Week Six - Oct 8 - 12, 2012

I've officially made it through Six Weeks of Flipping!  Woo Hoo!

Monday

Today we took our state's MSTAR test to test algebra readiness.  We'll take it again in May, but we took the test and I had all the students input their answers into their project share accounts.

Tuesday

Today we practiced patterning.  I showed patterns and then the kids worked in groups to create and share patterns with other groups to figure out.  After we did that we went to the computer lab and worked on ScootPad for about 30 minutes.

Wednesday

Kids came back ready to learn something new!  I made a mistake though, since YouTube is blocked at our school again :(, I wasn't able to upload my new video from school, and forgot when I got home.  So, I had a few students who didn't watch their video because those students normally access them on YouTube.  So I see that as my fault, so I didn't "punish" them for not coming to class prepared.

We're learning about Prime/Composite numbers, so I did wanted the kids to work with Arrays and use arrays to help them determine whether a number was prime or composite.  I let them use building blocks and let them actually build all the arrays they could for six different numbers and then determine if those numbers were prime or composite.  The kids had a great time, mainly because I was letting them play with blocks, haha.

Thursday-Friday

These two days we started a new "project".  I got this idea from my principal who used to teach 5th grade math!  The kids love it.  I don't give any directions for this group project.  All of their directions are written out step-by-step on a piece of paper and all I do is hand that paper to each group, and have them begin.

I've learned that fifth graders are used to having a teacher do all the thinking for them, so this project really forces them to think on their own and follow a set of directions, because I also only allow each group THREE questions to ask me.  So they really have to decide if their question is important enough to use up one of their three....and yes, asking to use the restroom DOES count as a question.

What the students have to do is take a giant sheet of chart paper (that I got from the work room) and split it into 20 equal sections.  Then they have to create all the arrays for the numbers one through twenty and label each array and label whether that number is prime or composite.  It is a huge project that takes three days, but the kids really enjoy it!  We're finishing it up on Monday.

The other amazing thing this week that my homeroom got to do was Skype!  We were able to skype with @DeliaBush and @johnfritzky classes in Michigan and New Jersey.  That was the coolest experience for my kids to meet kids from another state and talk to them and ask questions.  We have since created an Edmodo group that all our students are joining so they can communicate in that setting as well.  We are also doing a Blog between the classes to talk about what we're doing in class and have the kids leave comments on the blogs.  It is a very exciting time and my kids can't stop talking about it!

You can check out @JohnFritzky's view of our skyping adventure here..
http://www.teaching-vs-learning.net/

You can check out @DeliaBush's view of our skyping adventure here..
http://flippedclassroom.blogspot.com

Were it not for Flipped Class and Twitter, I would never have been able to do some of the amazing things that we did this week!!