Tag Archives: Projects
Diverse Places – Moving on!
20 Apr
This week we began our final unit of 6th grade Social Studies, Diverse Places – Moving On! Students, in groups, selected two places to compare and contrast. They will be conducting research on the two places and focus on three areas: History, Geography, and Economy. They will also answer the questions that departing or new teachers have given them. At the conclusion of the group project, students will create a product (brochure or video) on the place that the teacher is moving to. Some sample screenshots appear above this paragraph. Mr. Nick and I loved the workstation that Joao, Ayaan, Eunseong, and Shinnosuke created for their collaboration.
Twin Day for Mr. Nick and Mr. Martin?
Final Projects – Comparing Places
3 May
Students have been working very hard for several weeks now for our comparing places project. Students chose either China or India to compare with a country of their choice. Focusing on the physical and cultural geography and characteristics of their two places, they conducted research, evaluated resources, developed note-taking skills, and learned academic vocabulary and comparative language. They wrote an essay comparing and contrasting their two places, as well as learned how to cite their sources using an MLA format. Their final step is to create a visual product (video, poster, slide show, etc.) demonstrating the highlights of their two places and how they are unique. Final products are due this week. Next week on Monday and Tuesday, students will share their learning.
May Birthdays, MAP Testing, & Final Project
1 May
Happy birthday to the following students celebrating a birthday this month: Sanjith(11), Victor(22), EJ (26). If I forgot anyone or made an error, please let me know. Have a great day!
MAP Testing ends this week. On Tuesday, you will have your math test and on Wednesday you will have your language test.
Your final product for the comparing places project is due at the end of the week: Thursday, May 4 (B/D) and Friday, May 5 (F/H). Our next Out of Eden Learn footstep will start next week.
Selecting Powerful Images / Writing Good Captions
21 Apr
In class this week, you have finished your essay where you have compared and contrasted your two places (countries) and you have ensured that you cited your resources (Work Cited/Bibliography) under your essay. This should all be on your note-taking template under your notes. Once this is finished, you are now ready to move to the final stage of your project. It’s time to make a product that visually demonstrates your learning of the physical and cultural characteristics of your two places. You are:
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Collecting images and writing citations for your images.
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Storing your images in a folder (desktop, Google Drive, or another place of your choice).
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Saving the URL for each image you find and adding it to the work cited information.
These two videos are helpful resources as you write citations for your images.
Social Studies Updates
19 OctPeer editing with a focus on capitalization (Photo by Rob Martin)
Photo by Rob Martin
Photo by Rob Martin
Photo by Rob Martin
Photo by Rob Martin
Peer editing (Photo by Rob Martin)
We have had a busy two weeks leading up to our Week Without Walls trip on Monday. You are in the process of finishing your Egypt or Mesopotamia Inquiry Project (G.R.A.P.E.S. Historical Themes), and most of you have also finished your latest Out of Eden Learn activity, Footstep #2, Creating a Neighborhood Map. I have shared some photos here of some of our work, and will share some more here on the class blog and my Twitter handle (@DigitalNomadRob – #G6SSAISC). Out of Eden Learn has already seen some of your maps and has shared them as well. Great job!
You will be given class time tomorrow and Friday to work on your project. Please finish them over the weekend, if you do not finish tomorrow. When we return from Week Without Walls on Tuesday, November 1 (No school on Monday, Oct. 31), we will only have four days left in trimester 1. Our goals for the rest of the trimester are:
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To make sure everyone has finished their summative (final) project.
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To make sure you have finished Footstep #2 (Out of Eden Learn) and posted it on their site.
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Written comments on other posts from our OOEL walking party – Part 3 of Out of Eden Learn, Footstep #2.
When these things are done, you will need to write a reflection and add both #1 and #2 above to your e-portfolio (More on this later!). Keep up the good work!
Hanna’s Out of Eden Learn Project
16 JunScreenshot by Rob Martin (Out of Eden Learn Instagram page)
Dancinginthemoonlight’s (Hanna’s) project was featured on Out of Eden Learn’s Instagram page today. Congratulations, Hanna! You can read see it by clicking HERE.
Do the Olympics Unite People?
31 May
A few photos from the last two days showing students giving a speech, reading an essay, or showing a presentation where they answer the question: Do the Olympics unite people?
Ancient Egypt Videos – Best of the Best
18 May
Here is a selection of video documentaries we made for our Egypt project. There were many excellent ones, and I believe we all developed new skills in developing an inquiry or question to research, learning how to stay organized when doing research, writing a script or storyboard, and making a video. The videos in this playlist were among the best ones I watched. Good work everyone!
Writing our Documentary Scripts
19 AprResearch is complete! We are now working on writing our scripts for our video documentary project. We are storyboarding our stories, finding images that support our stories, and planning for the next stage…creating our videos! This project will be due on Wednesday, April 27 (B/D) and Thursday, April 28 (G/H).
