Off and Running

  So it's time to get back to work.  I'll be collaborating again with Rich in fifth grade, and we decided to start the year with a problem solving project.  We felt it would set the tone for one of our focal points, which is to help the kids develop their questioning skills.  We would follow the same protocol as last year's movie theater project.

We used this page...

...from this book.

  We gave the kids some time to look at the Birthday Party Basics list, and asked them what they noticed and what they wondered.  We gave them some time to write down their questions.
    While they were working, I overheard two students trying to formulate a question regarding the pints and quarts of ice-cream.  I walked over to listen in, and one student turned to me and said,
   "Mr. Schwartz, what's bigger, a pint or a quart?  I can never remember!"
    I hesitated a bit, and gave her my i-pad.  "Here.  Find it out for yourself."
   "I know how to do that," she said, as she quickly googled "what's bigger a pint or a quart".  (A small moment, I know.  But the fact that she could find the answer herself instead of relying on me or a fellow student empowered us both.  Another reminder of how important those small moments can be.)
 

They chose their favorites to write on chart paper.  Between the AM and PM classes there were quite a few to look through.  Many kids wanted to know how much it would cost to buy everything on the list.  They were also intrigued by the fact that a bag of pretzels cost less than a bag of potato chips but served more people.

A representative sample got posted on Rich's bulletin board.

We decided to have the entire class work on this one.  We liked it because of its openness; we felt it would prompt some interesting discussions as kids prioritized their list, and then re-evaluated decisions  based on how much money was left to spend.

     We weren't disappointed.  The question sparked some good conversation.  There was debate about which size cake to buy, what kind of drinks to serve (one group decided that bottled water was the way to go because kids might be allergic to apple juice and soda, another group agreed but decided to save money by just serving tap water), whether it was necessary to have potato chips and pretzels, whether or not it was important to have money left over, and the difference between 1 pint of chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry ice-cream and 1 pint of chocolate, vanilla, or strawberry ice-cream.
     The AM class worked in groups of three.  Not so great.  One (or sometimes two) tended to dominate while the other(s) were left with nothing to contribute.  You'd think I would have learned this by now.
     We switched it up in the PM.  Rich had them work in groups of two.  As they started in on the problem, I remembered something that I heard this past summer from a teacher at a workshop.  When she has kids collaborating this way, she makes each use a different colored marker.  Her kids know that she is expecting to see a balance of colors.  It helps promote accountability.

I had never tried it before, but it seemed to work!

       Here's what I like about this approach:

• The kids generate the questions.
• The kids get to select which questions they'd like to solve.
• The questions vary in level of complexity and necessitate the use of a variety of skills.
• The kids can work on these at centers, independently, or in guided groups as the unit progresses.

The day the kids were working on their solutions, this tweet came across my feed:

It's like teacher christmas! Except that we buy all the gifts ourselves and they are greeted with subdued acceptance! pic.twitter.com/4Md59dIOW7
— Justin (@JustinAion) September 10, 2014

   I'd like to experiment with big whiteboards for this type of problem solving activity.  Using whiteboards would allow the kids to erase when they make a mistake or want to revise their work instead of crossing out or just tossing the paper and getting another one.  Justin, who knows a lot about whiteboards, tells me that I can get them at Home Depot, and that they'll even cut them to size if I tell them I'm a teacher!
    So school's in.   We are excited about building on all the good work that the fourth grade teachers did with this group last year, and I think we are off to a good start.