Article link: student feedback

https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2017/10/15/developing-students-ability-to-give-and-take-effective-feedback/

Science Fair preparations

Information for the Southland Science Fair - held in mid-late August each year.

Introductory activities: maybe use to get pupils thinking about scientific process:

• Turn Milk Into Plastic!
• Home experiments from Science Is Fun

With the Sci Fair being held in Week 5, it means we only have four weeks to carry out our investigations and write them up for display and interviews with the judges.

I plan to introduce scientific process in Week One, pupils to then choose their investigation, materials gathered for the start of Week 2 - with on-going record keeping for Weeks 2-4 and the final write up happening at the start of Week 5. So I have looked for quick investigations where results should be showing in the time-frame - I have also selected ideas that flow on nicely from our Term 2 inquiry about our solar system, as well as any that could be related to the Science Fair special theme of 'Living in a Cooling World'...

Pupils will work in groups of 2 or 3 and can choose from any of the ideas below (which are from Science Buddies which has a huge range of fantastic investigation ideas):

1. Is It Getting Hot in Here? - temperature/greenhouse gases - Ben and Jonas
2. How Salty Does the Sea Have to Be? - floating an egg  Jennifer and Caity
3. Is the Soup Ready? - measure the amount of water dried beans can absorb
4. Shaking for Butter - which temperature works best?  Nikka and Anthony #1
5. Mag-nificent Breakfast Cereals - how much iron is in your cereal?  Coebie and Damien
6. How Greasy Are Your Chips? - measuring the fat content of potato chips
7. Bigger is Better - how much baking powder do muffins need?  Kim and BJ
8. Growing, Growing, Gone! - the use of nitrogen fertilizers on plants   Nikka and Anthony #2
9. Radiant Radish Seeds - how much heat can a seed take?
10. Which Way Up? - how does gravity affect plant root growth?
11. Do Plants Need Soil? - a simply hydroponics investigation
12. Home Sweet Biome - which environment is best for plants?  Dylan and Brayden
13. Recycling Grey Water - do the plants like it?  Brock and JM
14. All Packed Up - how does packaging affect the storage of fruit?
15. Can House Colour Reduce Energy Bills? - how colour attracts heat Keegan and Logan 
• instructions            background info**
16. Cold Room - make your own solar air heater  Lisa and Richard
17. Roof-top Gardens - do they help keep your house warm?
18. Colour My World - how do different colours of light affect plant growth?  Maria and Lane
19. Breathe Out - how does increased levels of carbon dioxide affect plant growth?
20. Feed Me - how do different fertilizers affect plant growth?

** background info can be found via the link on the Inquiry page of our classroom blog - scroll down to see the Science Fair heading and select the links for the appropriate investigation/theme!

New ICT tool - padlet.com

Padlet.com is an online app that is designed to work just as beautifully on an ipad as it does on a laptop or similar device - accessed viz the internet, its uses are numerous: for independent, group or whole class activities, for teaching, for learning - you are only limited by your imagination!

This is a great overview of some ideas, created by Suzy of the Technically Invisible blog and you can get your own free copy of it here

My class have been used the site for reading responses and inquiry brainstorming/sharing of ideas.

Modern 3/4 portraits

Inspiration for these has come via my favourite art blog Deep Space Sparkle and was ideal for beginning our painting art focus for this term. Ours did not turn out as 'true to type' as what was in the DSS lesson but we are really thrilled with the 'modern' look our portraits have taken on!

In the first week of school we wrote 'I am...' poems and I wanted the pupils to paint portraits of themselves; they have always done full-face portraits so agreed they are ready to try a different angle.

We found these images of self-portraits by Van Gogh on Google images:

First we practised the line drawings as advised by Deep Space Sparkle - we used 1/2 A4 and pencils, doing two attempts before then moving onto A4 paper, first with pencil, then with crayons.

