Visiting Author: Marc Tyler Nobleman

Thanks to our lovely librarian, Ms. Karen Choan, we had a wonderful visiting author from the US. Marc Tyler Nobleman spent 4 days with IST presenting and leading workshops for students. It was an amazing experience and something we were lucky to have.

On Monday, Marc Tyler Nobleman discussed his two biographies about authors who created Superman and Batman. The students were engaged in the topic and were fascinated by the information he presented.

 Here is an image of the first comic ever and below is the high school photo of Milton "Bill" Finger, one of the creators of Batman.

 It turns out that Bill Finger's ashes were spread on the coast of Oregon, my home state. What a coincidence. It was interesting to hear of the connection, especially being in Tanzania.

Later on in the week, Marc had my kids in the library for a workshop on creating comics. He presented about the language of comics and how they are used to convey a story with both the words and pictures. He also gave some pointers on creating comics. It was a great session and afterwards, many of the students chose to create comics of their own.

Thanks so much to Marc and Karen for organizing such a wonderful series of events for IST's Writing Week! We loved it!

Practice Measuring Angles

In geometry we have been learning about angles and how to measure them. The students are pretty knowledgable about finding right angles in the environment, making them with their bodies and identifying the measure of a right angle but are working on learning what acute and obtuse angles are. I found these images on another teacher blog http://mamontoff.wordpress.com/2012/02/15/plane-geometry.

 

We call right angles "book angles."

We remember acute angles as small "cute" angles.

 We remember obtuse angles as fat, "obese" angles.

Here is a link to an angle measuring game we played in class. It is fun so give it a try!

 

What is the Mystery Object??????

Yesterday an unidentified object found its way to IST. It appeared some time in the night on Sunday, January 19th. It was covered up in the morning and was unveiled around 9:00. There were security guards on watch but the kids got to check it out and try to figure out the mystery!

What do you think it is? Leave a comment below.

 

Tricks for Learning Geometry Terms!

In class we have been studying geometry. There are so many geometry words and vocabulary that make it difficult, especially for those students learning English. Many terms and words are not only complicated to understand but difficult to decode as well.

Here are some brain tricks for remembering some geometry words.

• Horizon- Horses walk on the horizon.
• Vertical- In skateboarding a ramp that goes up and down is called a vert ramp and vert is for vertical.
• Diagonal- In tic-tac-toe you can win up, down and diagonal.
• Intersecting Lines- Just like an intersection, intersecting lines cross.
• Parallel Likes- The word parallel has parallel lines in it.

The kids are having a good time working with geometry concepts in class. Yesterday we got out the geoboards, tanagrams and pipe cleaners. The students had a choice of materials for the task "discuss what you are making using the geometric terms we are learning in class." Here are some photos.

Geometry and Programing

Today the kids went to the lab and practiced their programing skills with a page called Online Logo. The program teaches the kids about basic programming language and also encourages geometry concepts including direction, angles, degree measures, line segments and turns.

Give it a try and let me know in the comments below how the challenges go. Just a tip, "cu" clears the screen and helps you to start over.

 

Inspirational People: Richard Turere

One of the teachers on my team found this video for our new unit on inspirational people for the PYP transdisciplinary theme Where We Are in Place and Time. It is a wonderful video about a child thinking of a way to solve a serious problem for his family, village and community around him.

After watching the video, the class made a web of all of the PYP Learner Profile and Attitudes that Richard exemplified and paired up to write and illustrate their thoughts. The kids did a great job on them.

 

Decemebr Music Concert

This morning the music department hosted another wonderful music morning. I love going to see the kids belt it out and listen to the progress they have made (especially on those squeaking recorders!) The teachers chose lovely songs with wonderful messages. Take a listen!

It also gave us a chance to take a snapshot of the class out of uniform and dressed up. The kids looked so grown-up although it was a bit too sunny.

Thanks music teachers!

 

Published Procedural Writing Projects

 It is no secret that I "heart" technology and I try to pass my love along to my students in numerous ways. I share their work on our blogs, use games and resources to teach, have "Video Friday", conduct real time research and inquiry with the internet, and utilize my wonderful Smart Board daily, just to name a few.

This year was the first year I tried using iMovie, not only myself, but with my students. We created projects showing their procedural writing pieces. Take a look at some of these wonderful How-To videos and pay attention to the sequence of step, wonderful details and use of transition words!

Carter wrote about How-To Surf...

 Grace wrote about How-To Sing...

Mimi wrote about How-To Play Every Sport...

Ville taught us How-To Make Pizza

Piya taught us How-To Swim

Sania taught us How-To Make a Mango Smoothie

 P.S. I can't wait to use iMovie with my students some time soon!

Similes Make Us Smile!

We have begun a unit on poetry and poetic language. Last week we studied alliteration and this week we are learning about and starting to use similes. A simile is a figure of speech that compares two things that are not normally alike using the words like or as. The kids came up with some great ones. Here are a few of my favorites.

Carter-Miss Irene is as lovely as a rose getting smelled by me.
Keenan- My puppy Max is as cute as a bunny running down a hill.
Grace- My friend Jay is as cool as a kitten riding a skateboard.
Piya- Cake is as sweet as a 10 pound sugar rush.
Anisa- Green broccoli is as juicy as an ice-lolly in summer.


And some personal favorites ;-)

Mustafa- My teacher, Miss Rorey, is as cute as a monkey.
Ella- My teacher, Miss Rorey, is as lovely as a bird singing to me.
Mimi- Miss Rorey is as pretty as a rose that just bloomed.


 

Stars and Stairs

This weekend I sneaked (or is it snuck?) away from life... this cold that has been hanging on, my piles
of reports, my personal list of emails to send, grocery shopping, cooking, tending to my neglected plants... you get the picture. I left it all behind and headed to the beach to celebrate a friends birthday.

While I was away from work, I still managed to bring along some educational journals to read. I know, I know. You are saying to yourself "Ms. Rorey, really, on the weekend?" But yes, they bring me joy and I find great teaching ideas like this one, Stars and Stairs, I am going to use in class just this week.

Stars and Stairs is a strategy to give feedback to students. It can be used in any subject and I am going to start off using it in math. This year my school has decided to send home math tests so that parents can get an idea of their performance in class. As a grade we have decided to incorporate this into our homework routine by having students reflect on their test with their parents, but I worried about whether this activity was positive and beneficial. Are students feeling good about their successes? Are parents only looking at the wrong answers? Can students find on their own the concepts they need to work on? My worries are still there, but now I have a tool for guiding the process.

Stars and Stairs is a way for me to give students an idea of things they are doing well and where they need to grow. Read more about it here. If you are a parent in my classroom, be sure to leave some feedback for me on how the new routine has worked for you.

Thanks,