creatures come to 'life' in the form of clay in drama.
We worked during writing to create simple storyboards we could use to tell the story of an animal entering our habitat or of joining a new habitat.We then took the habitats we created in art up to drama on Wednesday, and began taking photos for our stop-motion animation films.
We watched videos of ourselves acting this scenario out in drama, and then set to writing out the full story as diary entries from our creature's perspective.
In math, we continued to work with multiplication. We are growing more confident during multiplication number talks. Several students have begun taking risks as they experiment with new strategies for mental problem solving. Not all of the strategies are successful, but the act of inquiring and proving/disproving these strategies demonstrates that deeper thinking we value in 4L. We have added one new multiplication strategy to our chart this week.
Here you see that Gerda and Yigit both tried out new strategies but when we worked collaboratively, we could not yet prove they work
We also spent time investigating the relationship between multiplication and division through games, number stories and work with fact families.
Nora and Elena, Aleksandras and Rojus play games to practice multiplication and division
On Wednesday we enjoyed ourselves immensely at the park with 4A. The fresh snow afforded us new play themes and the chance to go sledding! On Friday, we continued work with our Passion Projects. We were delighted to see the progress our classmates had made on their various learning journeys. From sewing dog clothes and stuffed animals, to walking robot frogs, to collaborative efforts on new songs... it was a great place to be Friday afternoon! At the end of every Genius Hour, the students communicate their next steps and what we should see by next Friday. It is such an inspiration and pleasure to see how the students encourage and support one another in their efforts to reach their goals.
