Marvelous Muffins: Putting our Plan into Action

The grade 1 class has been busy putting our Marvelous Muffins plan into action so we can help our partner class in Ghana, Africa.  After determining which kinds of muffins we were going to sell based on survey results, our class started to read muffin recipes.  We read recipes and discussed the variations in recipe size and ingredients.  Since I've never made chocolate chip muffins, I decided to test out a recipe at home and surprise the class with a batch of muffins to taste test.  We determined that the recipe was tasty, so we decided to use it for our baking.

Once we had selected our recipes, our next job was to write a list of ingredients that we would need.  Using SMARTnotebook, I was able to display the recipe and a blank slide side-by-side on our SMARTboard.  We read through the recipe together and each time we read a new ingredient, a student added the item to our list.  Next, we went through the ingredients we already had and narrowed down the list to create a list of groceries we needed to buy. 

Our class took a walking field trip to the grocery store to purchase the groceries.  Students worked together to push the cart, keep track of items on the grocery list, load groceries, unload groceries and carry groceries. 

Discovery learning: Take 2

Last week in Grade 1, we tried out something new.  Discovery tubs were a big hit and both students and teachers learned a lot!  This week, Miss Dyck and I made a few changes.  For one, we decided to set up four tubs instead of three to make more "spaces" available and avoid "traffic jams" when there were students ready to change tubs and no spots available at the other tubs.

This week's tubs are shown below and also pinned on My Discovery Tubs board.

Discovery Tub Contents:

Book collection related to the seasons

Seasons cards showing seasonal pictures

Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter labels

Construction paper cut into cards

Magazines for cutting

Students at this tub could: sort the pre-made card by seasons, play seasons concentration game, cut and paste to create new cards.    

Questions to ask:  Why did you sort this card here?  How do you know that picture belongs in ____________?  What season does your card show? 

Discovery Tub Contents:

Toothpicks

Mini marshmallows

Sample 3D object created from toothpicks and marshmallows

Optional: label cards depicting 3D objects and 2D shapes

Students at this tub might: create 2D shapes or 3D objects, create a unique design or model (ie: one of my students designed a model of a catapult)

Questions to ask:  What shape/object have you created?  What shape are its faces?   How many vertices does it have?  How many faces does it have?

 

Discovery Tub Contents:

tangram sets

tangram puzzles 

paper for tracing new designs

Students at this tub might: solve pre-printed puzzles or design new puzzles by tracing around their own arrangement of tangrams

Questions to ask:  Where does this piece go?  Is that in the right place?  Does this piece go here?

 

Discovery Tub Contents:

Copies of nets for 3D objects such as cube, prism and pyramid

Model of a 3D object created from the net

Students at this tube may cut out nets and create a 3D object, create multiple objects and put them together (ie: a pyramid stacked on a cube) or cut out 2D shapes they recognize in the nets.  

Questions to ask:  What object/shape did you create?  How can you put it together to make a ___________?  Where should you fold the paper?  What will it look like when you are done?

A New Approach: Discovery Learning

Inspired by two wonderful teachers, Connie Lowe and Devon Caldwell, I set out to introduce discovery learning in our Grade 1 classroom this spring!  I had a great conversation with these two ladies the evening before the Awakening Possibilities conference.  (Our conversation helped me "get going" on this idea and it was a reminder that sometimes the professional development happens outside of the official conference sessions - just talking with other teachers gave me some very useful ideas.)  

Next, I did some reading and exploring online to find out more about discovery learning, ideas for discovery tubs and how to organize these activities.  Some resources I found helpful included:

• Connie Lowe's blog post about Discovery Time in her classroom
• Devon Caldwell's blog post about Discovery Discovery Bins
• Connie Lowe's discovery bins on Pinterest
• Eva Dowd's disovery bins on Pinterest
• Devon Caldwell's discovery bins on Pinterest

Miss Dyck, our student teacher, and I designed 3 discovery tubs related to our math learning about 2D shapes and 3D objects.  Once the tubs were set out at 3 separate work areas, I explained to students that there could be 5-7 people at a tub, they could choose which tubs to explore and when to change activities.  We discussed sharing, being kind and focusing on discovering new things.  Then, we got started!  Miss Dyck and I observed as students tried new things, worked together and created.  We took lots of photos and I put many of them into students' Evernote files to document their learning.  I took note of a few comments:

• "I'm making something."
• "Hey, watch this!"
•  "Try this"
• "Do ladybugs have antennae?" then, after an internet search and a close look at a ladybug diagram "So should I curve them (the antennae) a bit?"
• "Give me the cylinder."

