WE Scared Hunger

We did scare hunger the week prior to Hallowe'en.  How is it that it is ALREADY the first days of December?  That may be even more scary 😱!

Sorting over 1100 food stuffs collected by staff and students

Every year, we have hosted a canned food drive at some time throughout the school calendar.  Since this is our inaugural year as St Teresa of Calcutta and because we are a WE school, we decided to bring a twist to this old favourite by trying a "WE Scare Hunger" campaign running until Hallowe'en.

I proposed to the kids that they could choose any way of advertising the campaign.  The traditional poster ads were common replies.  So, I challenged the kids to consider how the world advertises.  Minds opened; ideas poured!  Twitter, TV, radio, announcements, commercials, emails, newsletters were some of their inspirations.

Students then selected group members based on skill set and began bringing their campaign strategy to life.  

A group of actors added a tech kid for filming, lighting and sound

A group who wanted to create a dance "commercial"

 added a different tech partner for filming and music

Another group of artists set about to advertise 

with posters throughout the school

And still another group created a PSA about the campaign which can be seen here  

The Wall of Fame for many classes!  5P reached 175 cans!

We found time to throw some math into the campaign by posting the tallies in the main hall.  I think it lit a fire under some of the classes!  My kids used the tallies to determine the percentages towards our goal.  This gave an opportunity for mental math adding and learning how to figure out percents (which we hadn't studied yet).

Day 2 of the campaign and we had reached 35.3% of 1000 cans!

Of course, as their teacher, I was totally psyched that they were geeking out, using their talents to promote the WE Scare Hunger initiative throughout the school.  I appreciate it when extracurricular meshes with curriculum and collides with the real world.  Never mind that the campaign was a HUGE success thanks to the time they put behind the scenes.

~MissBrooks

Survey Says

7 dots and how we see them from YouCubed.org

After having completed Dr Jo Boaler's Week of Inspirational Math, I felt students had some key learning under their hats to begin their adventure in Gr 6 Math.  This key learning included:

1. Math is not about speed.  Math takes time!
2. There is no such thing as having a math brain or not.  EVERYONE can learn math!
3. When we make mistakes, our brain GROWS.  When we are not challenged, there is very little activity going on.

With some new found confidence, we began to delve into the Data Management strand of the Ontario Curriculum.  The big ideas are that graphs contain information and we are to draw inferences from them.  I had the students complete the Census at School survey which gave us a spreadsheet containing oodles (a real math word) of results from our class.

Sample categories from of our class' spreadsheet

After looking at who was the oldest, tallest, biggest footed or which was the most liked subject, I asked the students to consider a research question.  Giving them the example "Do boys have allergies more than girls?", they understood that they would be comparing data from 2 columns of their choice.  Some interesting research ideas included:

• Do tall kids have big feet?
• Do boys or girls have quicker reaction times?
• Who eats breakfast more:  boys or girls?
• Are your feet and forearm really the same length?

Students were challenged with the task of creating tally charts, 2 graphs and a title page ... without paper!  Instead, they would be like "real world" data analysts and use the Chromebook to create colourful, professional looking results.  

Our brains were definitely growing with using technology and math discussions flowed over the course of the week.  Once students figured out how to create a table or make tallies or use Create A Graph, they began to show their peers how to ease themselves through it.

Collaboration in the learning environment ... a beautiful sight to see!

~MissBrooks

PS  Ask your child to show you their research on their mytools2go accounts.  I think you'll be impressed!

The 4th Day Before Christmas

Today, in an effort not to be outdone by yesterday, was "snow" full of activity that maybe a nap is in order for tomorrow!

After a game of "Tree Movers" in gym, we headed back to the classroom to see Madame Coolen, decked in her finest apron and wielding wooden spoons and measuring cups.  The grade sixes were going to be making short bread cookie dough this morning as part of their French lesson!

