Creative Thinkers and Beginning Researchers

As an "academic blog," I am encouraging the student to avoid using it as a social network.  I don't want the students spending large amounts of time just socializing here. 

I want them to post comments on their learning and "Ah Ha!" moments.  The source of their learning and revelations can be from within or outside of school.  Ideally, I would like to see students post a comment from home once or twice a week.  In the beginning, their comments may not be very sophisticated.  With instruction, practice and encouragement, your child will gain a desire to share their ideas and opinions with others and the skills to do it through our blog.  Blogging provides a real world platform for students to improve not only their reading and writing skills, but also the technology skills 21st Century Learners will need.  

Please encourage your child to share their enthusiasm and experiences from rich learning moments.  At this age, they will need your support and assistance with proof reading their comments prior to clicking that "publish" button.  In the next week or so, I will try to get a screen cast tutorial made on how to post a comment to our blog for those parents and grandparents that would like directions.  By all means, please encourage your child's grandparents, aunts, uncles and other interested adults to post comments about your child's projects and learning on our blog too!   I am looking forward to hearing from you all!

The students continued their individual work in the Math Rules program and in their Exploratory center today.  Ask your child about their current task.  I think almost everyone is now past the Knowledge and Comprehension level tasks.  Now they can choose any other task from this same center to complete. 

Currently, a person is reading about the Titanic and another about ancient castles, a butterfly puppet is in the design stages, a second robotic vehicle is being constructed, one student is gathering facts about Monet's life for a timeline, origami figures are being folded, a bird call is being designed, and after beating Mrs. Koch in Battleship, (an Application level task at Gridville) one student is designing a coded message using coordinates on a grid.  This is an exciting place to be in the afternoon!  I will continue to encourage them to take their time for their personal best effort.  

In the afternoon, they learned/reviewed the rules for brainstorming. 

• Accept the unusual
• Never criticize or compliment
• Piggyback when possible
• Never stop too soon.

They individually brainstormed "things you might find in a pocket."  We judged their ideas for their fluency and originality and if they were relevant to the problem.  Have your child tell you more about their list.  They are a very creative class!


We went to the library to begin work on our research skills.  We discussed how the Briarcliff library is arranged, the difference between fiction and non-fiction books, how to read the call number on the spine of the book, what the numbers and/or letters mean in the call number, how the books are arranged on the shelves and the importance of being sure we put books back in their correct location and order.  It is empowering to students to learn to locate books on their own.  Mastery of these skills frees them to select books on topics of interest and locate specific books without having to wait for adult assistance.  This is monumental for early readers and for students interested in unusual or "hard to locate" topics and information.  We will continue to focus on research skills over the next several weeks.

We ended our day working on our critical thinking skills.  The students were given a variety of tasks working on analytical thinking, problem solving and elaboration. 


Have a good week!