Next, we moved onto A3 black paper (the paint colours we will be using are so bright, we think they will look good on the black paper - it will be something different for a change!)  The outlines were done with white chalk (easy to paint over).

We first painted the faces and features. We aimed to be using short brush strokes like Van Gogh used.

Next we painted the background, our focus being to have a mixture of colours, again with the short brush strokes.

Our next step, once the paint was dry, was to add some highlighting detail with black outlines on the main features - we did this with black oil pastels.

Don't they look fantastic?!

Normally I would launch into a painting unit by first working the children through a couple of sessions of brush techniques and colour mixing.  But for this activity I just wanted to get a quick product so we could display them to make the room colourful and it has also given me a baseline to see what the pupils can do.

As we worked I talked about the importance of proportion (ie large paper, so draw the features much larger) and emphasised the correct way to hold a brush, as well as the use of newspaper to clean the brush before getting the next colour (I do not as a rule use jars of water for cleaning brushes while painting).

I did not really have a set criteria - just wanted the children to do what they could.  We will have more specific learning outcomes as the painting  unit progresses.

Start of the year...who are we?

Two activities to help share or build identity: 4pics 1 person (pupils drew pictures to represent themselves. Some jumbled their names and others chose not to.)

I showed the children some of the pinterest posters for "in our classroom, we do..." statements.  They worked in groups to select statements of what they would like our classroom to be and then each decorated one panel for a mural...

First one at the top says WE DO LEARNING! Great to know that message is coming through! 

I have a blissful class of just twenty Year Six pupils - we are going to have a fantastic year I think!!

3-d designs 2013 - rolls and tubes

Aiming to use shading to create a 3-d effect! Two very striking optical illusion designs...

'3-d circles' - from my new favourite art ideas website called Our Art Lately and it was on THIS optical illusion artwork post that I found it.

I printed out some instructions and my pupils worked on their art as a reading/art activity for a DIY task. We  used crayons or colouring pencils for the colours rather than felts.

Here are some of the results from my Year 5 and 6 pupils: very important to get the shading right in the whiter blocks to get the effect.

We also found this activity from the blog Art With Mr E and enjoyed the effect that it creates! We used A3 cartridge paper and black vivid pens (with newspaper underneath to protect the tables) - draw one curved line side-to-side across the A3 paper, then place about 8 dots randomly-spaced along the curved line.

Next, use the vivid to join the dots with small curved lines.  Repeat the movement, being sure to run the pen right into the dot each time (to build up a dark shadow line between each tube). Keep going until sheet is full. Try to not let the lines cross over (the Mr E blog post has examples of what NOT to do).

Once the lines are created, select three or four coloured pencils and begin shading the segments of the 'tubes' - aim for about three shades of the colour within the segment - we coloured the section all over very lightly first, then pressed more firmly about a third of the way in from each side, then pressed even more firmly in the very corners of the segment, so we had a gradual build up of colour - it is important to shade side-to-side within the segment, not to run the pencil up and down or you might make edges or lines.

More examples to come!!

Wycinanki - Polish paper cutting

Pronounced - vee-shee-nan-ki

The tree of life is a popular design.



Pupil design on a provided template.



Pupil design on a provided template.

  

Pupil design on a provided template.

 


Fold black A3 paper in half, use the fold as the centre and draw one side of the tree of life - as large as can fit - just four of five branches. You may like to draw some half shapes inside the trunk as, when cut out, these will make shapes inside the trunk area on the final design.



Keep the paper folded and cut out along the drawn line only - do not cut along the folded line (unless there were shapes drawn on there eg the half heart shapes). Glue the cut out shape onto A3 coloured paper.



Pupil's own design - begin adding coloured cut-out shapes to glue inside some of the black shapes on the design. For example, in the flowers at the top, the pupil has cut out yellow circles, then slightly smaller blue circles to go on top.



Completed pupil design - try to stick to two or three colours that will look good together against the black silhouette.