Listening to instructions for making candy cane short bread cookies

This leant itself well to the problem for Math.  It was a baking question that the students were told to VISUALIZE, VERBALIZE and VERIFY.  The visualization really helps in understanding the problem...

Each batch of 48 cookies that Jolly McJingles makes takes 20 minutes in the oven. If the oven is on for 3 hours and 55 minutes (15 minutes for preheating), how many cookies did Jolly McJingles make?

I love how you can use different
strategies/thinking
to get to the answer!

The entire school is doing an open response for the poem "Snowman".  So, that was the text we read aloud today since it fit with our plans for later in the afternoon (and a sample was due to the bosses tomorrow).

SNOWMAN

Author Unknown

My little snowman has a mouth,

So he is always smiling south.

My little snowman has a nose;

I couldn't seem to give him toes,

I couldn't seem to make his ears.

He shed a lot of frozen tears

Before I gave him any eyes---

But they are big ones for his size.

This lead to a discussion about line 2's "smiling south" and punctuation's importance when reading poetry.  Do you interpret the meaning differently depending on how the poem is read?  The kids noticed that there was no punctuation after "tears" in line 6 so, if it was read along with line 7 it meant something different to some of them.  The question they were asked to respond to was "Why do you think the snowman is built the way that you are visualizing?"

We decided poetry is a little like Math because there is no right answer or way to go about it as long as you give REASONS for your THINKING!

Some responses included:

They put a smile, nose but he doesn't have toes or ears so he is feeling pretty sad cause he doesn't have those body parts but there was one last thing: his eyes. So he was waiting for his eyes to be put on and as soon as the person put on the eyes he stopped because it said that  “He shed a lot of frozen tears Before I gave him any eyes---” That means the wet tears turned into frozen tears because he was no longer sad.--Christian

I think he was sad but he became happy because it says “He shed a lot of frozen tears Before I gave him any eyes--But they are big ones for his size.” And that means that he was sad before he could see the world that it good and full of joy and not badness.--Grace

Maybe the person found too big of rocks (eyes) so they looked odd on him.The frozen tears could be that the snowman is melting and water was dripping from his face.Also his mouth he could have made the snowman facing south (direction).That is why I see him that way.--Xavier

The disastrous craft table

We spent the last period of the afternoon with a glue gun and an explosion of craft items so the students could make Christmas tree ornaments.  These turned out pretty cute and definitely show the maker's personality.  Tomorrow we will wrap them (if giving them away) and send them home.

Come back to read how the cookies turned out and what the third day before Christmas gift is going to be!

~MissBrooks

Each​ ​batch​ ​of​ ​48​ ​cookies​ ​that​ ​Jolly​ ​McJingle​ ​makes​ ​takes​ ​20​ ​minute

Getting in Shape

Over the past couple of weeks, we have been exploring Geometry in our math block, covering angles and attributes and exploring nets and nonagons (and other -gons!).  Below are a couple activities we tried.

SeeSaw app in action

my shape has 4 right angles. 4 sides, 2 lines of symmetry and 4 vertices

SeeSaw App

This app is like a live bulletin board where students can display their work for others to see.  Peers can make comments (give descriptive feedback) about the work to further learning.

After adding the app from the ChromeStore to our individual Chromebooks, students were challenged to 1. take a photo of a quadrilateral in the classroom.  This proved not so challenging as we only had squares (Starburst candies) and rectangles (tables, books, charts).  Not even a trapezoid table!  But we persevered...

Next, and after uploading the picture to SeeSaw from their camera roll, the Ss were encouraged to use the 2. drawing tool to show attributes.  These "smarties" didn't care that they had never used this app before and began colour coding their math thinking (which made it easier for anyone seeing their work to distinguish ideas).

With pictures in, I forced the Ss to try putting their thinking into words...to explain what they had drawn on their pictures.  They had the option of 3. captioning the picture or recording their explanation with the   4.audio tool. 

