Track

This is the long result of some class projects we worked on this term.  If it's meaningless to you, that's fine.  It's more for me than it is for anyone else.

Summer Project: mini documentaries

The learning goal this summer is to created a series of mini documentaries--one per week!  Ideas so far:

• camping with kids
• flying with kids
• mountain biking
• running
• hiking with kids
• road tripping with kids
• Brackendale

Resources:

• How to Make a Short Documentary Film

Critical Thinking

Runaway Lessons

Sometimes lessons have a way of getting away from me and taking on a life of their own.  I like to think I have pretty good ideas.  What I sometimes don't always account for is the termination of a lesson.  In some cases, I think I could conceivably take an idea--like perimeter for example--and run with its tangential themes all year long.  I find sometimes there's just so much to learn about a single topic that I'd like to explore all its nooks and crannies.

Such was the case with perimeter.  It began small and innocently and my class has now taken to using satellite images to create maps.  And they're quite good!  I hate stifling good learning (as if there was any other kind of learning) and therefore have a hard time transitioning to new concepts.  It helpful, though, when one concept leads naturally to a new one, but I don't always build really great transitions.  This seems to embody concepts of the emergent curriculum, though I have much to learn of this idea.

We blended concepts from PowerPoint (essentially a building tool) with mapmaking concepts.  By taking screen captures of our school grounds, we let that be the background for our map.  We then simply used shapes, lines, and text fall upon that framework till the map (or more technically: diagram) of the school was complete.

Shapes, lines, and text with satellite image

Once the various shapes, lines, and text were in place, they simply removed the background satellite image.  The result was a map.

School map

I believe my students have a much deeper understanding of perimeter (and area) and what that looks like in real life.

Maps

You're Getting Old!

Not super educational, but this site reveals a bit more of your life than you might want to know.

You're Getting Old!

Randall Munroe: Comics that ask "what if?"

I just love his thinking.  Check out xkcd.

Measuring Track: a math problem

Animations & Structures

My students have recently been working with building and studying structures in science.  It's been great as we've been looking at those really big structures (Empire State Building and taller) and the smaller ones (beaver dams, etc.).  While not overly complicated, I thought it would be interesting to build living structures; that is, structures that are actively being used (is this redundant?).

Using PowerPoint as our building tool, though it could be any other tool, we built a bridge using piers and decks.  And then--for fun--I had them have a car race over the desk.  The results were impressive.