Week One and Done

Now that the week is done, my brain is all muddled as to what we actually accomplished.

Monday

Monday was about routines, but we also got started creating the title page to our Science notebooks!  We started the day by writing who is our hero and why they’re our hero on index cards.  Thanks to Staples for having 50 cent notebooks and to several parents, we had tons left over after everyone got a nice composition book (the binding holds the best for our interactive science notebook).

I also introduced them to our homework assignments website and their first homework assignment.  It was all about getting paperwork turned in for camp (we’ll go to an outdoor camp for three days and two nights at the end of September).  We have all but seven forms in and six were just not completed correctly!  Something worked this year – maybe because I made it part of their homework?!

Tuesday

Tuesday was about rules and procedures in fifth grade which can be boring but it makes the whole year run that much smoother.   But then I promised them an assignment on Wednesday, so they were quiet and paid attention and asked questions.  Then we created the table of contents for our Science notebooks in anticipation of our experiment.

Oh I almost forgot!  The start of class, students were to draw and label (and some had a little template to use) a superhero student scientist, or in other words, what they wanted to look like as we discovered Science this year.  They were engaged and continued to work on these adding more details and finishing touches as the week progressed.

Wednesday

Day three in the trenches 🙂 – we did an “experiment”.  It was an introduction to the idea of growth mindset and I think I spectacularly failed at getting them to make the connection.  Some came to it on their own, but a couple were like, “what does this have to do with the other?”.  So on to the “experiment”/design project, students were given several toothpicks and gumdrops.  They had to create a structure using only the toothpicks and gumdrops that would hold their Science books at least two inches off the table for a minimum of fifteen seconds.  Some students far surpassed the two inch and fifteen second expectation.  We ended the day with a brief growth mindset survey.

(You can see more of their work here.) 

Thursday

Thursday, we got into the specifics of what a growth mindset is.  We began the day by comparing/contrasting fourth grade to fifth grade rules and procedures.  (I found out we fifth grade teachers are just as nice as fourth grade, but we are much more stern! 🙂 We watched the mini story of Steve Jobs.  I told them my own story.

I was very book smart but had a fixed mindset.  In college, when Calculus III and Physics got hard, I quit because, in my mind, obviously if it was hard, it was beyond my capability.  But my story didn’t end there.  I finally heard about growth mindset a few years ago and spent this past summer reading about it and also getting better at being a teacher.

We then watched a cute video about how we can learn anything.  Most of them had been schooled in the growth mindset idea because that is the district I work in now! (woo hoo!) We had a time of reflection to decide what areas were difficult for us and we might need a little extra time and attention.  We also changed fixed mindset statements into growth mindset statements.  It was a growing experience, and we then decided we should a hang a poster of the statements in our room or the fifth grade hall.  It was fun to hear their ideas about where we should put the poster! (They were also given a mini one to glue in their notebooks.)

Friday!

Friday was dedicated to all things camp and the beginnings of our Genius Hour!  Our first Genius Hour Times are dedicated to a project entitled “Who is a hero?” This brought together our classroom discussions during the week regarding heroes, but also introduced Genius Hour in that students had the freedom to choose a hero.

Part of their homework during the week was to put their questions onto a Google Doc.  To start, those were the only questions I answered.  Camp is a big, exciting adventure, so this took up most of our class!

The last ten to fifteen minutes, I gave a minimum of directions and allowed students to either research their hero or figure out who to research.  We’d been talking heroes all week, but at the beginning of class, I introduced our warm-up. I do this for two reasons. Students have a task that gets their brain warmed-up to the topic of the day, and it gives me a brief moment to get ready for them.

I explained why we will have a warm-up everyday and briefly walked them through the first warm-up. Friday’s topic was Who is a hero? So they had questions about their interests and passions, see if there was anyone famous who shared those interests and passions, and if they were to meet that famous person face-to-face, what would they want to ask them.

Several found that the hero they wrote about on Monday was the hero who shared their interest/passion.  Others found a new hero.  Still others didn’t know.  It was great to see them all engaged and interested and quickly writing down the answers to their questions.  Most had brought their own devices.  For those who didn’t have their own device, we had iPads, laptops, and our classroom computers for their use.  The collective sad sigh when the bell rang was also a welcome sound!  Don’t worry, we’ll have more time next Friday!

All-in-all, it was one of the best first weeks I’ve had in my thirteen years of teaching.  In retrospect, maybe I could have been more intentional in building relationships.  The students weren’t the only ones growing, 😉