I heard lots of math language and many interesting questions.  I saw enthusiastic, engaged students working together or alone, creating new things and designing, learning and discovering!  After we cleaned up, students gathered at the carpet to share questions and comments. I asked for some feedback and it was overwhelmingly positive "It was fun" and "It was awesome" and even, "It was the best thing I've done at school".  Judging by our first experience, I think we're going to have to continue with our discovery learning! 

Discovery Tub Contents: 

2D shapes 

3D objects 

household objects that are cylinders, prisms, cubes, spheres etc 

2D shape & 3D objects label cards ie: cylinder, prism, square, circle, rhombus, hexagon 

Blank cards 

Students at this tub experimented with different 3D objects to create towers and they also sorted 2D shapes using the label cards.  

Discovery Tub Contents: 
2D shapes
shape "tracer" templates made from cardstock,
variety of paper 

Students at this tub created different designs by tracing shapes or cardstock tracers and they put shapes together to create pictures.  It was the most open-ended tub and it was interesting to watch what the students discovered when there were so many possibilities for them to explore!

Discovery Tub Contents: 
sample "shape bugs"
shapes copied onto construction paper (circle, oval, rhombus, rectangle)
blank construction paper

Students at this tub replicated the shape bug in the tub using preprinted shapes and/or shapes they cut out, created a ladybug shape bug and/or created other new designs using various shapes.

 

These tubs, along with those I will create in the future, are pinned here.

Farmer Appreciation Day

The big day finally arrived!  We finished setting up yesterday morning and then farmers started arriving!  We dressed up in farmer clothes.  We had our art and posters displayed on our hallway bulletin boards and in our classroom.  We had a guest book table, complete with a guest book designed by some of the Grade 1s.  Our partners from Mrs. Caldwell's Oak Lake Kindergarten even joined us for the event! 

As our guests arrived, we took each farmer into our classroom and offered them coffee, tea and cookies. Farmers had the chance to relax, visit and enjoy a nice coffee break.  Once everyone had arrived, the students gathered in the classroom with the farmers.  We showed them our video, which we made especially for the farmers.  Then we watched a really funny video (which was suggested by a student for Farmer Appreciation Day.)  The video is called "What Does the Farmer Say?" and it's a lot like the Grade 1 favorite "What Does the Fox Say?"  Our guests had a big laugh watching the farmer version! 

I had some special farmer guests in the crowd today too.  One of my students invited my parents, who are both farmers.  They brought a special surprise for all of the students involved in planning and executing Farmer Appreciation Day.  Through the Ag More Than Ever program, they were able to get each student a t-shirt and some fun items like stickers, magnets and pens! 

It was a very successful day in my mind.  Our farmer guests said many thanks for the time and effort put into our event.  They were pleased that we'd taken the time to show our appreciation.   It makes me so proud to support young learners in their efforts to make a difference in the world and watching kids tackle a big project like this makes me feel especially lucky to be a teacher!

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Farmer Appreciation Day: Poster Making & Set Up!

Students wanted to create special posters for decorating our classroom on Farmer Appreciation Day.  We brainstormed messages together and students decided whether they'd like to work with others on big banner posters or individually on smaller posters.  Students worked really hard to do their best printing, drawing, designing and coloring.

 Yesterday afternoon, we started setting up for the event.  We moved the furniture around in our room to get ready for our farmer guests and we started putting up our posters.  It sure looks great in our classroom and I'm so proud of the students for their amazing learning, teamwork and passion! 