The magic happens in the comments!  The Ss needed to apply what they knew about quadrilaterals and suggest ways their peers could improve upon their work.  Here are the comments Marie Claire received for her work (in the above photo):

 

Math

 Allyssa Langford, Christian Dushaj, Gabriella Stabile, Gloria Julius, Jesse Hamilton, MarieClaire Juntilla, Max Masood-Luca

 

Gloria Julius I like that you put the lines of symmetry. Maybe next time you could add dots on the vertices so it's more clear. 

Dylan Gilliam I like how you showed the lines of symmetry

Jesse Hamilton I love how you showed parallel lines, vertices and the angles. What if you could show more about your shape? What would you do? Roberta Brooks Marie Claire, I appreciated how you colour coded the work which made it really easy to read. I think I would like it if everyone did that! 

I ❣ this app!

Grandpa Tang's Story 

by Ann Tompert

Grandfather Tang and Little Soo create a story using their tangrams about two fox fairies who have the ability to change into the shapes of any animals they choose. Includes informational section about the ancient Chinese puzzles called tangrams.

After reading the story aloud to the Ss, I projected the animals that were created in the story and challenged them to use their own set of tangrams to re-create as many of the animals as they were able in 10 minutes. Can you guess these animals that appear in the story?

Manipulating the tangrams was a bit of a challenge at first.  Ss are so used to seeing shapes in an upright position; rotating and flipping the shapes to create the animals was not their first instinct.

I then projected another challenge where Ss were to try and create a shape using a set number of pieces.  Each tangram piece was given a point value to help them to narrow down their choices.  This may have led to some confusion but the Ss who love numbers were certainly aided with this bit.

An example of one of the challenges was to create a square using 2 pieces that were worth 10 points.

The Ss who like numbers looked for combinations that made a total of 10 and saw it was the yellow and green pieces, the red and light blue pieces, or the orange and pink pieces.  By manipulating the two pieces together, they could quickly decide that the 2 large triangles would form a square.  Some Ss knew the answer had to have two congruent shapes or a square was impossible.  This particular example will come into play when we discuss area of rectangles vs area of triangles.  If Ss remember that 2 triangles make a square (which is a type of rectangle) AND they already know that the area of a rectangle is l x w, wouldn't the area of a triangle be half of that (since half of a square is a triangle)?

Let us know in the comments how you get students in shape for geometry!

~MissBrooks

Which One Doesn't Belong?

While scrolling through some education tweets this week, I came across a math site called "Which One Doesn't Belong?" found at wodb.ca.  On the site can be found puzzles with a picture in each of four quadrants.

Shape #1

To launch our geometry unit, I thought to start with the above puzzle.  This would let me know where the students were in terms of attributes of polygons.  Which one doesn't belong?  Here are some thoughts from the grade sixes on Day 1 of Geometry. 

Bottom Right:

--it's grey and others are white--Allyssa

--seems smaller than the others--Andre

--it's the only one with a right angle--Gabriella

--perimeter of 69 cm

Bottom Left:

--no equal sides (Scalene?) --Gloria

Top Right:

--this is a hexagon and the others are triangles--Gabriella

--parallel lines--Max

--all equal sides

--only has obtuse angles--Gloria

Top Left:

--this one sits on its vertex but the others are on an edge--Xavier

What I liked about this site is that it doesn't post answers!  Part of growing in math confidence this year is allowing for time and making mistakes and not having just one "right" answer.  This is thrilling for a math learner and educator.  If you look at the sophistication of some of the answers, they vary from beginner to higher end.  BUT EVERYONE CAN PARTICIPATE!

Take Allyssa's observation that the one shape is grey.  She is not wrong.  She has contributed to the group's discussion.  She's participated.  This is a PLUS.  The next time we did a puzzle, a different student made the observation about the difference in colour which led to the wonder "does the colour of the object affect the math?" to which the students replied "no, but she's not wrong".  SUCCESS!

