Rube Goldberg Day 2

Rube Goldberg Day 1

Back to Science!

Given our challenges with action and reaction we decided it might make things a bit accessible for the students if we had images that they could abstract movement from to create their action and reaction movement. I went through and found images that contained motion. 

By doing this we were able to talk to the students about how they could abstract or create motion from the ideas in the picture. We went through all of the pictures and improvised different ways and then showed some from the class that were unique and different. 

From here we split them into groups and let them go to work with creating their action reaction, Rube Goldberg Machines. At the the end of class we presented out work and then gave a few ideas for things we could work on or add the next day before we presented them to our first grade reading buddy class. 

Overall it was a lot more positive of an experience for the students. 

Ending Shape--Roll Roll Roll Explode! HOLD IT!!

An Dro Retourne--Social Studies

Along with our Turkey in the Straw day we did a second day talking about folk dance in relation to social studies. We did a dance called An Dro Retourne which is a dance from France that is based in walking and skipping. Before the lesson I had thought about the fact that An Dro Retourne was not incredibly complicated but I had not thought about how quick the skipping was. This meant I had to adjust quickly during the lesson. We added an option of doing a slower step hop and then later when they were more comfortable with the sequence allowed them to try to do the quicker walk walk walk skip. 

Turkey In the Straw

In the next lesson Mrs Nuzman wanted to focus on Social Studies. Since it was right before Thanksgiving we decided to teach the kids Turkey in the Straw. Previously the children had learned the words for the chorus of the song.

We reviewed those words and then talked about how the children listened to music and what they did for entertainment. Then we talked about how in historically people would have to sing and play their own music instead of being able to listen to an iPod. And for entertainment people would all learn dances and then dance to the live music.


Then they all got up and we learned a modified version of the Virginia Reel. We started using walking. As they got better at the dance, I challenged them to really listen to the music and make sure they were clapping on the right counts. Once they had that down we changed the skipping to walking.

It was a lot of fun because as part of the dance we had 16 counts where the head couple got to do their best turkey walk impression down the middle of the two lines. This was a really exciting part of the lesson. It was fun to see the students try to think of new ways they could do their turkey walk as we challenged them to look for new ways. To up the stakes we had Mrs. Musil, who was observing that day, pick a few of the best turkey walkers.

We reviewed what we had discussed at the beginning and then the students loved it so much they asked if they could do the dance two more times.

Action Reaction

Our goal for this lesson was to lead up to our future project of making Rube Golberg machine's with the kids as some of the moving parts. To do this we wanted to get the kids moving and thinking about how they can use the movements they have been given and use them to pass movement along.

Introduction
To start out we reviewed our action words from the last lesson. Then we talked about their science words.

MOTION: occurs when an object or person moves from one place to another

ENERGY: is the ability to do work. You need energy to make an object move.

PUSH: is a force that moves an object. Often, pushing an object moves it away from you.

PULL: is a force that moves an object. Often, pulling an object moves it closer to you.

FORCE: is the push or pull on an object. Force makes the object move or change direction.

WORK: happens when a force is used to move an object, moves another object

SLIDE: is the movement of an object to smoothly glide or slip over a surface without rotating or flipping.

ROLL: is the movement of an object that turns over and over in a circular pattern.

STRAIGHT: is a type of direction or path an object can move.

CURCULAR: is a path or direction, in the shape of a circle, that an object can move

ZIG-ZAG: is a type of direction or path an object can move with a back and forth diagonal motion.

FRICTION: is a force caused when two objects rub against each other. Friction causes objects in motion to slow down.

While we did this we moved the words and applied them to the locomotor words they had learned last time and just previously reviewed.

Action Reaction Section
We then stood in a circle and talked about action and reaction. Then past the movement around the circle. Up until this point in the lesson things were going pretty smoothly. I wasn't sure how the last section would go or how would be the best way to do the action reaction section--with the full class or in groups or possibly a completely different way.

We talked about safety and respect; how to pass an action in a way that is not unkind and then started.

In the moment we decided to do it as a full class....it did not go as well as I had hoped... :\ Some of the girls were not as involved or not confident at this point to make their own decisions. A couple of the girls didn't know how to react when the movement was passed to them and as a result shut down. It was a bit disappointing.

I think it would have been better in smaller groups possibly. I was also thinking about some of the different dance terms that might have facilitated better passing of movement, such as energy words. Talk about passing sustained movement. We could also talk about swing and sway.

Lets Get Moving: Axial and Locomotor Movement

In preparation for our next two lessons we taught the students about axial and locomotor movement. After discussing all the different types of movements, we used green cards for the locomotor movements that move through space, and red for the axial movements that stay on the spot. We did a few exercises where we combine with the students would pick out a few different movement words and put them together. With the drum beat we started moving. The magic really happened when we split them into groups. We divided them into three groups and had each group pick four green cars and two red. They got to choose the order they did them in and how long. This was magical because I had been nervous about how well the third graders were going to work together. Would it turn out to be too chaotic? Were they going to be excited about it? And it was magical because they were SO excited. There was a group of boys and two mixed groups. I went around and asked them how long they had decided to do each movement. They were emphatic about their different lengths of time for each movement. 

LEAPING

 EXPLODING

SLIDING

Magnificent Movers & Super Scholars

Mrs Nuzman's class of magnificent movers and super scholars jumped in to multiplication and repeat addition. They weren't moving a lot but it was great to see some of the students, who weren't as excited about math the day before while doing math, excited about participating in this new way of conceptualizing multiplication.

We divided the groups each round into Magnificent Movers and Super Scholars. We would create a math problem on the board and then the Movers had to divide themselves up quickly and quietly into the number of equal groups we had written on the board. Afterward the Super Scholars would solve the problem on their whiteboards then hold up the answer.