January

Systems: We officially embarked on our journey as environmental detectives!  Students began the new year with a review of systems and a teamwork challenge to prepare themselves for their upcoming experiences. Students were introduced to the Gray Area and the mysterious fish kill that has been taking place there over the last five years.  They met some of the key players (suspects?!?!) in the region, looked at maps of the area to identify factors that may be at play, and studied the history of the area as they compiled a timeline of events and developments over the past 100 years.  Throughout this semester they will be acting as scientists, council members, reporters, and detectives as they conduct tests and research to uncover the reason behind the declining fish population.

Critical and Creative Thinking: This month students enjoyed practicing their critical thinking with Sudoku puzzles.  We also had a lesson on idioms to help us use flexible thinking and solve our plexer picture puzzles.

 

Habits of Mind: Our Habit of Mind focus has been on persisting and strategies to overcome “the dip” when faced with a challenge.  Our favorite activity was reading the book, Grandfather Tang’s Story and using the 7 piece Chinese tangrams to recreate pictures.  Students even used the pieces to create their own original designs!

M^3 (Mentoring Mathematical Minds) Digging for Data:  In math students wrapped up their work on mean, median, mode, and range by completing a review Bingo choice activity where many great products were created!  They also showed their stuff on our check-up assessment.  

November & December

Systems: We moved from the crime scene to the forensics lab as students looked at how evidence is processed.  We studied DNA and its role in the justice system.  Students made beaded sequence chains as they learned about genetics and the double helix.  We also looked at DNA as ‘the greatest code on Earth!” with a short look at cryptography. Students had the chance to decipher messages from the CIA and create their own codes with some of the techniques they discovered by looking at the history of secret messages in crime detection.

Our analysts also used ink chromatography and chemical property lab tests to solve the “Case of the Dognapping” and the “Case of the Crummy Cake”.

Our next systems stop was the courtroom and how evidence is presented in trial.  Students loved our morning “You Be the Jury” warm ups!  We spent time researching the elements of the courtroom and the progression of trials.  Students made some excellent presentations to share with the class and we finished with playing the role of opposing attorneys in the Make Your Case game.  Use this link to play at home! http://www.scholastic.com/americanjustice/makeyourcase/

Critical and Creative Thinking: Our brain stretch focus has been on word analogies as we built vocabulary and looked for relationships between ideas.  Students practiced writing bridge sentences to test for a consistent  link between terms.

Try this one for yourself:  tornado : scary :: ALERT: _________

A. boring

B. dull

C. green

D. FUN!

We also carried over into figural analogies where they had to apply relationship thinking to compare images.

Habits of Mind: Our main Habit of Mind focus has been on gathering data.  Students used crime scene observations to consider the distinction between evidence and inference and the role of both when investigating.  We also practiced metacognition as we set goals and reflected on our learning so far this year.

M^3 (Mentoring Mathematical Minds) Digging for Data:  In our Data unit, we are working out the kinks in our understanding of different measures of central tendency.  Our small group sessions have impressed me as students are using great  strategies for organizing their work and are building confidence in distinguishing between terms and processes.  We have made our way through our practice checklists and students have enjoyed using various sources for learning in our blended setting.

Courthouse Field Study

We had a great time watching the judicial process and interacting with professionals in the field.  Our students were the best around and we even had a few stand in as jurors in the trial!  Thanks to our wonderful chaperones for accompanying us!  

October Recap

Systems: This month our CSI focus has been on questioning and eye witness accounts.  Students participated in various activities geared toward understanding quality questions in interrogation, the often unreliable nature of eyewitness testimony, and the power of close observation. Students witnessed a theft in our own classroom and used what we learned about composite sketches to make a drawing of the perpetrator. We then looked at some online activities testing their powers of observation and helping them match the suspect with the crime.  Try them for yourself!

Art of Crime Detection

Perp Walk

Face Memory

We also used our time to do research into forensic science and the order of events when a crime scene is processed.  Students learned about Locard's Principle that criminals always take a trace of something with them and leave a trace of something behind at a crime scene. They also learned about collecting that evidence and how it gets from the crime scene to the courtroom.

