Recorded by Vincent K:

Vincent K., transcribing our Mystery Skype.

Today(March 20th 2013.)our class had our first mystery skype!It started with Marcos A. introducing mitchel k.(question&answer person.)

Mitchel K. asks questions while Alejandra V-G makes sure our connection cable doesn’t come unplugged.

Then ms.Houghton suggested to start asking questions.Here is some of the questions we asked:

Maya R. asked: “Do you live in a cold hot place?”

Selam W.asked: “Do you live in a large state?”

Adam H.asked: “When was your school built in?

Savanah A.asked:”Are you east of st.louis?”

Mitchel K.asked:”Are you near the space needle?”

Yoeel V-M’s photo of his Mystery Skype map.

Now the after the questions we found out that the kids we were at Camalot!(Thanks to Kyle M.)

After the skype we asked Kyle:”How did you know they were at camalot?”

And he said:”The skype name they used was familiar to me.”

Additional information from Ms. Houghton:

All photos in this post were taken by our photogapher, Yoeel V-M. I added in the captions.

Our students were pretty pumped about their first Skype, conducted with the fantastic students from Mrs. Steighner’s 2/3 HCAP class at Camelot Elementary. We’re looking forward to further MysterySkypes, and Thien T. helped me set up a shared Google calendar to record upcoming Skypes, as well as field trips and other school events.

Tyson E. created a Google document with information we gathered about Camelot students and their corner of Auburn (although they’re a Federal Way school, their mailing address is in Auburn).

Tyson E., recording data.

We can’t wait for our next Skype!

I didn’t read as much as I could have last week. Toby was out in San Francisco, so I gorged myself on Parks & Rec and Sherlock episodes. I’m halfway through some longer books too, so they don’t appear in my group picture below.:

And here’s what I did finish reading.

It’s become a rite of passage in many 2nd – 4th grade classrooms. Crafting Gallon Man. For the past five years, we did it too, and I was always thoroughly disappointed when my students didn’t remember their capacity conversions as well as I hoped they would. Even singing a sweet little ditty didn’t help. I like this song a lot better.

It’s daunting to talk about what doesn’t work in our classrooms when we have good intentions, but Sherlock urged me to write about how I changed things this year.

So this year when we started our measurement unit, I shared realia of the four main capacity units in the United States. We talked about how the units are related (see conversions in brown) then drew two common versions of Gallon Man.

Instead of sending them off to cut and glue their own gallon people, I told them that during independent work time, they’d need to create their own visual representation of capacity.

I explained that their visual representation of capacity must be meaningful to them so they would remember the conversions. Some of theirs wound up looking pretty much like mine, which was just fine.

I said that they could be as creative as they wanted as long as they were accurate mathematically. I also asked them to write a brief explanation of how their visual representation could be used. For example, in the representation above, I went back and asked the student what she meant when she said “the number of pints in a cup.” She said, “Oh, I got it backwards! Because the way I wrote it, it’d mean half a pint in a cup.” Which is correct, but not what she intended to say.

And in this representation, the overall number of cups in a gallon was accurate (16), but they were distributed incorrectly (three cups in each quart on his feet, and four cups in the pint on his tail). We talked about how he could change his representation to be mathematically correct while still keeping his artistic integrity (taking off the tail hairs and adding an extra claw to each feet).

This one was mathematically correct:

They worked during Math Daily 5, and most finished by the end of the day. The rest made sure they picked Work on Writing or Math by Myself during Math Daily 5 later in the week so they’d finish everything.

The next day, as we went over our representations, we also discussed why we needed to create a memory device for capacity, even though we don’t really need to come up with anything to remember, say, the number of days in a week or the number of inches in a foot. Here’s what they came up with:

I’ll assess their application of this learning later next week using our district unit tests as well as a scavenger hunt using a plant book so it connects to our science unit. I’ll try to remember to post that too.

As always, I’d appreciate any feedback you have on this lesson.

I’ve been reading a lot of great fantasy books this week. I have no clue how I wound up entirely missing this genre while I was growing up. I finished The Runaway King, which I loved, but had serious mental conflict over gender roles. See more at my Goodreads review.

Here’s what I’ve been reading lately:

Have a fabulous week!

I know I normally keep my Monday book posts brief, but I need to step onto my soapbox for a moment.

I am so disappointed in what was looking like a super-promising early reader series called Going Places. I LOVED Going Places On a Boat, but was super-disappointed with Going Places On a Plane. Let’s see why.

All the pilots featured in the book are men. White men. YARRRRGH.

Let’s remedy that gross oversight with some rad lady pilots.

In the interest of full disclosure, my female pilot sensitivity started when I found out how much prejudice Toby’s aunt still encounters as an international pilot for American Airlines. I was FLABBERGASTED by the stories she told me. Look at how awesome she is, helping her son Chris move into the dorms at Seattle University:

I mean, I’ve always loved my girl Amelia Earhart, but I didn’t realize things were STILL so bad in the 21st century. Ugh.

(Toby got this poster for me for my birthday last year!!!

A few more folks who could/should have been included in Going Places On a Plane.

And of course, Starbuck.

Here’s an article that posits why there aren’t more female pilots.

Anyway. Here’s the other stuff I’ve been reading this week.

Have an enjoyable week!