The big excitement last week was the construction of our structures! I explained to the students that after the March break they would be using an app called Skitch on the iPads to write about the beginning, middle and end of their construction, so the kids had to be sure to take 3 photos of these stages while they were building. I also showed them a Skitch presentation from a student in my class last year so they could understand what lay ahead. With lots of reminders, most kids managed to photo-document the progress of their structures so that they will be ready to write about the building process after the break. After looking back at their planning work from last week, they got started taping, gluing and otherwise attaching materials together to create their structures.

In between building sessions, I asked everyone to make sure that their plan on paper reflected the actual structure they were building, and to make sure the plan included the materials they used, their properties, and the attachments they used. The vocabulary was all available on our Structures board, with illustrations.

In math, Julie told the legend of Mr. Tang as the mythical origin story of Tangrams, a set of 7 puzzle pieces that originates in China. Then she challenged the class to try to make a square with the 7 pieces - a very difficult task! The students tried for awhile and then some started to give up in frustration. This was an opportunity to talk about growth mindset and the positive or negative messages we tell ourselves. Eventually, with a lot of guidance and cooperation with other students, the students managed to solve the puzzle and create a square.

Julie also led a spatial problem-solving lesson: the Magic Keys. She again began with storytelling, explaining that there was a treasure hidden behind 12 doors, but that we had to find all 12 keys to open the doors. The keys had to be made of 5 flat squares arranged edge to edge (12 different arrangements are possible). When a table group had all created a particular solution shape, we gave that table the corresponding pentomino (math puzzle pieces made of 5 squares each). Most students cooperated together really well to find the solutions, and the kids were very engaged with the task. We talked about turning and flipping the shapes to figure out whether or not they were the same or different.

We also had our first session with the new geometry centres. In addition to the activities the students tried last week (shape-copying with geoboards and turn-taking symmetry with pattern blocks) we added building with 3D solids according to images provided, a form of Tetris played with pentominoes, and tangram puzzles.

In writing, we talked more about peer editing, the process of students giving feedback to each other on their writing. Using the editing checklist developed last week, students worked in pairs first reading their stories and then editing them together.

We also composed a song for Julie to say thanks and "à bientot".  The students learned the song over a couple of days and sang it for Julie on her last day.

The words of the week contained the sound "ill" as in the words "fille" and "famille". We also talked about "les lettres fantomes" (ghost letters or silent letters). Most final consonants in French words are silent. The kids did an exercise of trying to find all the words they could find with such silent letters. 

We also had another series of activities around growth mindset. The kids brainstormed a list of all the activities they do regularly where they "hear" positive or negative messages in the form of self-talk.

Later, I gave them those activities to cut out and place on a continuum, from "those tasks I find easy and do with confidence" to "those tasks I find hard and do with difficulty". 

Then I asked for a student volunteer to act out a sketch of themselves doing one of those harder tasks. I animated their 2 puppets (friendly and unfriendly) as the student spoke aloud the negative messages they started out telling themselves. Then they began telling themselves positive messages, and the spotlight shifted from the unfriendly puppet to the friendly puppet. We talked again about how we can choose which messages to focus on.