Whether it was lifting tables, stacking chairs, setting out cookies or last minute poster-coloring, everyone pitched in to get ready!  We even had a student photographer take pictures to show our setup day.  I helped out with counting chairs, "directing traffic" and reaching some hard-to-reach spots for posters.  Otherwise, the students did most of the work.  They are really engaged in their learning and excited about their project!

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Farmer Appreciation Day: Learning from a Failure

Since we were scooping cookies until the end of the day on Friday, I had to put some cookies in the oven to bake after students left.  When I took the pumpkin molasses cookies out of the oven, I knew there was a problem...

The recipe said the pumpkin molasses should crack on top and we expected a gingersnap-like cookie.  When deciding what to do after school on Friday, I figured their appearance could be forgiven if they still tasted good, so I sampled a small piece of cookie and... they TASTED TERRIBLE!!   I had to share the bad news with students Monday morning and we talked about two possible problems with the "failed cookies" - (1) the spices we used were too strong and made the cookies taste bad and (2) something made the cookies too watery - either an incorrect measurement of a liquid ingredient or the pumpkin being too watery.  Students were a bit disappointed, but I reassured them that we could try the recipe again.  Students came up with the idea to use less spices and I suggested we strain the pumpkin and measure VERY carefully. 

On Monday afternoon, during our project learning time, a group of students volunteered to retry the cookie recipe.  While other students worked on different aspects of the project, I helped a small group make two new batches of pumpkin molasses cookies. We made both of the proposed adjustments and the dough looked much better.   We had to refrigerate the dough, so we did not bake the new batches until Tuesday afternoon.

The new batches turned out much better.  They looked, smelled and tasted good!  We learned from our failure and made some delicious pumpkin molasses cookies for the farmers!

Farmer Appreciation Day: Baking Cookies

Once we returned from our successful grocery shopping trip last Friday, we were ready to start baking cookies for Farmer Appreciation Day.  We had a quick meeting at the learning carpet so I could go over the plan with students and review expectations and rules for baking.  Since it was during our usual math time, I set up cookie baking as one of our math centers so students could take turns baking.  During centers, students were able to mix up 3 batches of cookies.  PLUS, they did lots of math learning at each center!

After recess, we moved our class down to the kitchen to start baking!  Students had printing and art to do, so they packed up their supplies and materials so they could work on their tasks while we were baking.  Students took turns scooping out cookie dough while others worked on the assigned tasks.  We made a lot of yummy-smelling chocolate chip cookies and it was really hard not to "taste test".  We also got all of the pumpkin molasses cookies scooped out and ready to bake.  It was a VERY busy afternoon!

Farmer Appreciation Day: Grocery Shopping

Once we'd made our pumpkin puree, it was time to get the other ingredients to bake cookies for Farmer Appreciation Day.  As a reading and writing activity, we reread the recipes we'd selected and wrote a list of ingredients we would need.  There were some leftover supplies from previous projects, so next, students went through the supplies and created a shorter list of groceries they'd need to buy.

On Friday, we went grocery shopping.  We walked to the local Co-op grocery store and worked together to pick out and purchase the items on our list.  Everyone had a job to do.  Some important jobs included: grocery list readers, cart pushers, cart loaders and grocery carriers.  I think it's really important for all students to have a purpose and a job that contributes to the task, so I made sure students knew their jobs before we left our school. Once we were at the store, each student took turns doing their part of the shopping.  We stopped a few times to work together as a group: we compared   prices on a couple of products together and we checked 

our cart together to make sure we had everything 

that we needed for our cookies. 

It might seem a little crazy to take 15 kids grocery shopping, but truthfully, it went very smoothly.  Everyone was focused on our end goal of making cookies for the farmers and they easily met my high expectations for how to behave at the grocery store. (I suppose that's another reason why project based learning is so valuable - students are engaged and willing to work together on tasks that have a real purpose for them.)  I was really proud of my class for their teamwork and best behavior! Way to go Grade 1s! 

