I have two different projects going on in the fourth and fifth grade. It was so simple to create a Survey Monkey questionnaire for use in our discussion. The students enjoyed the quick survey and it provided us with some interesting results.The Fourth Grade
We are continuing to work on the Space Mission Patch project. The students completed their initial research on what was contained on each of the patches in the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs. I wanted to quickly roll up which were the most popular patches. Last night I created a free one question survey. It was a simple "select one choice questionnaire".
Once the questionnaire was created, I posted the link to my school delicious account. The students are becoming quite adept in starting up Firefox, choosing the All Tags triangle, and selecting the fourth grade links to find the required website.
The results: The favorite patch in my first of two fourth grade classes was the Apollo 17 patch with 35.3% of the vote (6 votes). There was a tie for second with Apollo 11, 13, and Gemini 6 all receiving 11.8% of the vote (2 votes).
What We Did With the Results
We brought up each of the winning patches, I had them point out the details and try to decide why NASA included those details for those patches. We looked at which patches used Roman numbers for the mission number.
Next Steps
I gave out a simple research project to compare some of Earth's statistics with another planet. They took a worksheet to the computer to compare the diameter, high and low temperature, length of a day, length of a year, number of moons, and number of rings. They completed that research today using Windows to the Universe. They decided on a name for their ship. The missions are the Angel missions for our parish's patron saint, Saint Michael the Archangel.
The Fifth Grade
The fifth grade continues to work toward understanding Greenwich Mean Time. They learned to edit a wiki for the first time. I created a sand box area to have them edit the page and tell what GMT stood for, what it is used for, and how many hours difference there is between GMT and Eastern Daylight Time.
All but one student could tell me what the abbreviation of GMT meant. Most had a fair answer for what it is used for. They were still a bit shaky on the number of hours difference between GMT and our Eastern Daylight Time.
Survey Time
Next, we must begin gathering data for our partner classes to tell what happens during different times in the day for the Time Zone Experiences wiki. I was certain that the students all started and ended their days at different times and I wanted to be able to quickly see that information. Last night, I set up a quick, free seven question survey over on Survey Monkey. They navigated over from the fifth grade delicious links at the beginning of class to complete the survey.
Armed with our data, we are ready to begin personal bits of writing to explain what happens at different times of day in our part of the world.
Image Citation
Comer, Clint. "Nap Time." Clintus McGintus' photostream. 2008 1 Oct. 2007 14 Jan.
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/165/356600905_b07c509dca.jpg?v=0
Image Citation
Comer, Clint. "Nap Time." Clintus McGintus' photostream. 2008 1 Oct. 2007 14 Jan.
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/165/356600905_b07c509dca.jpg?v=0
I love all of your ideas! How long do you have the students for?
ReplyDeleteThis year I have 4th and 5th twice per week for 42 minutes. Last year it was only once per week. I see K-3 once per week for 42 minutes. 4-8 twice per week for 42 minutes. I really enjoy building on the ideas year after year.
ReplyDeleteAnn, I love the ideas on the Time Zone project. I'm going to be introducing this project to my students next week. We just have one thing to finish up first and then we'll be off and running on this along with our Cyber Safety lessons since I think those will go nicely since the students will be editing things on the wiki. Do you ever run into issues with parents and using the kids' names?
ReplyDeleteAnd I think I'll need to borrow your Mission Patch idea for my 4th graders later this year.
I only use first names and have not had any complaints. They never share personal identity information.
ReplyDeleteWe do talk continuously from Kindergarten on about keeping work appropriate for our school setting. You could always just use an id. Their signed id looks like this: SMS2012-## where the ## is 01-22 when they edit the wiki, but I do link to their work with first names. All id's start SMS for Saint Michael School and are followed by the year they graduate 8th grade. In this way, I set up one id per student once and can almost always use the id on other websites.
I do have ids like yours that they use to sign in but instead of a number at the end it's their initials. I've been doing everything by their ID or by their computer # though I don't have any pages for each student. I will probably do that for the Time Zone project so they can learn about editing the wiki on our wiki and not on the main one.
ReplyDelete