Critical and Creative Thinking: This month students practiced reasoning strategies by using clues to complete matrix logic puzzles.  They used the given information to make one and two step deductions in order to find or eliminate matches between the puzzle categories.  These were a good test of growth mindset and a class favorite!

Habits of Mind: Our main Habit of Mind focus has been on Managing Impulsivity.  We read the book Interrupting Chicken by David Ezra Stein and discussed it as a non-example of managing impulsivity, thinking before acting, and using your brain to manage your body.  Students then created their our Interrupting ___________ stories and presented them to the class.  I'll tell you, we have quite the creative crew!

We have also been practicing flexible thinking with our morning Morphic Thinking exercises and Persisting with Set puzzle and Mastermind challenges.

M^3 (Mentoring Mathematical Minds) Digging for Data:  In math we continued in our data unit and worked on creating line plots and using them to find the median, mode, and range of the set. Students have used our Nearpod software to do some self-paced practice and build their math vocabulary.

CSI Field Study

What a first week back!  We had so much fun on our CSI field study with the Richland County Sheriff's Department!  Students were able to learn about tools and processes for crime scene reconstruction including trajectory tracking, fingerprinting, and impression molding.  They also learned about latent prints, DNA, and how evidence is collected and documented.  Next week we will be able to reflect on our experience and use it as we gain a deeper understanding of our theme, Systems.

September in Review

A big THANK YOU to Ms. Lytle for getting things going this year and making the first month of ALERT a success! Here are some highlights of what students were working on in September.

Systems: Students were introduced to this year's theme of Systems and became familiar with system parts and how these parts interact. (Input, Output, Boundary, Elements)  They used these terms and concepts to identify and label systems they come in contact with everyday and to create a list of generalizations that can be made about systems.

• Systems have parts that work together to create a whole.
• Systems interact.
• Parts of systems are interdependant and rely upon one another.
• A system may be influenced by another system.

We are highlighting our study of systems by looking at forensics and crime scene investigation. Students began their study by looking at fingerprint evidence and handwriting analysis.

Critical Thinking: Using the Children's Guide to Critical Thinking, the three types of thinkers were introduced.  Students learned about Selfish Sam, Naive Nancy, and Fair-minded Fran.  Using these characters as a conversation starter, we began to look at the importance of being a critical thinker, and traits that critical thinkers have.        

Creative Thinking: Students have gotten familiar with our mascots of creativity, the Nerds!  We use these particular mascots because no two are alike, they are colorful, fruity, and fun- just like creative thinking! Students  explored our creative side by discussing and demonstrating the four keys to creative thinking.  We began by taking a simple figure, looking at it from various perspectives (flexible thinking), brainstorming what it could become (fluency of ideas), choosing the idea like no one else's (originality), and filling in the details of our picture (elaboration)! These creative pieces became the covers of our ALERT binders reminding us to "think outside the box"!

Habits of Mind:  Art Costa's Habits of Mind represent 16 traits that successful people can use when faced with a problem.  Throughout the year, we will be focusing on building these individual traits in students.  As an introduction, students looked at the habits collectively and became familiar with them playing our Habits of Mind matching game.

Morphic Thinking: We kicked off our Morphic Thinking morning routine where students warm-up with a spontaneous problem and boundary breaker.  We will be including these weekly. A spontaneous problem is a brainstorming type problem to be solved in a specific amount of time and scored according to the number and creativity of responses generated.  The point is to challenge students to be flexible thinkers, to elaborate on original ideas and to think fluently and creatively about a specific topic. A boundary breaker is a group experience which works toward creating a sense of community.  Students gain an awareness of and respect for the opinion of others by the use of questions that go beyond superficial depth and have no right/wrong answers.

M^3 (Mentoring Mathematical Minds) Digging for Data: We had our commencing Digging for Data math lessons and students looked at both their rights and obligations as we embark.  This math curriculum focuses heavily on discussion, defense of one's thinking, and writing about concepts.  Students were introduced to the term rate and collected data based on their rate of completing some chosen activities. They used this data to ponder the question "what is typical?"