Perseverance and Rock Holder Task

It's that time of year again when I introduce the word Perseverance. As part of the Rock Investigation, I use the Rock Holder activity to see which students persevere and which have difficulty. I want students to always try their best and in grade two some really don't know to do that. By introducing perseverance, my goal is to get students to keep trying until they are successful with their task. We revisit tasks and discuss how they could be improved. As I've been this year, "You're never done!" A student actually repeated this to another when he said he was done. You could see the grin on his face as he was saying it to another boy. 

The Rock Holder task involves this:

• They are only allowed one piece of paper

• No glue, tape or staples

• The rock holder must be stable. Should support a rock either by itself or with one hand. 

• I'm watching to see who can persevere and what questions they are asking me. 

This task is possible for grade 2's to accomplish with some perseverance. 

Here's what my students came up with this year.

Happiness is...

I decided to try something new this year in art. We always assume that students just like working with paint, paper and other art supplies to create images, designs and to express themselves. I come from a graphic design and art background but that doesn't mean I always like using the traditional mediums to be creative. 

This year, our classroom received Chromebooks and many students seemed interested in playing with Google Draw after we had done several activities with it in social and language arts. I took that interest and used an art project I usually do with construction paper (in the past, it has turned out fabulously) and modified it to be used with Google Draw. 

I think the results are outstanding. We worked for 3 45 minute periods. The students learned to overlap, copy and paste, add colour, different line thicknesses and to be creative in a totally different way. I even had a student who accidentally figured out how to add colour to the background but it then disappeared. He spent 45 minutes trying to figure it out and then proceeded to show EVERY student in the class how to do it. Good for him for problem solving. 

I am completely impressed with the amount of work students put into these images. If you feel like it please provide them with some feedback or comments. 

Thinglink Interactive Ladybug Assignment

Here is an example of the final product you're going to be working on for your Bug Unit. Mine is not complete but it is a good start. 

New Look

Sometimes a new look is just what you need. Spring is on it's way, at least we hope it is, and I've grown tired of the distractions around the page. I think this looks more professional and cleaner. Hope you like it as well. 

Wanting to share more with you but sometimes there just isn't enough time in our day. Please keep coming back to visit. 

Covering a 3D Object

There is always someone who wants to use a ruler. I think he's doing more tracing of the side of the shape than he is with the ruler. Interesting enough, he did end up creating a net,  it was about 1 cm larger than it needed to be. 

He knows he needs to wrap the shape and not overlap the paper but he cut it too short. 

Getting close.

She's trying to hand draw the shape. Tracing isn't something that comes naturally to them. It's about measuring at least the basics of it (area & permimeter) and using what you have to help with creating that amount of space. 

This student used the other students' strategies and figured it out. She's the one in the far back corner just working her little heart out. 

She is also really close to getting it. She decided to trace the larger rectangle but then didn't trace the others. She tried to cut the shapes which is quite common with students doing this task. 

This student is so close. They've thought about each of the sides but what they don't realize is the shape only has two large rectangles, 2 skinny rectangles and 2 smaller rectangles.  

Today's task was to work on covering a 3D object but there was certain criteria they needed to follow.

1. They couldn't have any overlapping paper. 

2. They couldn't use tape or glue. 

3. The paper needed to cover all of the shape. 

From the pictures above some of them had some really good strategies. It is amazing is watch and see how they process the information and eventually come up with an answer. My goal in doing this task is tenfold. It's about so many things that I hope to reflect below. 

As I looked back on the images today and reflected again on this task (I've done this several times over the years) it is about space, and of course shape, but it's more than that. It's also about measuring, area and perimeter and knowing the shapes on the object, how large or small they are, knowing you've got enough paper to cover the whole side/object. Being flexible in your thinking, trying something new, being creative about how something worked or didn't work. It's definitely about problem solving and perseverance. It's about being entrepreneurial and engaged. I could go ove but I'm not going to. It's like a puzzle and the more I'm learning, our brain likes puzzles and problems to solve. It is such a rich task. I guess that's why I come back to it each year. 

This will lead into our investigation into building a paper box/net to hold a penguin. It also lends itself into learning there is not one way to build a net for a 3D object. Does the cube always need to make the traditional 't' shape? Or is there more than one way to build a net for any 3D object? We'll explore these questions in the going days.