Something else that came from this puzzle was the math language.  Students seemed to dig deep into their "backpacks" of knowledge to come up with innovative and original observations.  You might notice the lines of symmetry drawn on the shapes because that also became a discussion as the class worked together to discover the lines of symmetry for each polygon.  One student wondered if the lines of symmetry had to do with the number of sides.  Since three of the shapes were triangles, that logic meant that all the triangles had 3 lines of symmetry.  BUT, only the triangle with EQUAL sides had 3 lines of symmetry.  A great discovery!

Try WODB in your class and let us know what you see happening in your class.

~MissBrooks

Our Really Engaging Oreo (OREO) Math

At the end of a data unit, when we needed some data to practice mean, median, mode and range, I remembered the O.R.E.O. project found here.  Instead of going online with the project this year, my class simply stacked off against one another in what we would call Our Really Engaging Oreo (OREO) math moments!

First, we collected information for how we eat OREOs.  This data shows that on this particular day, 8 students choose to bite the cookie whole which is double the number of twist and lick the creme kids and also double the twist and eat the cookie first kids.  Six kids would dunk it in milk first and then eat the cookie.  You can see that we calculated the total cookie eaters, the mean, median, mode and range of the data.

Next, we participated in a little stacking fun!  The rules stipulate that, once a cookie has been placed, it can no longer be touched.  A package of original OREOs contains 27 cookies (in Canada).  We emptied the cookies from the package to make it easier to grab a cookie and stack.

Each student had two chances to stack the largest stack.  All of the students recorded both of their stacks and circled their best score.

The moment of disappointment always seemed to come...

The students' record stacks were posted on the board and as a class we talked through the range, mean, median and mode.

Later in the week, I decided to up the OREO game a bit so I broke out the OREO Double Stuf for a "Lick Off"!   Double the creme = longer licking times.  

Students were challenged to lick the creme from the cookie using only their tongue (like licking ice cream).  No teeth scraping...no tongue dragging.  Both parts of the cookie needed to be clean of creme.  And we timed it!

You can see the online timer that we used here.

In their table groups, students worked to calculate the range of their times.  Here, one of the students explains why some conversion needs to happen from minutes to seconds.

Try this OREO math with your class!  Guaranteed to be off-the-charts in terms of engagement while packing in some data practice and conversion.  Let us know how it went in the comments!

~MissBrooks

Week of Inspirational Math

Group Work Pro & Cons (Day 1)

This week, we participated in Jo Boaler's Week of Inspirational Math.  This may have been the Single. Best. Adventure. in Math learning.  EVER!  And we get to try the second version later this year!

Jo Boaler is Professor of Mathematics Education at the Stanford Graduate School of Education.  YouCubed, the site where I found Week of Inspirational Math, declares,  "Teachers will be able to enjoy energetic, joyful classrooms, and opportunities to appreciate the thinking of and to learn from every student in the class." The lessons did not disappoint this grade 6 teacher or her students.

Dot card and how different students grouped the dots to determine the number (Day 3)

The first day allowed the kids to play around with operations in the Four 4s challenge.  Using addition, subtraction, division and multiplication, brackets and fractions and four 4s, students were asked to arrive at sums from 1 to 20.  One example for 16 was 4+4+4+4 while 4/4 +4+4 results in 9.  The site boasted that, in their tests, students were excited enough to bring this task home to finish or challenge family.  Not sure if anyone in my own class tried that but some students continued during the lunch hour!  

Day 2 was visualizing using dots.  Each child was given a handout with numbers represented as dots grouped in particular ways.  Students enjoyed looking for the pictures that the numbers created and their relationship with other numbers.  A painless introduction to prime numbers, factors and multiples. 

Day 3 gave students the chance to try their hand at paper folding.  Origami meets Math!  A big lesson was to persevere even when a problem is challenging.  The kids practiced area, fractions, triangles and squares. Add a hint of drama when one partner is asked to convince the other (who plays the role of the skeptic) of their creation's accuracy.  Fun stuff!

