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You, Me and Everything In between

by Anne Gee,

You me and everything in between

Before our warm up we watched the popular video of the baby trying to insert a straw into the tiny hole on a coffee cup lid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JN0ba5yUVQM

  • We discussed what this situation represented  - frustration and one way to deal with it - but what happens if you keep trying the same thing and it doesn't work?

  • We discussed trying to put a power plug in when it’s dark or you cant see the plug hole and how tricky it is to line it up - how else could it be solved.

After I talked about today’s challenge being potentially frustrating and that students might need to change their mindset to think in a different way to normal to solve the problem as a group. 

Warm up

Likert scale  -fun line up to get an idea of how likert scales work.

  • Like dogs/cats - eg the right side is only like dogs/left is only like cats middle is both

  • Height

  • Birth months

  • Taylor Swift music fan/foe

Marking a line across the classroom,  identifying the middle of the line as the school’s location. Students are to place themselves either side of the school in order of time it takes to get to school - to represent distance they live from school

Main Activity 

Students into 4 groups - teacher assigned

Groups are given 

  • a map/s of area in which all students live.

  • list of addresses

Task one -mark all students’ homes on map

Task two - work out as a group how that map could be superimposed onto the large carpet floor area of the main hall.  (ratio correct)

Task three - each group explains their idea to the class - class decides best way forward

         Groups were randomly drawn from popsticks and the four groups set to work. Great ideas for superimposing the map on the carpet - start at the sides/from our own homes/kids talked about orientation and the need for a compass which was one groups first plan

Task four - Division of tasks eg streets/compass orientation/landmarks

        A discussion about scale happened and we stopped to talk about what ratio and scale meant. Kids decided to multiply the jigsaw map plan by 10 after measuring the hall space first to see if it would fit length and width-ways. We drew on the white board the maths invoiced eg 25cm on the paper map would mean 2.5m on the carpet. Ratio of 1:10

Task five - Students began to build the map with a plan to to add their homes with building blocks/cars/chalk and tape to mark streets. paper/materials to mark parks/shops/library/schools etc

    This was a great time for Gemma and I to step back and watch the kids interact. Lots of stop re think/that’s not working conversation and the realisation that mapping the main streets had to happen way before thinking about their own house. See video on forum if it loads. The map has been left out for follow up session next week when I’m away for kids to build upon.






Reflection with the students  - 3 Fs Fun/Frustrating/Future

With the end of school bell imminent we gathered to the stage to look over our map. I explained that they had persevered and got way further than other older kids I had worked with. We talked about what was hard and what was easy and finished with students identifying 3 Fs

  • Fun thing

Frustrating thing

  • Future thing they’d change

  

Responses included


Fun:  Making roads with tape- reading map - work outside room- using chalk on carpet

Frustrating: teammates-wrong maths-fixing chalk errors- finding North/South/East/West

Future: sticking paper map together - project onto wall - use paper tags so easier to change

Paste your photo here.

 

After the session:

 

Planning with the Teacher and Ideas Moving Forward

As we had shifted timeslots to the end of the day Gemma and I had the luxury of time to look over the kids work and talk about individuals and some who had surprised Gemma and others she had expected. We both talked about the time to let kids just talk and work it out with tike for us to just observe. Gemma will continue with this session next week when I am away.

If time they will write up their Three Fs and create a visual diary piece for new journals we are yet to decide upon. Gemma and I are touching base in a fortnight to sort our next session of individual story line maps. 

Working with students
 (what is emerging, what is engaging them/not, what’s making them curious.)

This is a great class and they are very keen to adopt new thought patterns and find out what that really means. They seem to enjoy and understand the point of reflection and the point of the warm up to start. They seemed to love the hands on materials, kids blocks, cars and things to build with borrowed from PP.


Resources
 (do you need anything, who will source it?)

Materials for this are already sorted as we had time after school.


How can you share learning outcomes/stories of transformation with the wider school community (e.g. Connect newsletter, staff meeting, school newsletter, school social media platforms)

The great thing about using the Main hall - common space that 5 other classes open on to - was the questions that happened with kids as they all came out to sort bags. Teachers too came in to check it out and the PP teacher (from whom we borrowed gear) is also keen to see the kids efforts. Gemma showed me their school Portal where we can share snippets with parents about what we did.






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