Week Eighteen- Jan 22-25, 2013
We had a lot of fun this week!
We were off from school on Monday, so our Flip Classroom picked back up on Tuesday.
For Tuesday-Thursday we began working on Probability and Predictions. The kids loved this lesson because I prefaced it by telling them we were going to see who had a future in being a psychic They were trying really hard to prove they knew how to predict haha.
We worked with square colored tiles to introduce the concept of Probability and then worked on randomly putting 24 different tiles in a brown paper bag and drawing out one tile at a time, putting a tally mark for that color, and then putting it back in the bag. After students did that 24 times, then they had to make predictions about what the results MAY be after doing it 24 MORE times. Some of the kids got it right too!
Then the students had to guess how many of each color was actually in the bag based on the results.
We also worked with colored tiles on the SMARTboard with kids dragging different color combinations on the board and students identifying the probability of picking tiles from the ones on the board.
This week I also picked my four highest kids in each class, and every afternoon they got to go work with our PPCD (PreK-K Life Skills) Class. Man those kids loved working with the special needs kids. The PPCD teacher said it brought tears to his eyes to see the compassion in the 5th graders as they worked with his students. MANY of my other students found out and wanted to participate and I told them it was an incentive to work towards. It’s crazy how the worst behaved kid is often the one who works best with the special needs children. So heartwarming.
Friday we worked on different math problems and if the kids got so many correct they go to shoot a wad of paper into a trash can, and if they made it they earned points for their “house”. Man those kids started working even harder to earn points for their houses!
I think besides the 5th graders working with the PPCD kids, the other highlight of my week was when Jonathan Bergmann called me a “Rising Star” with my Flipped Classroom work. He is the guy who is often credited with STARTING the whole Flipped Classroom movement, so to get that kind of recognition from him was so amazing.
