Listen. Connect. Empower.

I was inspired at EdCampSEMass  to try BreakoutEDU .  I was under the misconception that this was more for middle and high school students.  After hearing how a 4th grade teacher used this in conjunction with her read aloud I was inspired to give this a try in my own school. When a 5th grade teacher approached me for a book recommendation (a mystery), I jumped on the opportunity to present BreakoutEDU.  She wanted to introduce the genre and this would be the perfect opportunity for her class to manipulate and decipher clues. My first "breakout" was on my own children.  I used a pre-made activity from the BreakoutEDU site and practiced on my own children before I had the teacher breakout. My test subjects - my own children Once she had the experience, she was hooked.  It was time to create our first BreakoutEDU experience. We met to determine the content of the experience.  We decided to use current 5th grade topics of study Planets...

My colleagues and I wanted to share our Boy Who Harnessed the Wind project with the community (see my previous posts ).  I worked with Ingrid Mayyasi and Alice Johnson and Dedham TV to create a video about our experiences: To wrap up our project I shared this video with my students and had them take a self-assessment.  I wanted students to dig a little deeper and reflect on their work. I gave what I thought was ample time to complete this but not all groups got to finish All 1st grade students and many 2nd grade students were assigned a drawing.  Other classes got to choose (time constraints) Expectations are posted on the SmartBoard for every class so everyone knows what is expected of them even if I am occupied with a student or a group The final question had students finishing the sentence "Mrs. Garland should know that..." We worked hard We should do this again My team loved it so much It was fun and I'm looking forward to doing it...

Building Windmills Our library class time has been dedicated to thinking about how we can make our community better. (See my previous posts ).  However, I was not done with  The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind  yet.  I was inspired by my colleague  Alice Johnson  to carry these ideas into our Makerspaces. I planned to have students participate in the "Windmill Challenge" and build their own windmills with everyday materials. I knew that I needed some dedicated time (and recess would not do it).  I also knew that extra hands would be needed.  I invited students to join me after school for an hour and enlisted in Alice's help to recruit High School students to help us.  11 elementary school students and 3 high school student "coaches" together created windmills.  We had a great afternoon of building and cooperative learning. Starting supplies Students started with supplies and a video about how to create a pinwheel So...

Following our read of The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind , students brainstormed challenges in our community and identified one that they would like to work on (see my post here ).  They identified a solution and then were ready to create a project to show their work. First we brainstormed what kind of projects these might be, thinking about what skills we had that we could employ.  Grades 2-5 used this list: PicCollage Chatterpix Build - Legos  Draw a picture or poster Google Slides Write a letter  Write a voicemail message A letter to our Principal proposing a Guard for our playground 1st graders were given a drawing assignment to show the "before" and "after" of their proposed solution.  They drew their thinking.   Challenge: We have bullies at our school. Challenge: People litter. Challenge: Some people don't get to come to our country because of the Preside...