Exploration and Critical Thinking

Spontaneous Problem of the day: Name things that are hidden.
Boundary Breaker of the day: Is being gifted right side-up or upside-down?
Brain stretch practice: Analogies

We focused today on qualities of critical thinkers.  We discovered that a critical thinker needs to...

• Be fair
• Be accurate
• Be clear
• Be relevant
• Be logical

We used videos from the Children's Guide to Critical Thinking to highlight different types of thinkers...

• Naive Nancy- Doesn't care about thinking, follows the crowd, takes the easy road
• Selfish Sam- Uses thinking to manipulate others and get his way
• Fair-minded Fran- Thinks to understand and solve problems, considers others

Students were able to take some notes and share examples that helped them realize the benefits of practicing critical thinking.

We also engaged more with our year-long theme, Exploration.  We read the book, Why Explore by Susan Lendroth and students brainstormed and discussed reasons why people explore and how there is an innate explorer in all of us.

Students got to use our new Nearpod accounts to participate in our interactive lesson that got them started on their "Where I'm From" poems.  They are modeling their writing off the poem of the same name by George Ella Lyon.  I am hoping to be able to share some completed poems on our blog next week!

Lastly, students took their strength assessments as a prerequisite for beginning to interact with our Thrively online content.

Maneki Neko and Managing Impulsivity

This morning we warmed up with the Spontaneous problem, "What do you need to Explore?"  and shared about some of our own recent discoveries.  Students were able to share their personal artifacts and think about assumptions future archaeologists might make if they uncovered their item 3,00 years from now.

Next we got to crack open our M^3 (Mentoring Mathematical Minds) text in order to begin unraveling the case of the Moli Stone.  This ficticious stone was just uncovered in an archaeological dig in China.  Throughout the unit, students will build on their knowledge of place value and number systems in order to decode the symbols and unravel their hidden meaning.  Today we counted the change in a Maneki Neko bank and explored the different combinations we could use to total the 47 cents we found using only dimes and pennies.  Ask your student about the rule they discovered.  I am already impressed with their ability to problem solve, identify patterns, and communicate their thinking!

Our Habit of Mind focus was on Managing Impulsivity.  We read My Mouth is a Volcano by Julia Cook.  Students then practiced managing their impulsivity as they participated in a relay race to come up with the biggest list of good and bad examples of the skill.

ALERT 101

     This week we kicked off our morning routine of Morphic Thinking where students warm-up with a spontaneous problem and boundary breaker.  We will be including these weekly.

Spontaneous Problem: A spontaneous problem is a brainstorming type problem to be solved in a specific amount of time and scored according to the number and creativity of responses generated. The point is to challenge students to be flexible thinkers, to elaborate on original ideas and to think fluently and creatively about a specific topic.

Today's Spontaneous Problem: What could you find on the imaginary planet, Twinkle?

Boundary Breaker:  A boundary breaker is a group experience which works toward creating a sense of community. Students gain an awareness of and respect for the opinion of others by the use of questions that go beyond superficial depth and have no right/wrong answers.

Today's Boundary Breaker: What is thinking? Why is thinking important?

     One big part of our day was devoted to introducing Art Costa's Habits of Mind.  We discussed habits, good and bad, and discussed these as those identified in the most successful leaders.  Students played Bingo to match the description to the positive character trait.  What a bunch of Smarties!

     Also on our agenda was a team challenge with some problems that required a second look.  I want students to view failure as part of the learning process.  Maybe they shared some at home with you!  We read My Fantastic Elastic Brain and talked about how trying new and difficult things can help stretch and grow your brain.

     We finished by looking at the four components of creativity and our mascots, The Nerds, who encourage you to "feed your imagination".  We used flexibility to look at a doodle from many perspectives.  We used fluency as we brainstormed many ideas the doodle could become.  Then we narrowed it down to our most original idea.  Finally students added detail to elaborate on their picture.

   
Another great day is in the books!