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Showing posts from 2014

Video Hint of Things to Come!

Our fourth grade CSG students have been working with Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences. After reflecting on these, students guessed which of these they might most reflect. After completing an online survey, students then compared their initial thoughts to the results. Students then incorporated these into a Google personal profile presentation. Not all have completed the recording as of yet, but here's one to whet your appetite for things to come.

Set Champion 12/18

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After completing the recording of his personal profile, Barfuo set the class record for solving setgame.com in 17 minutes and 51 seconds. Way to go!

Möbius Strip

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Why, yes, that's the biggest Möbius strip you've ever seen! Based on the work if M.C. Escher, our fifth grade CSG students have constructed it after discussions about Escher's work and the concept of the infinite! 

AIG Update December 2014

Here's a copy of the December AIG Update Thanks for all your support in 2014! I am fortunate to work with such great students, teachers, and families.  Happy Holidays! Advanced Subject Group in Reading 4:   Fourth grade completed our work with the Junior Great Books (JGB) introduction to shared inquiry or seminar learning by kicking off a ‘book club.’ This group read Belly Up by Stuart Gibbs – at the wise suggestion of our awesome media specialist, Mrs. Page! Students had 60-70 page reading assignments each week – and most of them were easily able to do so! We are still in the process of wrapping up this work. In the New Year we will move back to short stores by JGB. 5:   Fifth grade readers wrapped up our Fall’s work with fluency activities including a readers theatre about Benjamin Franklin and poems for two voices by an award winning poet. Selections from both of these activities have been highlighted through my AIG blog. The last of December and into 2015 (can you be

More Paleontology!

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Here is another group of Jones' fourth grade paleontologists. Thanks to Mrs. Tarantino for the time with her classes!

Fourth Grade Fossil Finds

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Mrs.Tarantino and I have been working together to present all fourth graders the opportunity to be young paleontologists. Here are some snaps of students discovering fossil finds in sediment that is up to seventy million years old. Students carefully note their discoveries in their science journals. The sediment was donated by PCS Phosphate - an important company for North Carolina resources. Jewelers loupes provided by a grant from Asheville City Schools. G 

5th ASG Reading

Hola! Here's a blurb from a letter that was sent home with fifth grade advanced subject group in reading. There are video highlights featured elsewhere on this blog.  Happy Thanksgiving, btw!!  Fifth grade classroom teachers identified reading fluency as the focus of reading instruction for the initial weeks of school. To this end our fifth grade Advanced Subject Group in Reading has been working on a couple of different fluency exercises. Our initial work was a readers’ theater play. In readers’ theater, students show the action of a dramatic presentation with the tone and cadence of their reading. The play students read and presented was A Spark of Genius about Ben Franklin. Students initially reflected on what they understood about Franklin with words and pictures. We then had several small groups that read the play. After reading and presenting, students again reflected on their understanding of Franklin. Their work, both pre and post reading, are included in this com

Poems for 2 Voices continued

Here's a couple of more performances. I have a couple in addition that are still 'queued' with YouTube to be available. I'll get them up asap! Enjoy!

Fluency in Reading

I'm going to start rolling our student videos of our "Poems for 2 Voices" work. Remember, these are presentations using Fleischman's Joyful Noise . \

Peter Pan

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My iPad camera doesn't do justice to how wonderful the Jones production of Peter Pan truly is. Make it a point to catch a performance!

4th Advance Subject Group in Reading

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Here is an sampling from a letter that went home with fourth grade students in ASGR. Our fourth grade Advanced Subject Group in Reading has been working with introductory materials from Junior Great Books (JGB). JGB materials provide clear lessons to help students more deeply discuss and understand a text. JGB also provides concrete behavioral expectations for participants in these discussions – sometimes called seminars. See blog from 10/10/14 to see 'do's and don'ts list) Tally marks on the participation maps indicate students sharing comments about our work – based on open-ended questioning. A higher number of tally marks does NOT necessarily mean a higher grade or more meaningful role in our discussion. Tally marks just show participation. I also include arrows noted with “a” or “d” which means an agreement or disagreement. Both are valuable parts of our work. This introductory work is an important foundation for our work with literature throughout the

Fluency: Poems for 2 Voices

Our fifth grade ASGR has been reading aloud readers theater plays and now poems as part of a grade-wide focus on reading fluency.  Joyful Noise  is a selection of poems for 2 voices by Newberry-winning poet Paul Fleischman and has been the subject of our work. Here is one pair presenting their poem! Check out others in future blog posts!

