Creative Geometry Maps Assessment

We have completed a Geometry chapter from our textbook that covers the basics and includes a lot of vocabulary. The material starts easy (points, lines, line segments), but it gets complicated (vertical angles, adjacent angles, complementary angles, supplementary angles, the sum of the degrees in any polygon)... It proved to be difficult material for sixth-graders. After giving the textbook chapter test, I searched for an alternative test that would be a creative outlet for students and let them prove their understanding of the material in a unique way. I came across the idea for a Geometry Map Project at this site. Rather than have students create a three-dimensional scene, I opted this time to have them create a map on graph paper. Check out the results for yourself; here's a sampling. Awesome work!

Leader in Me ~ 7 Habits

Recently our school hosted a Community Leader in Me Day. We invited members of the community to participate in learning about the 7 Habits and witness our student leaders in action. What an amazing sight to see my sixth grade students taking such leadership roles! They took care of refreshments, directed people to rooms around the school, ushered people from groups that were too full to ones that needed more participants. And the list goes on and on... They are amazing leaders! Here are some pictures taken from that night.

Helping with refreshments

Teaching about being proactive

Talking with community members

Directing people to their rooms

To get my room ready for this event, I added a few new items to my walls and windows to freshen up the atmosphere. The theme for my room is "Begin With the End in Mind." I focused on knowing where we want to go and having a plan to get there. So, I used transportation to illustrate this point. For instance, my daughter, Jaime, drew a compass to remind us that we need to head in the right direction to achieve our goals. She also drew a car next to a phrase that says, "Small changes can make huge destination differences."

Jaime also made me a hot air balloon with the title, "Leaders Rise to the Top!"

I handed out puzzle pieces to students that I had cut out of a poster board. It says Begin With the End in Mind. Once students decorated their individual pieces, I assembled the puzzle and glued it together. Here is the final result.

Behind my 7 Habits Tree poster I added a map to remind us we need to know the direction we are headed and have a plan to get there. We added a three-dimensional touch with some tissue paper flowers.

Overall, we had a very successful event. I am definitely looking forward to seeing the continued student leadership in our school. 

Metric Measurement Conversions

I taught one of my classes this week how to convert between metric measurements. Unfortunately, the metric system is rarely used here in the United States, and students are not often exposed to opportunities to use and be aware of metric units. Inches and feet and miles they know, but can students relate to items that might be a millimeter thick or a centimeter wide? This is where we started - a dime has about the thickness of a millimeter and their textbook weighs about one kilogram. Our conversation became more lively and creative as we continued along this path, as students tried to guess what item I was about to mention. I think it left students with a better understanding of the greatness (and smallness) of these units.

I created the image above to help students learn the information and keep it in an organized representation. Originally they drew their own stair steps in their math notebooks, but I created this one to make sure my students have a legible and neat copy too. To remember the order of the steps we memorized the sentence, "Kangaroos hop down mountains drinking chocolate milk." I found that tip several years ago in my first year of teaching and have remembered it ever since. (I know from experience it is easy to remember!) Each letter stands for the prefix of one of the metric units. Though we don't often use the hecto- or deca-/deka, we keep it on the steps to keep the relationship intact between units. Each step is labeled with the prefix and a number for that unit. Notes are included that remind students that as they move down the stairs to the right, the decimal point moves to the right for the same number of places. For instance, converting from centimeters to millimeters is just one step to the right, so move the decimal point just one place to the right (30 centimeters would equal 300 millimeters).

All in all, a pretty successful lesson once the graphic organizer was utilized. With more practice and exposure we just might become experts in the metric system.