Farmer Appreciation Day: Making Pumpkin Puree

When students decided they'd like to make their big pumpkin into pumpkin cookies, we asked a parent who grows pumpkins to share a "tried and true" recipe.  We read the recipe together as part of our text type study.  One of the ingredients in the recipe confused students - it called for "pumpkin puree" and most of us didn't know what that was.  After we figured out what the recipe was asking for, we decided that we would need to find out how to turn our pumpkin into puree.  We added "find out how to make pumpkin puree" to our Farmer Appreciation Day to do list and here's what we've done:

•  First, we researched how to make pumpkin puree online and read information/steps from a couple of different websites

• Next, we made teams to be in charge of different steps in the process - Cut & Clean, Cook & Scoop and Mix and Mash

• Finally, we got to work on actually making our very own pumpkin puree!

Making Pumpkin Puree

Team Cut & Clean

Students on this team worked together to cut the pumpkin into pieces and to clean out the seeds and strings. 

 Team Cook & Scoop

This team was in charge of loading pieces of pumpkin into baking trays, carrying them to the oven and helping me check the pumpkin as it cooked.  After the pumpkin was cooked, they scooped the soft cooked pumpkin into bowls.  

 Team Mix and Mash

Students on this team took the soft, cooked pumpkin and mixed it until it was nice and smooth. 

Reading Activity

As a follow-up activity, we talked about sequence in procedural texts and students read and sequenced the steps for making pumpkin puree.

Farmer Appreciation Day Project: Reading Recipes

Class Decision Making:
We are planning to make farmers a special treat for the Farmer Appreciation Day we are hosting.  After much discussion and a couple of rounds of voting, we decided to bake chocolate chip cookies and pumpkin cookies.  With that decision made, we've got right to work on the preparation required!

A side note: A high school student that grew pumpkins in her family garden had donated a large pumpkin to our class before Halloween.  Students decided it would be unfair if one student got to carve the big pumpkin during our pumpkin carving center, so they opted to save the big pumpkin for making a treat for farmer appreciation.  (Honestly, THEY came up with that!  I know it probably sounds like a "let's be fair" teacher idea, but students really decided that. And, of course, I'm proud of them for coming up with a fair and interesting idea for using our pumpkin!)  Little did they know, I've never made ANYTHING from a pumpkin, despite my extensive baking experience.  Looks like I will be learning right alongside my students! Here we come pumpkin cookies!  

Recipes:
This week, we have been focusing on studying cookie recipes.  As a teacher, it fits in really well with my division-recommended Literacy Place lessons.  One of the recommended text-type studies for procedural writing focuses on recipes, so I'm glad to have an authentic reason for teaching students about recipes!  And more importantly, students have a real reason to learn about recipes - they want to make cookies for our event!  Suddenly, we have a much deeper purpose for our reading and much more urgency to learn. 

Many learning opportunities have arose from our recipe reading already:

• more or less - we've learned to look for amounts of flour, eggs, sugar and margarine to determine if a recipe will make more or less cookies than another recipe
• comparison - aside from quantities of ingredients, students noticed some recipes included different ingredients like oatmeal, coconut or M&Ms
• considering allergies - some recipes called for nuts, which we could not bring into our nut safe school
• importance of order - procedural texts often have a logical sequence and we discussed the importance of following recipe directions in order 
• vocabulary - "shortening" was one example of an unfamiliar word that came up in our reading - we have had some good discussions about new and interesting words
• further research - one of the pumpkin cookie recipes we read called for pumpkin puree, so we added to our project to do list -"find out how to make pumpkin puree" 

Microsoft Partners in Learning: Hot Topics Blog

I'm very excited to have been asked to post as a guest blogger on the Microsoft Partners in Learning Hot Topics blog.  Educators can join the PiL network for free at www.pil-network.com to have access to blogs, lesson ideas and online professional development.  Microsoft is currently looking for more teachers to join their Expert Educator program as well.  Be sure to apply by September 30th!

You can read my full post about project based learning by clicking here.  The post summarizes the projects that classes have done in previous years and provides links to additional details for each project.  We're just getting started with ideas for this year's collaborative projects, so stay tuned for more updates as our projects develop!