Create a square that is half the area of the original square.

Day 4 was a study in patterns in Pascal's Triangle.  Students may have doubted the entertainment that this famous triangle could provide in the 21st century when Pascal played with it in the 1600s.  They're chucking their technology for the latest advancement seconds after its debut.  They were so delighted by their findings that we have to extend our math play with Pascal to Day 5.  Guess we can call this Day 4.5?

Day 4 sees the acceptance of a calculator as a tool rather than cheating

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of participation in Week of Inspirational Math was that every child found an entry point into each activity (low floor, high ceiling) and they were engaged and ENJOYING math.  Isn't that every teacher's wish?

~MissBrooks

Spaced Out

For our Space Unit, the students researched life on the International Space Station (ISS) and wrote journal entries to "teach" the folks back home about life in Space.  The biggest fascination seemed to be with toilets and food.  I wasn't sure how to simulate zero gravity but, with the help of some online searching, I could do Space food.

Neapolitan, Cookies and Cream, Mint Chip and Vanilla Ice Cream Sandwich were the ice cream flavours tried

We balanced out the sugary snack with some fruits:  Strawberries, Apples, Peaches and Bananas

I'm pretty sure this product is NOT the legit deal that NASA or the CSA send into orbit but the packaging was attractive and the food was dehydrated and light (which is required for the ISS). 

Taste testing allowed the students to practice adjectives in terms of the food's texture, appearance and taste (which provided an oral mark since I recorded them!).  It probably made them appreciate the cold of ice cream and the crunch of an apple and how much that plays into the enjoyment of those foods.  Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield spent five months on the ISS eating like this!

Rotational Symmetry

Great segue, eh!  We've only just begun talking about orbits in science but also needed to cover some transformational geometry for the EQAO. 

After exploring with 2-D geometric shapes, we transferred the idea of rotational symmetry to some Math Art in the form of mandalas.

  

These samples aren't yet completed but it would appear that this group has a good handle on the concept!

We also held our school track and field meet on Friday.  That learning and fun can be spaced out throughout the day and the week makes school so much more enjoyable!

~MissBrooks

  

Probably?

Working with new table mates to complete STEM Egg Drop Challenge

What is the theoretical probability that kids (and teachers) who had not had a five-day school week in forever would struggle to be excited about learning by a Friday?

That would be a 100%!

 To keep the kids engaged (and since it was time to switch the seating chart), we ended the first week with a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) challenge.  And, since we'd also just finished Easter break, it seemed logical to try the Egg Drop challenge.

Raw eggs ...

25 spring fevered eleven year olds ...

A recipe for SUCCESS!

Each group received the same materials with the following instructions:

Using any of the materials and as much or little as you like, create a device that will protect a raw egg being dropped from a height of 2m

Materials included 4 bendy straws, 3 popsicle sticks and 1m of tape (not pictured), a coffee filter, 1 Solo cup and 1 clear plastic cup, a sandwich size Ziploc bag, 1 rubber band and 2 paper clips.  All were contained in a brown paper lunch bag (which could also be used)

The teams were given a total of 20 minutes to design, build and test their devices.  I gave each team a plastic egg with which to practice.  The weight would not be the same but the size was pretty close.  Any adjustments to the device needed to be made within the time limit.  You can watch more of the process here.

Since the stage is approximately 1m from the floor, students simply rested their "drop hand" on the metre stick (2m) and let the device fall to the garbage bag-covered floor  below.

Probability of kids being entertained and engaged in communicating ideas, participating and collaborating with their new table mates?

That would be 100%!

Seems a good plan to attack probability in math while we were on a roll.

Is Rock, Paper, Scissors a fair game?  

