What is Creative Problem Solving?

Capstone Inspiration Videos

https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/01/world/cnnheroes-top-ten-2018/index.html

For my 5th grade students, these ten CNN videos might serve as inspiration for their Capstone Projects. 

PA and TD for the Week of 11-12

KTD Math will be working on problem solving using logic.  I have two problems for the class to complete as a group.  One where we need to determine the snack eaten by a class with only 3 clues, and another problem about where five kids are in their line using a chart and four clues. 

KTD Literature will be working on developing rhyming words using scrabble tiles.  My plan is to turn this into a race between two groups to see who can come up with the most rhyming words for a variety of sounds in only three minute intervals.  

1TD spent last week reading three short chapter books and putting post-it notes anywhere one character changed another character.  This week, those changes will be recorded on three different webs.

2TD is finally done with their amazing renditions of A Giraffe and a Half.  The kids did a great job of working together on this book.  Our next adventure will be with the novel Frindle by Andrew Clements.  We will be reading this book together and recording how different characters change in a variety of categories. 

3PA will spend the week creating a plan based on The Girl Who Owned a City of where they would relocate in Brookdale to create their own city.  The kids will also be creating a visual to show the connections between this novel and The Green Book.

4PA will create their impressionist watercolor paintings of The Secret Garden in three stages of development.  Some of the symbolism and metaphors found in the text will also find their way into the paintings.  This should be a fun week for the 4th graders.  

5PA is finishing up reading two award winning novels written in verse, The Crossover and Brown Girl Dreaming.  Teams were given the four standards 5PA uses 2nd quarter for understanding literature.  The only directions they were given was to show their mastery of the standards in some way.  It can literally be anything they think of, a challenge.  This week, groups will be developing their way of showing mastery of the following standards:

RL.6.2:  Determine a theme or central idea of a text and how it is conveyed through particular details; provide a summary of the text distinct from personal opinions or judgments.

RL.6.3:  Describe how a particular story's or drama's plot unfolds in a series of episodes as well as how the characters respond or change as the plot moves toward a resolution.

RL.6.4:  Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of a specific word choice on meaning and tone.

RL.6.5:  Analyze how a particular sentence, chapter, scene, or stanza fits into the overall structure of a text and contributes to the development of the theme, setting, or plot.

On Wednesday, we will have our first Socratic Seminar Tug-o-War comparing Ray Bradbury to all other writers to develop our understanding of how text structure impacts themes in literature.

Happy Diwali

PA and TD for the Week of 11-7

KTD Math will be playing SET with me this week to develop critical thinking and problem solving skills.

KTD Literacy will focus on rhyming words this week.  Groups will be using Scrabble tiles in a rhyme race with several twists and turns.  

1TD will be reading books in pairs focusing on how characters impact each other in stories and creating a web that illustrates the interactions. 

2TD will finish up their work on their version of A Giraffe and a Half. 

3PA will finish reading The Girl Who Owned a City this week. The kids will be working on a project in teams to show how they would survive by thinking and planning just like Lisa did in the novel. 

4PA will finish up their posters comparing the novel to the film version of The Secret Garden, we will have a Socratic Seminar about which version was better, and next week we will be creating our three part water color paintings. 

5PA will write their Capstone proposals this week in class.  The students will also continue to read The Crossover and Brown Girl Dreaming. 

PA and TD for the Week of 10-26

KTD Math will be learning a card game called SET.  SET builds cognitive, logical and spatial reasoning skills as well as visual perception skills while playing a game! Because it has a rule of logic (three cards that are all the same or all different in each individual feature), and because players must apply this rule to the spatial array of patterns all at once, they must use both left brain and right brain thought processes. This fun game actually exercises your brain! https://www.setgame.com/set/puzzle
I copied this description directly from the SET website. 

KTD Literacy will be reading the 1948 Caldecott winning picture book The Little House.  We will focus on how ideas develop and interact over the course of the text. 

1TD will spend the week looking at picture books that explore the diversity of different cultures we have in our community.  The students will be looking for similar themes in the books and discuss how our differences make us a stronger school community.  These are just three of the books that will be in the hands of the kids next week. 

 

2TD blew me away last week with their work on their own version of A Giraffe and a Half. The creative thinking and collaboration on display was impressive.  We will be writing the final copies of their stories next week, and thanks to Caleb's idea, I'll be making copies for everyone to bring home.  

3PA just learned that the citizens of Grandville are going to be moving.  We also learned what the title of the novel means, Lisa is actually going to own a city.  A city in a castle called Glenbard.  The characters in the book are moving into my old high school, Glenbard West.  We will be reading and developing our own plans for a place to relocate in the Brookdale area that would be able to accommodate the "child families" from Brookdale.  

4PA has until Friday to complete their essay on The Secret Garden.  The students had a choice between four comprehensive questions about the novel.  Their work should include many examples taken directly from the text to support their opinions.  During our time together, we will be watching the Francis Ford Coppola film of the book. We will use the film to have a Socratic Seminar comparing the novel to the film.  Which was more engaging?  Was the book better than the movie? 

5PA will continue to find examples of sentences written by Ray Bradbury that illustrate his ability to draw a reader into his stories.  Students will also be looking at other writer's works to extract sentences that highlight their craft.  Is Bradbury special, or do all writers use the types of structure that he has mastered?  The kids are writing examples on note cards for a lesson in a few weeks, something I've never tried before, a Socratic Seminar Tug of War. It should be interesting. We will also begin reading two different novels written in Verse.  The Crossover by Kwame Alexander and Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson.  Both are Newbery winners and are magical to read.  There will be ongoing conversations about the differences between prose and verse, novel structure, and commonalities between the two novels.