Everything went wrong yesterday. We couldn't bring up the teacher's equipment, the old fashioned thermometers were only props, my jetpack was too slow and then they had to leave, but I wanted to comment from a STEM/STEAM perspective, not a disappointment p.o.v. but from the mouths of my students working with big ideas for 4th graders.
1) They loved the cloud chart and had no idea that the atmosphere had highs and lows like the octaves we've been working towards.
2) They stopped confusing Arabic with Persian writing. (Arabic is one of the 6 UN languages that Globe uses.)
3) They danced, read aloud, decoded science terms, and discussed what Scientists do.
4) We looked at 2D and 3D mapping.
5) They stood and delivered with voice projection to others, for others who had not been in class, what they had done and how they did it in a group of 60 and we analyzed and described class procedures, methods, geometric shapes and meaning making.
6) They learned what a premise is and began to review elements that can impact data gathering....high/low, up/down, scale, rotation, placement, bias, focus, memory, measuring, recording, listening, hearing.....
7) We analyzed why I am teaching them in grids: the grid for the not so blue experiments, the grid from our dance (a wagon with 4 wheels made out of 8 children each), a grid to map rhythms and counted in 6's, looked at duple time and triplets as part of structural analysis between 3s and 4s and common denominator aspect ratio symbols...3/4, 4/4 in math or in signatures.
8) We looked a group work elements: working together, alone, in unison/harmony/time or developing mastery, musicality, and measures/measuring and structures.
9) We could not do a week of measurements, but we could proceed towards reading the book, developing the elementary journalism tv show concept, and start with problem solving as a class and entry as a class to get ready for next time.
6) They wrote about scales, do (high and low), about internal voices, ABC's, volunteering, leading, working by tables, by sets, by groups, speeding up or slowing down to learn, working in lines with rhythm and beat and using the body to count or discern a structure, working together or trying to, modeling or understanding what scientists do or how they work, musical scales, beats, structure of a musical scale (7 + 1), multiplication tables.
This is the bedrock of ELA comprehension through multiple disciplines, experience, familiarity, and building context, relationships and connections through active and relaxed learning. This is Bunce work applied to Science curricula and NAP goals. We want children to feel they can do English and Math and it is their inherited work. We want them to feel excited and capable. From the notes received ...stating "it was fun".....they did.