Great Solar System Rescue

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Our fourth grade enrichment study group has been busy locating and saving space probes lost throughout our solar system. In this simulation, small groups of scientists use challenging background reading, video transmissions, and the collaboration with colleagues to make consensus decisions. Each decision costs money, and the team (there are 3) spending the least will win the GSSR!

Fifth Grade CSG

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Our fifth grade CSG has reviewed the work of the Dutch illustrator, M. C. Escher. These students reviewed a brief history of Escher and have studied his 'mobius strip.' We also had a seminar discussion where we discussed Escher and his depiction of the infinite (the mobius strip). Today we put our study into action and created our own mobius strips. They are shown below. We may well continue this work by constructing a giant mobius strip in the coming weeks. Keep a look out for our work. BTW, you should ask them about our anagram work after our initial work! It was a lot of fun! AND..... Happy Halloween!

Franklin Post Assessment - Fifth Grade ASGR

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You may have seen the PRE-assessment work from fifth grade advanced study group in reading (ASGR) students on October 23. It is interesting to compare those reflections to the following - created by students after reading a readers theater play about Ben Franklin. Students will take home BOTH assessments, you be the judge as to how much they have learned! I should also say that the readers theater work directly supported IBJ fifth grade's focus on fluency and its role in literacy. Definitely check out the first scene from the play A Spark of Genius  on this blog from October 23! Fifth grade ASGR students continue this work with fluency by presenting readings of poems for two voices. Our text is Joyful Noise  by Newberry-winning poet Paul Fleischman. Look for Fleishman's work to come alive via this blog soon! Thanks for your continued support!

Franklin Theater

Here's a blurb of fifth grade ASGR students presenting Spark of Genius , a play about Ben Franklin's key and kite experiment. Check it out! While these students presented, the remainder of the class practiced more reading fluency activities, namely presenting poems for two voices - based on the Newberry Award winning author Paul Fleischman. Look forward to seeing these poems soon!

Franklin Experiment PRE Assessment (5 ASGR)

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Fifth grade teachers identified reading fluency as a focus for the first quarter of school. To this end, our ASGR for fifth grade have been working on presenting a readers' theater play about Ben Franklin. Before the work began, however, I asked them to use words and pictures to describe what they already  knew about Franklin's experiment with a key and kite. This work, shown below, serves as a a pre-assessment of their knowledge. We will complete a second version of the work to see what they have learned! Check out their work, and prepare for the second installment! Also - I had a small group present the opening scene of the play, so I'll feature their work later on this blog.

MVP for Thursday CSG

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I know IBJ frowns on external rewards for students. I can't tell you how much I agree! One way I would like to reward students is to feature them on this blog as an MVP for their class. Today's CSG had a clear winner! The student below was extremely  helpful in getting everyone logged into their Google accounts to retrieve an electronic assignment. He also was focused and completed his written reflection about our work with multiple intelligences. Awesome!!

AIG Update (October Edition)

Hola! Here’s some of what’s happening in our AIG groups: ASG Reading: Fifth grade students continue to work on the readers’ theater play Spark of Genius . This play about Ben Franklin’s experiments with electricity is a great opportunity for students to practice reading fluency and learn about history and the scientific process. We completed recorded rehearsals and will move forward to share a completed presentation in the coming weeks. These students will also be working to present “Poems for 2 Voices” – specifically using a collect from the Newberry Medal-winning poet, Paul Fleischman. Fourth grade has wrapped up introductory work with Junior Great Books. We have used a ‘do’s and don’ts’ list to help inform our discussions. We are moving to a more formal literature study with resources from the Jones Media Center –thanks Ms. Page! ASG Math: Both fourth and fifth grade students have been working with collaborative problem solving. In this work, students each have a pi

Math Game "24"

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Our fourth grade math group warmed up for our lessons by playing "24." In this game students are given four random numbers to add, subtract, multiply, and/or divide to get the answer 24. It can be challenging and (sometimes!) impossible! Here are photos of solving students.