Sunday, March 29, 2015

Mystery Book Club via Skype

We have participated in quite a few Mystery Skypes this year and my class loves them! Almost all of our Mystery Skypes have been geography based, guessing the location of the other class by asking them yes or no questions. However, last week we branched out and did a Mystery Book Club via Skype.
It was very challenging! While there are only 50 possible states to choose from, there are literally millions of books! Although my class consists of voracious readers, we have not read every single book ever published, so we had to use our research, problem solving and deductive reasoning skills to solve the mystery.
Clues that helped us guess the books the other class presented us included author information, award information, publication date and genre. When students realized they were not going to be able to effortlessly figure out the book title, they quickly took to the Internet and started researching. Students also formed great follow up questions to help them figure out the book title.
My students really enjoyed this new challenge and I was impressed by their research and presentation skills.

Sunday, March 15, 2015

Digital Learning Day

Friday was Digital Learning Day, a day for students and educators across North America to celebrate digital learning! 
We completed a Pi Day cyberhunt, several students worked on an ongoing coding project and several others continued a collaborative data analytics project using Google apps. 
In preparation for Digital Learning Day, every student chose one digital project they had completed this year and linked it to a QR Code. We printed and hung all our QR Codes in the hallway as did other classes all over the school. 
We took some time touring the school and scanning codes to see what other classes have been learning this year. We will continue doing this on Monday. 

Sunday, March 1, 2015

We Rock!

In Science, we have been learning about rocks, along with pebbles, sand and silt. In this investigation, students studied three different types of rocks.
They also rubbed them together and were surprised at the different reactions. Some rocks created a fine powder, some visibly scratched the other rock and some did nothing. The power also looked different on black paper and white paper.