Miniota Grade 3/4 Minecraft Communities Project

 I was excited when Miss. Emily Hunter invited me to co-plan a Minecraft EDU project for her Grade 3/4 class! She was working with the social studies theme of communities and the science unit focused on structures and materials, so we decided to focus on an interdisciplinary project that would target the outcomes from these units.   Together, we planned a “build challenge” project that allowed her students to showcase their knowledge in both topics.  Students worked individually or with a partner to create a community in Minecraft.  

To show their understanding of curricular outcomes, students made plans for which biome they’d build in and how that environment would affect their community, students identified how their community would ensure residents basic human rights were met and constructed appropriate amenties based on this planning.  Students also came up with laws/rules to be posted in their Minecraft communities and they determined which materials would be most effective for building their community structures (a link to their science outcomes).  The Grade 3 and 4 students also demonstrated social studies skills from their curriculum through effective communication and collaboration, managing information and using critical and creative thinking skills.   

Here is a snapshot of some of the planning students did before beginning their build challenges in Minecraft. 

Once students had a plan, they were given time to build their communities in Minecraft.  Students used the camera and portfolio to take some screenshots of what they had built and they've agreed to share them here so you can see some of what they've created! 

Kids Who Code: A Successful Code-a-thon

After much hard work and preparation, the Grade 1s successfully hosted the Kids Who Code Code-a-thon last week!  The 22 kids from our class ran 6 different coding stations, featuring coding activities from Kodable, The Foos, Lightbot, Tynker, Scratch Jr. and code.org. 

We had over 140 guests, including students from other classrooms and local dignitaries.  Guest classes in attendance included Mrs. Hrymak’s Grade 3 & 4 class from Rapid City School, Mrs. Caldwell’s Kindergarten Class from Miniota School, Mrs. Gorrell’s Grade 2 class from Shoal Lake School, Mr. Smith’s Grade 8 class from Hamiota Collegiate and the Grades 2,3 and 4 classes from Hamiota Elementary.  Local dignitaries in attendance included Arther-Virden M.L.A. Mr. Doyle Piwniuk, R.M. of Hamiota Mayor Mr. Larry Oakden, Park West School Division Superintendent Mr. Tim Mendel and Park West School Division Board Chair Darren Naherniak.  A group of awesome student teachers from the Brandon University Faculty of Education volunteered to help us keep the event running smoothly!

This unique, student-led event was planned to engage students in learning coding as part of the Hour of Code™ movement.  The Hour of Code™ is considered the largest learning event in history, with more than 100 million students worldwide already completing an hour of code.  This global event is designed to spark interest in computer science since many computer science jobs go unfilled and few schools teach computer science.  I was very proud of what great coding teachers my students were for this special event - they helped so many others to learn more about coding!  Great job grade 1s!

 

Mystery Number Skype

We have used Skype in our classroom throughout the year, but recently we've been doing something new and exciting called Mystery Number Skype. After attending Kathy Cassidy's presentation at Awakening Possibilities last month, Mrs. Caldwell and I were excited to try out this new learning activity with our students.  We also tried this activity with Miss Turner's K/1 class in Treherne today!

How We Do Mystery Number Skype:

•  Each class chooses a mystery number.  Teachers and students can decide on a range such as 1-100.  
• Classes connect via video call. One class goes first, and asks the other class yes/no questions to narrow down what the mystery number could be. 
• Some great questions are being asked in our classes right now:
• Is it higher than __?
• Is it lower than __?
• Is it between __ and __?
• Is it in the thirties? forties? etc. 
• Is it even/odd? 
• Does it end with ....?
• Does it start with...?

• Once the first class guesses the number correctly, the other class takes their turn.

Helpful Tools

We have been using the interactive hundred chart in SMART Notebook to keep track of the numbers we eliminate. As it is narrowed down, students "erase" the numbers on the board.  If you don't have access to the interactive hundred chart, a copy of the 100 chart to cross off guesses could be shared by the class or used individually by each student. We also use our Front Row audio system microphone to pass around, which helps to amplify student voices so they are more easily heard during the conference call. 

A friendly competition...
To make Mystery Number Skype into a bit of a competition/game, our classes have competed to see who could solve the mystery number in the fewest number of questions . Students kept a tally of guesses and so far the OLCS Kindergartens have asked fewer questions than us, so we are working hard to ask really smart questions in hopes of winning next time!  It's a fun and motivating element that encourages us to eliminate the most numbers we can with each of our questions.

Important Learning
This Mystery Number Game has led to much learning.  We've discussed decade numbers and learned about even and odd.  Students have the opportunity to think about numbers and formulate good questions.  I'm very excited to see the math learning that is going on during these calls!

Keep in mind that any video calling tool will work for this activity or you can even play with a special guest or partner classroom in your own school!

Mrs. Caldwell has shared a great post about her perspective on Mystery Number Skype too - check it out!