Fractions, Building a Kotcha, and Rainforest Dioramas

I love teaching fractions. I really do, I promise! There are so many ways to approach and extend learning for different students' needs.

One of the trickiest things to understand about fractions are that they are only comparable if they are defined by the same whole. For example, if I eat a half a pizza and you eat a third of a pizza, we don't know who ate more since I never said anything about the sizes of our pizzas!

To help students understand this concept, I've been using colored rods. The red rod is half of a purple rod, but it isn't "half" by its nature. The red rod is also a third of a brown rod or a fourth of a blue rod.  

I can also ask student questions such as, "If the blue rod is 2/3 of the whole, which rod is the whole? Which rod is 1/3 of the whole?"

We can use them to explore and model equivalency and create our own challenges to demonstrate deeper understanding.  

Pattern Block Fractions:

Today, some of the students are going to begin working on this great challenge problem by Kathy Fosnot:

A fourth-grade class traveled on a field trip in four separate vehicles. The school provided a lunch of submarine sandwiches for each group. When they stopped for lunch, the subs were cut and shared as follows:

• The first group had 3 people and shared 2 subs equally.
• The second group had 4 people and shared 3 subs equally.
• The third group had 9 people and shared 6 subs equally.
• The last group had 6 people and shared 4 subs equally.

 When they returned from the field trip, the children began to argue that the portion of the sandwiches they received was not fair, that some children got more to eat than others. Were they right? Or did everyone get the same amount?

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Here we are starting work on our Coast Miwok-inspired Kotcha. Keith sourced all the materials and came to school multiple times to help us construct! THANK YOU SO MUCH KEITH!!!! 

The students are digging out post holes:

Starting construction of the dome:

Lashing techniques:

We're finishing up on Wednesday afternoon!



My scientists are hard at work building dioramas of a tropical rainforest ecosystem. When we learn something new about the tropical rain forests, I pull out a bunch of supplies and ask them to figure out how to add it to their dioramas. Their finished dioramas will show their learning about the layers of the rainforests and other interesting features of the forests such as strangler vines, buttress roots, epiphytes, awesome rainforest animals, and more!

 Looking at the way bromeliads hold water and create a great habitat for small invertebrates:

Museum Trip, Reading Buddies, and Activism

Special Request- Please bring in any shoe boxes that you can donate to the class for an upcoming science project. Thank you!!!

I've been looking forward to sharing some photos of our trip to the Museum of the American Indian in Novato. Here we are meeting our guide, Alicia. Alicia, part Mayo, Yaqui and Cherokee, is a multitalented interpretive artisan, nature guide, and musician. 

Running quietly through the woods like deer:

 Alicia taught us about the native Miwok uses of bay nuts and about her own experiences with the nuts and tree. She shared stories about hunting and gathering and expressed the importance of developing a personal relationship with nature.

 Checking out the Miwok kotcha:

 Many Native Californian tribes used strings of flat shells as currency. We used hand drills to drill holes in shells and experience how much effort went into creating a strand of shell money. 

 We played a hoop and spear game that was designed to help children with hand-eye coordination and prepare them for hunting. 

 Next, we visited the bottom floor of the museum where hunting artifacts and skins are housed.

Inside the museum, Alicia spoke about stereotyping of Native American culture and taught us to be thoughtful about word choice- such as describing traditional American Indian dress as "regalia," rather than "costume" since they aren't dressing up as something else.

 Just like at the museum, we have bay laurel branches hanging from our doors. It is a Coast Miwok tradition to purify and protect a special space. 

We ended the trip by making friendship feathers. We wrapped the end of a feather, filling it with positive thoughts for our friendship with mother Earth. 

Visiting Peggy's class to read with the Kindergartners:

Lastly, we watched this beautiful ad from the Nation Congress of American Indians and discussed the controversy around the Washington Redskins NFL team name and mascot. It was powerful to refer back to what we'd learned from Alicia at the museum about stereotyping of Native Americans and how hurtful it can be to have your rich history and culture mocked and parodied in costumes and mascots. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mR-tbOxlhvE

Students wrote letters to Daniel Snyder, urging him to change the team name to something that doesn't demean diverse Native cultures. We shared our new awareness with the first and second graders and invited them to sign another letter to Snyder. We addressed envelopes and put them in the mail yesterday.

Lastly, the students are hard at work on an informational essay about the ancient culture of one Native Californian tribe. They love using voice typing on the iPads to get their knowledge and ideas down to be shared!