Fourth Grade scholars have been inquiring into the impact of structure on individuals, communities, and societies. As part of our inquiry, we have decided to participate in Global School Play Day, which is described as “The grassroots effort created by educators in support of unSTRUCTured playtime for students around the world.”
One of the questions someone asked today when this day was announced was, “UNstructured? How can it be UNstructured?”
I guess we will find out tomorrow.
We hope to be able to reflect on our experience and explain how unSTRUCTured play helped us inquire further into STRUCTURE.
Alert: Mr. Wilson will also be participating, so be sure to remember your swimsuit for P.E.
Despite being in our pajamas, our day was anything but sleepy. Drawing on our own poetry-writing experience, we used our Writer’s Express book as a resource for researching special aspect of poetry and considering a plan for presentation. We worked together to plug in the pieces to our schedule. Sequencing of the lessons was a critical component of the structure that needed careful consideration.
As we continued our pursuit of parts, we were presented with a set of perplexing problems… how to find the whole when given a part as a fraction.
How would you solve the question: If 2 fifths pieces are 1/3 of the whole, then what is the whole? Tricky!
To end our day, we were treated to an assembly hosted by Grade 2. They shared with us their learning about endangered animals and invited the audience to get involved. They were very knowledgeable.
After reading a portion of Varsha Bajaj‘s book T is for Taj Mahal yesterday, we began our day, using this text as a mentor, to inquire further about structure The book, through a combination of prose and verse, highlight important people, places, and elements of India and its culture. After reviewing ideas on the W portion of their KWHLAQ charts, each student identified a topic of interest and used a variety of informational / nonfiction texts to gather facts. Using the facts gathered, researchers began to freewrite in paragraph form.
Once paragraphs were written, students reread their work and considered reSTRUCTuring by adding line breaks to create a poem. While somewhat challenging to rethink reading with poetic pauses, students worked through the process of transforming a paragraph into a poem. The final step involved revising with poetic elements like rhyme, rhythm, repetition, and figurative language in mind. This final step often requires rewriting, multiple attempts at lines and stanzas until the sound is satisfying.
This afternoon, during art with Ms. Rydah, we continued our work on our hands. Ms. Paula came by to admire the art.
Our Monday started with our usual inquiry into… words. Today’s list lead some into literary terms, while others explored planning structures and mathematical vocabulary. It was especially interesting to see how students are beginning to experiment with visual thinking structures in their word work notebooks. Students captured their learning in charts, tables, webs, word maps, and lists. Some also opted for color-coded systems to expand their thinking and make connections.
Based on feedback received from student-created survey’s, scholars began to think about ideas for their student-planned I Love to Read and Write Week lessons. Together in their teaching teams, students:
made a list of reading / writing focus ideas.
numbered the choices in order from most to least important / valuable.
brainstormed activities to go with each idea.
Similar to what teachers do, students considered the structure of planning and learned about the importance of keeping the end in mind. Throughout the next few days and weeks, we will continue to explore the what, why, and who of learning and teaching.
Today, we also dove in to our new math unit by inquiring into the structure of fractions. The concept of decomposition was on full display as students moved through a variety of stations with a thinking buddy. Methods and models, sums, partitioned rectangles, and more-than-one-answer math tiles were all options open for observation, interaction, and reflection. Many thinkers and problem solvers engaged in thoughtful discussion, posing questions to one another and on paper for further investigation.
Today, as INQUIRING readers, we set out to use WORD STRUCTUREto determine the meaning of new or tricky words. Affixes were on the agenda.
We began by thinking about a word with the root “touch” introduced in Gloria Whelan’s book In Andal’s House and in Kids Discover: Ancient India.
We then looked at how the word can be modified by adding PREfix before the root and SUFfixes after the root. We also learned a new secret agent code: PqRS. We then had the opportunity to explore the STRUCTURE of words found in one of our resources. Each scholars was challenged to:
Lookthrough the Kids Discover magazine.
Identifya ROOT word.
ReSTRUCTUREthe word by adding prefixes and suffixes.
Explainhow the restructuring changes the meaning of the word.
Createa learning poster to make your thinking visible.
Seesaw your process. (We did not get to this today, but will try to Seesaw tomorrow.)
We also continued practicing PARTitioning rectangles and connecting our pictorial presentation to the more abstract PARTial products. Using these two strategies, we multiplied four-digit by one-digit factors.
To end the day, students began to access our prior knowledge about India. With STRUCTURE in mind, we began a KWHLAQ process. In small groups, students began to:
Ponder what they already KNOWabout India.
Pick and prioritize things they WANT to know more about.
As we worked through the remainder of this process, we will be able to narrow down and focus our inquiries.
