wonderings | 20somethingkids and 1kookyteacher

I have shared about how we started building our Kindness Quilt and then an update on how it’s growing!

Here’s another SUPER idea that grew out of it, based on a conversation we had in math a week or so ago. 🙂

Kids had been asking questions about how big the quilt might be, or how many squares we have gotten so far from other classes, and also just “What will it look like?”, so I pulled up this picture for them to reference.

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Then I asked them to think of two things (based on the protocol you might do with a 3 Act Lesson): What do you notice? What do you wonder?

These were their answers:

Now…the whole point of the wonderings was to give them some tasks to complete, right? So we then went back through that list of questions and tried to decide which were ones we could actually use math to figure out. We noted connections, as well as marking off ones that were just interesting, but not “answerable.”

After we had discussed the ones that we could actually tackle, mathematicians were invited to choose one with which they could get started. Everyone declared their favorite and went to get started. There were no “rules” except that they had to find a way to record their thinking so they could show us their answer. (As a sidenote, as we got started, we had to have a conversation about what “recording” might mean–we use Seesaw so frequently that it only meant “using your voice to tell about your work.” Oops. Guess we should talk about that more often. )

As kids got started, it was fun to watch the different strategies that they employed, including iPads, number lines, and fingers.

And aside from the different tools they chose to use, it was great to watch how EVERYONE had a place to enter this investigation! No one felt like they couldn’t do it, like it was too hard or like it was no fun. This was a highly motivating topic (they had all made the quilt!), with interesting questions (that they had come up with!), and they got to choose which question they wanted to answer (based on any criteria–which was easiest, which was most interesting, which was most challenging, etc.). EVERYONE was engaged, for the whole time! Kiddos worked alone and in partners–again, their choice–to answer as many of our wonderings as they could.

Check out what they discovered!

https://app.seesaw.me/pages/shared_item?item_id=item.2ca8ab90-a33a-4e2c-a1cc-51a7d61b1606&share_token=UNjOnP2IS3-rinPFfu5how&mode=embed

https://app.seesaw.me/pages/shared_item?item_id=item.52004253-9f14-4a73-aa87-3f6eeaa62eae&share_token=fnWHPrVjQ92CJnLYxFIRFg&mode=embed

https://app.seesaw.me/pages/shared_item?item_id=item.25295ab6-5a4a-4529-9c9a-b7c4f46d016e&share_token=w_TUOK4ARh-YmahAmEaGOQ&mode=embed

What questions would you ask about our quilt? We’d love to hear them–and maybe even try to answer them! 🙂

It happened again. Remember when I struggled on this blog somewhere last year with the idea that I don’t tell all the parts of a story and then forget about it or time passes and I don’t tell any of it? Well, boo–this is another time of the year when so much is happening and I haven’t been telling some of our stories because there are so many pieces. This ends now! 🙂 Very slowly….with day 1 of a new project today and then hopefully all the parts of a few other stories soon. Hopefully. LOL

So anyway…at a professional development meeting I was in yesterday, I learned about 3-Act Math Tasks and knew I wanted to give them a try. I am all about productive struggle, giving kids meaningful, motivating math tasks, and using contexts that are relevant to our mathematical community. These seemed right up our alley!

As you read in the explanation, these tasks start with a video or picture that invites wonder and questioning. There are very few words and kiddos can go in a variety of directions as they engage with the visual.

Our 1st Act started with this picture, which I found on Twitter and comes via @MrsHessClass and @MrsAclass_Rm214 (thanks, by the way!). It connects BEAUTIFULLY with what’s going on in our room this year. 🙂

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As we started our work, I gave kids a chance to study the picture and then talk with their partner about what they noticed and what they wonder. We shared out and gathered these questions:

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Once we had an idea about where we might go, partners were invited to choose a question they thought they could answer and have a go. They could choose any on they wanted to (to start with) but they needed to be sure to show their thinking and convince their classmates that their answers are correct. We reread our chart to remind us of what that meant:

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Then we got busy with our first drafts of work. As they got their paper and got started, I gave each partnership a copy of the picture in case they wanted to use it in their work.

We will continue our work tomorrow, but Day 1 of Act 2 (where kiddos work to find a solution) went fairly well and EVERYONE was engaged.