The Dip

For our Morphic Thinking routine today, I pulled out my favorite game, Balderdash, and with a twist on the rules we turned it into our morning warm-up.
Spontaneous Problem:  Define the word zamouse.  Students shared their list of ideas and although it really means a West-African buffalo, we adopted the special ALERT meaning of "magician".
Boundary Breaker:  Students were given the movie title Feet First and challenged to come up with a convincing plot line.  With the actual one hidden in the mix we shared the responses and voted on the most likely (and most entertaining!).

Today the old crew great progress on our projects.  Most all of our research is complete and we are drafting our museum placards.  We even have some editing and artifact design going on!  I can't wait to see the final products!

Our new crew looked at solving analogy brain stretchers and read the book Why Explore by Susan Lendroth. Students brainstormed and discussed reasons why people explore, and how there is an innate explorer in all of us.  They also were able to share their own curiosities and motivations.

Next, second graders got to crack open our M^3 (Mentoring Mathematical Minds) text in order to begin unraveling the case of the Moli Stone.  This fictitious 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 47 cents using only dimes and pennies.  Students practiced communicating their thinking through writing as they proved to a friend how they knew all the possible combinations had been found.

As a whole group, we  looked at the Habit of Mind, persisting today.  Students watched a short video describing the learning journey as having dips.  We discussed positive mindsets for those dips and did the T puzzle challenge which certainly allowed students to experience the struggle, as well as the feeling of accomplishment on the other side of it!

Third graders wrapped up with our Land of Treble math, as students took some time to explain their regrouping practices in the base 3 system and compare and contrast it from our Base 10 system.