Today we began to BUILD on our understanding of our central idea by exploring our first line of inquiry. Small groups worked together to make a list of all the different FORMS or types of structure they knew. Initially, many groups focused solely on the physical STRUCTURES they were familiar with, but after a brief time of sharing and considering different points of view, students gradually began to conSTRUCT more comprehensive lists, which included:
physical
language
family
social
economic
organizational
Once we had gathered a good list of STRUCTural options, we decided to deconSTRUCT one of them… language. Our first element of language we looked at were the parts of speech. Once again, we began by brainstorming what we already know. Then, students worked in pairs to reflect on their winter breaks… through the language lens of parts of speech. Using a Google Doc posted in their Google Classrooms, students using the embedded multiple sources to identify words and phrases in each part of speech with which they could document the last three weeks.
Multiple Sources
You can explore parts of speech further by logging into IXL or Khan Academy.
While not a part of speech, students also considered homonyms to use in their descriptions.
We then read aloud another one of Gloria Whelan’s book In Andal’s House. As students listened, they were challenged to:
Identify FORMS of STRUCTURE evident in the text.
Discuss the FUNCTION of those STRUCTURES and how they affect individuals and societies over time.
Structures were also explored in math as we looked at PARTitioning rectangles. Drawing on our work with basic and extended facts, we looked at how we can use an area model to represent and solve multiplication equations.
As we settled back in to our scholarly routine today, we took time this morning to review a few changes to the schedule and to examine this week’s vocabulary words. “Antagonist,” “protagonist.” and the word part “struct-” seemed to be of greatest interest. Once personal and collective notes and noticings were made, a challenge was issued to be on the alert of clues and multiple sources related to this week’s words.
We then moved into an examination of our next transdisciplinary theme: How We Organize Ourselves. In small groups, students read and reread the title and description and highlighted and annotated words of interest or words that might help drive an inquiry. With their new multi-colored pens, students mused marvelously and considered critical connections and questions. As groups shared their thoughts, it was amazing to see similarities and exciting to see differences that will lead to wide and wonderful investigations.
As part of the launch of our new unit, students participated in a puzzle-making provocation. As the picture was revealed and the pieces poured out on the carpet, students immediately began to share strategies for sorting. Patient, polite, yet purpose-filled leaders emerged from the crowd and calmly conducted the construction process. Throughout the entire process, students remained respectful, riveted, and ravenous for the challenge.
Taking a brief pause from the puzzle, students also inquired into problem solving processes related to the estimation of large numbers. Data related to food consumption was shared and questions posed. Students approached each question with a variety of strategies, which were shared, compared, and considered by others. Multi-step problems proved to be a tad challenging, but we will continue our work with this in the days ahead.
To end the day, Ben chose to share a portion of his rock collection. With great detail, he described each stone sample, making connections to our work with the rock cycle. We might just have a geologist in the making.
During our word work time today, Mrs. Kovacs invited us to consider elements of an essay by analyzing and assembling colored strips containing parts of sentences. Working collaboratively, we pieced together sentences. As we explored options, we realized that some strips could be torn in two to create simple, complex, and compound sentences. One of the challenges we encountered was ensuring that the strips made complete sentences and not fragments. Once sentences were assembled, we pieced them together into a paragraph, which included a thesis and supporting details.
To extend our learning, we were presented with another set of sentence strips containing content about different types of rocks. Once again, we pieced together the information considering complete sentences and paragraph structure. When we were done, we captured our final paragraph on lined paper. These informational paragraphs were shared in a jigsaw format, so everyone had an opportunity to learn about the different types of rock.
After focusing extensively on reading yesterday, today we focused on writing. One of the articles featured in yesterday’s reading task was from Teaching Kids News. The article by Nancy Miller entitled “Japan’s 2011 Tsunami Sends Balls 8,000 Kilometers to Alaska” explained how a soccer ball and volleyball that were swept out to sea ended up being reunited with their owners. Today’s challenge required students to step into the skin of either the soccer ball or volleyball and to write a fictional story about the journey experienced from its perspective. Using facts from the article, learning from their inquiry into movement, and understanding about strong story development, students began crafting creative tales. Prior to writing, students identified the following criteria for a scholarly story:
realistic details
voice
dialogue
word choice
sentence structure
punctuation
figurative language (onomatopoeia, simile, metaphor, alliteration)
This prompt prompted a plethora of plot possibilities including:
In an effort to dig more deeply into the idea of struggle and survival, we shared a read aloud of the book The Caged Birds of Phnom Penh by Frederick Lipp. Prior to reading, we paused to make predictions about the text, based on the title and Ronald Himler’s illustrations. To guide our predictions and our ponderings, we used a summary-style mneumonic device – SWBST-F (Somebody, Wanted, But, So, Then, Finally). This graphic organizer will be used again on Wednesday when we revisit the text. Then, as we read, we paused after each page to peruse the pictures, ponder the plot, find figurative phrases, and consider connections to our compass point conversation.
Our discussions were deep and diverse, often diverting to delve into interesting individual incidences (here in Kinshasa, in our home countries, and from our travels around the world) that have influenced our ideas and impacted our lives. How will all these things intersect as we conduct our inquiry?
We also began to explore metric prefixes today. How could we incorporate these into our stories?
Of course, being a rainy day, we also had some fun with dominoes. It is interesting to see how problem solving, movement, and struggle and survival collide with these creations.
