Day 174 - Memorial 4th Graders Breakout of the Box - Mrs. Myer - Teacher Librarian

This post first appeared on the BPSEdTech Blog

Memorial 4th graders participated in our Lauren Castillo (Author/Illustrator) Breakout Box puzzle this week during Learning Commons.  A Breakout Box puzzle is a way for students to use teamwork and critical thinking to solve a set of challenges in order to open a locked box. Think escape room but in a box. In this challenge, students had to solve 5 different clues to open 5 different locks.  All the clues were based on Lauren Castillo’s books. The students really enjoyed working together, solving the puzzles with black light flashlights, finding a lock key during a scavenger hunt, describing a trip around the world, alphabetizing synonyms, and answering questions.  

Day 173 - Categorizing in Grade 2 - Mrs. Mondello - Memorial School Reading Specialist

This post first appeared on the Burlington Keys to Literacy Blog

Students sort and categorize pictures words and objects across the curriculum and from the very start of Kindergarten. This year’s KTL training gave me a deeper understanding of how learning to organizing words and discussing the connections between and among a group of words is the beginning of implied main idea. When a child can articulate the connection within a group of details they begin the process of finding the main idea. 

In this activity, we asked a second-grade group of students with experience in categorizing words into previously labeled buckets, (labels) to sort then identify the labels for the buckets. The discussion groups got right to work sorting and determining how to organize the words. At first glance kids impulsively sorted into two clear categories, winter and summer then hit a roadblock with nouns that were places, like TD Garden and Fenway Park. 

Eventually, paired groups brought their category labels to the rug where our larger debate happened. The final two labels given were Bruins hockey essentials and Red Sox Baseball essentials. This was engaging and only took about 15 minutes. 

           

Day 168 - Recorder Concert, Author Fest, and Duck Boats - Mrs. Hayes - Pine Glen Grade 3

These posts originally appeared on Mrs. Hayes' Blog

Thank you to everyone who came to see the third graders perform at their Recorder & Violin Concert.  They have worked hard all year learning the songs and practicing.   They did an outstanding job! I hope you enjoyed all of the writing that you saw.  Everyone in Room 205 has made improvements in some area - sentence structure, adding detail, or even on handwriting.  I am so proud of them and know they will be ready for whatever 4th grade throws at them.  Thank you for coming to celebrate our writing accomplishments. 

It was a beautiful day in Boston! We learned a lot about the history of Boston and saw a lot of historical sights! We even had a chance to drive the boat. Thank you to all the chaperones for joining us on the trip. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.

Driving the Boat!

Day 167 - The American Revolution Comes to Life with Chatter Pix - Fox Hill Grade 3

This post first appeared on the BPS EdTech Blog

Ms. Saia’s third-grade social studies students recently conducted research about famous Patriots from the American Revolution including John Hancock, Abigail Adams, Benjamin Franklin and more. Through their research, students learned about their Patriot’s childhood, the contributions they made to our country which made them famous, and other interesting facts. In addition to their written research, Ms. Saia had her students create portraits of their famous Patriots. Students used crayons, markers, and colored pencils to make their portraits and their amazing finished products are proudly displayed outside of Ms. Saia’s classroom door.

Ms. Saia was so impressed by her students’ drawings, she decided to add a digital component to this unit. Specifically, Ms. Saia wanted her students to bring the portraits to life using Chatter Pix and compile their research in a book using Book Creator. The digital component of this unit allowed students to gain additional practice with keyboarding, oral reading fluency, and digital design principles. I was able to co-teach with Ms. Saia on this unit and coach students through the “app smashing” process which combined Chatter Pix and Book Creator. Taking this project to a digital level gave students the opportunity to share their voice with a larger, authentic audience, exercise their creativity in the design process, and demonstrate their competency in using technology. The finished Book Creator projects, featuring their Chatter Pix, were shared with parents through Seesaw. Below are several examples of students’ finished Book Creator projects and we hope you enjoy viewing them as much as we did!

Day 166 - Protect the Popsicle - Mrs. Duncan - Memorial School Kindergarten

This post first appeared on Mrs. Duncan's Blog

We enjoyed a special engineering project with Mr. Musselman from the Burlington Science Center today.  The students built shade structures to try to protect their popsicles from melting in the sun!  The project involved working in a small group to make a plan, build a structure, and test it out!  The students were very successful!  All four groups designed and built structures that kept their popsicles from melting as fast as the one left in the sun.  Please ask your child to describe the project and what he/she did to help protect the popsicle!

Day 165 - Categorizing in Grade 3 - Mrs. Johnson - Memorial School

This post first appeared on the Burlington Keys to Literacy Blog

I have been working with third-grade students on KTL strategies for a few months now. They have had numerous opportunities to categorize, starting with everyday, familiar vocabulary such as sorting appropriate vs. inappropriate behaviors in reading class which we used as a review of the class behaviors they had generated, as well as types of food, basic vocabulary to review nouns, verbs and adjectives, and so on.

Students have also had experience using top-down webs to organize their ideas for writing a paragraph, and have also been guided through generating details for scaffolded 2-column notes on short stories and Newsela articles.

One of the core books for third graders is Helen Keller. This book is a challenge for this group of students, so using KTL strategies was certainly helpful. First, we did an adjectives word sort to describe Annie Sullivan and Helen Keller. We read the words to them and discussed their meaning. Then, students worked with a partner to sort the words. The discussions that evolved around this word sort led to a much deeper understanding of the characters particularly since several words could have applied to each of the characters for different reasons. Students were able to support their reasons with examples from the test. 







After reading a chapter, students worked with a partner to sort sentences from two paragraphs which told about two different events in the text then wrote the main idea of each paragraph.


Most students were able to write what the paragraphs were about but some needed more discussion...a work in progress.

Day 164 - Grade 4 Community Circles - Mr. Daley - Fox Hill Grade 4

This post first appeared on Mr. Daley's Blog

Throughout the school year, Mrs. Johnson has facilitated grade-level community circles with students. These social and emotional-focused get-togethers provide students with opportunities to share “what’s going well” and “any challenges” they may be facing with their peers. Students are refreshingly honest in sharing their feelings at community circles. Mrs. Johnson held the last Grade 4 community circle of the year this week with students. She read the book What Does it Mean to be Global? by Rana DiOrio to the kids. According to Ms. DiOrio, "being global means being a citizen of the world." To be a good citizen of the world means to be open-minded to learn about others throughout the world. We can learn about others' languages, foods, religions, traditions, and values. We can be respectful and peaceful to others, and open our minds to new possibilities. The best time to start "being global" is not yesterday, not tomorrow, but today! Why are you waiting? Let's go!!!!!