Our results showed ROCK was most common after 2 trials.  Experiential probability is not far off from theoretically probability of 1 in 3 chances of winning.  We concluded that it is FAIR because each has something that it can beat (Rock beats scissors) and something that beats it (Rock is beaten by paper) and you have a choice of what to throw out.

Is 7 REALLY that lucky?
Students predicted what numbers they might roll (using 2 dice) with 12 rolls.  We realized it is IMPOSSIBLE to roll a 0 or a 1 since the lowest number possible is 2 (2 ones) and the highest is 12 (2 sixes).  We then collected data from the whole class for how many times each student rolled each number.  

The numbers in green are the number of combinations or chances you have of rolling  a number.  For example, you can roll a 7 with a 1+6,  2+5,  3+4,  4+3,  5+2,  6+1 (6 ways are the most chances of any number).  Our results showed that, on this day, 6 was actually the lucky number

We even "played" Lotto 649, using the winning numbers drawn on Wednesday night's draw.  This was an attempt to prove that the probability of winning the lottery is very UNLIKELY.  Someone even thought to check the OLG website to see if they had any data on the most and least common numbers chosen.

We wondered:

• Does where we live have any bearing on winning? (NO)
• How much does having 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 of the 6 numbers get the winner? (nothing, free ticket, $10, 9.5% of collected, 5% of collected)

We learned:

• 1 student out of 20 in our class accurately chose two numbers (5%)
• 8 students out of 20 accurately chose 1 number (40%)
• 11 out of 20 did not guess any numbers correctly (55%)
• 95% of the class would have "donated" $2 to the lottery with no reward

What are the chances that the students understood this strand of Math?

I HOPE that would be 100%!

~MissBrooks

Granola Bar Math

After participating in the Camp Sylvan Eco Leaders of Tomorrow experience, the amount of waste that we generate at school began to nag at us.  But what to do about it?

St Bernard is so fortunate to have a snack program that runs under the direction of some very dedicated parents and grandparents.  We understood there were stipulations in what was served for snack and considered composting as an action project to extend our learning from Camp.

One wrapper measures 10 cm x 14 cm for a total area of 140 cm2.  

Usually we get granola bars about once a week.  That's 25 wrappers for our class...286 wrappers for the entire school.  So we wondered if it would be better to make our own granola bars since there would be no wrappers.  This would be quicker and easier to implement if given the go ahead.

Here's the amount of space 9 wrappers takes up on our carpet.

First, we asked our principal if it would be possible that our class make the snack for the school and if the snack program would cover the cost.  Mrs Daragon said yes!

Next, we set about determining everything we would need to find out to prove that this cooking adventure would be beneficial to the school.  After we brainstormed, we knew we needed to do a little math!

• length, width and height of the bar we currently received so that the homemade ones were the same size
• the area of 1 wrapper so that we could figure the total area of wrapper going into the garbage (the wrapper is NOT recyclable)
• the number of ingredients in the Kirkland brand of granola bar (the one that is purchased for snack program)
• the number of ingredients in the recipe we would use (we omitted almonds, flax, wheat germ)
• the cost of the ingredients needed to make the recipe for the school
• the cost of purchasing enough granola bars for the whole school
• the cost per bar if homemade (unit price)
• the cost per bar if purchased (unit price)
• the amount of time to make and pack for snack
• the amount of time to count the bars and pack for snack  

Finally, we booked the staff room during our Numeracy block and the students worked as partners to measure out ingredients and press the mixture into aluminum pans.  We then needed to refrigerate the bars so that they could be served the following day, which also happened to be "Boomerang Lunch" day where any garbage must be returned home so that there is no garbage generated through lunch and snacks.  Good timing!

The finished product!  Looks like a GIANT granola bar!

We heard many positive comments from different classes so we feel that in the cooking, we were successful. In terms of time, money and eco friendliness, we'll let you decide.  Check our findings in the pictures below and comment your opinion.  We can't wait to hear what others think!

~Miss Brooks