China Presentations
2 MarStudents have been working on a research project for our ancient China unit, focusing on one of the major Chinese philosophies (Legalism, Confucianism, or Daoism/Taoism) or one of two dynasties (Shang/Zhou). Here are some photos….more will be added later.
Documenting the Everyday
22 FebFor Footstep #5, student documented the everyday by doing one of the following two options:
PLACE: Document everyday life in a place that you know.
PROCESS: Document how people in your community do something as part of their everyday lives. For example, you could focus on how a type of food or drink is prepared, how an object is made or repaired, or how someone goes about another kind of daily task or activity.
Some students created videos sharing something about the local culture or their own culture, while others created a presentation. There were many excellent examples that you can see here. There were all kinds of things shared, but most people seemed to like to share recipes and games. We have enough things to make a cooking show!
B/D Block student exemplars:
How to play Yutnori (Korean game) by MathPie314
Korean recipe (Tteokbokki) by Minibanana
Shogi (Japanese game) by Eva
Documenting the Everyday – IamMario
G/H Block student exemplars: Coming soon!
Neighborhood Map Celebrations
26 Mar
“…To me who lived in South Korea for 11 years, India was quite new to me. Everything was new, such as roads, buildings, and people…” – Out of Eden Learn student, Cookieman (Yoobin), Chennai, India.
Tae Yeon’s Map
“When I leave India, I am going to make a long video of me walking in my neighborhood. I am going to remember this place,” Out of Eden Learn student, Howlingwerewolf7 (Tae Yeon), Chennai, India
Yoobin’s neighborhood map was selected as the new cover photo from the Out of Eden Facebook page. There are over 700 schools (think approximately 20-30 students per school!) involved in the Out of Eden Learn project. It’s quite an achievement to have her map chosen among all those schools. Congratulations to Tae Yeon too. Her map was selected for the Out of Eden Learn Instagram page.
We got this message from Out of Eden this past week after sharing our work:
“I hope this email finds you well. I just got back from a week away from the office and had an opportunity to check out your blog and the gallery walk your students participated in. Amazing work! They seem really engaged and their maps are beautiful. I can tell they spent a lot of time and effort on their projects. Thank you for facilitating such inspiring work!” – Sheya, Out of Eden Learn
Gallery Walk: Neighborhood Mapping & Storytelling – Out of Eden Project
21 Mar
Aditya and Nolan present Out of Eden Walk.
Gallery Walk and Peer Review
Mr. Phan and Mr. Hicks listen to Alexandre and Vikram talk about their project.
Gallery Walk
AISC Tech Director, Mr. Crouch, and Mr. Phan, M.S. Principal, look at student work.
Mr. Hoover, Head of School, learns about the Out of Eden Project.
Tsukiho’s map is featured on the Out of Eden Learn Instagram profile. Great work, Tsukiho.
Mr. Stanmeyer sees student work and replies.
Students completed their neighborhood map activity this week for their Out of Eden Footstep #2 project. On Thursday and Friday, we had a gallery walk where students shared their maps and their stories. We invited some special guests, including Mr. Hoover (Head of School), Mr. Phan (M.S. Principal), Mr. Hicks (Associate Principal), Mr. Crouch (Technology Director), 5th grade teachers (Ms. Becky, Ms. Shobhana, Ms. Megha), Ms. Mac (7th grade L.A.) and others. Students commented on other projects and some students volunteered to present the Out of Eden Learn project and Mr. Salopek’s walk to guests. Thank you to the special guests who took time our of their busy schedules to come to our classrooms!
Mr. Martin ‘tweeted’ a couple photos of the gallery walk days and was pleased to see Mr. John Stanmeyer see our photo via Twitter and the hashtags I used. He replied to Mr. Martin and retweeted our photo to all of his followers. Mr. Stanmeyer is the photographer who has taken many of Paul’s photos, including the National Geographic photo featured in the image above. His picture of African migrants on the shore of Djibouti city at night became World Press Photo of the Year 2013.
This is the power of social media when someone can see the great work going on our classrooms. It’s an authentic or real audience! Here is Mr. Stanmeyer’s award winning photo below. You can find other great photos on the Out of Eden Walk Blog/Dispatch and by ‘Googling’ his name. If you love photography, check out his website here: http://www.stanmeyer.com/
Mr. Martin, Mrs. Hall, and Ms. Jaya are very proud of your efforts and we have featured a few of the maps here. You can see all of them if you stop by our classrooms. Next week we will give you time to look at other maps and stories from the Out of Eden site, and you can provide feedback to other students in our walking party.
African migrants on the shore of Djibouti City at night raise their phones in an attempt to catch an inexpensive signal from neighboring Somalia—a tenuous link to relatives abroad. Djibouti is a common stop-off point for migrants in transit from such countries as Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea, seeking a better life in Europe and the Middle East. (Photo by John Stanmeyer) – Source: World Press Photo
National Geographic Magazine December 2013 cover – Our Greatest Journey – The story of Paul Salopek. (PHOTOGRAPH BY JOHN STANMEYER, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC)
Mr. Salopek saw your maps. Here’s his re-tweet of this blog post.
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