5th Grade ELP Interest Inventory

Last week I shared the results from the interest inventory of my 4th grade class.

Today I wanted to share the results from my 5th grade class.

Much like I stated with the 4th graders I am impressed by what they want to learn. The challenge is to make it all work.

 Extended Learning Program

Student Interest Inventory

Grade 5 — 2012-2013

Grade 5 ELP Students

Eagle Eye to the World

10—Field Trip to Alcoa Eagle Nest / Cam

10—Flight

7—Young / Life Cycle

4—Legends / History

3—Prey / Hunting

2—Eagles Around the World

Student Interest Areas

11—Geo-Caching

10—Quail Cam

9—Global Contacts

8—Egg Drop

8—Frog Dissection

7—Rocketry

6—Outdoor Activities / Animals

5—Global Pen Pals

5—Architecture / Bridge Building

5—Lego / Robotics

5—Chemistry / Forensic Science

5—Sumdog / Math Explorations

4—Astronomy / Solar System / Outer Space

4—Animation

4—Puppetry

3—Author Visit

2—Field Trips / Sports / Plants

1—Origami / Natural Disasters / WWI & II / Weather / Olympics / Cars / Indians&Legends

Language Arts Teaching Idea About Grammar

I was reading online last night and came across this article - http://m.theatlanticwire.com/entertainment/2012/08/imagined-lives-punctuation-marks/56023/

The author creates these made up stories of various punctuation marks. I thought it was pretty clever.

While reading the article, I thought of a possible teaching idea utilizing the framework of this article.

What if students created imaginary stories of various parts of speech, grammar, and punctuation?

As students use their creativity to hash out a story that combines the elements of the particular grammar item they would be constantly thinking about their writing skills, grammar, and effective parts of speech. Through revision and peer review the whole time students are always going to be engaged on some level with writing elements.

In middle school, who knows what type of stories they would come up.

That is all from the randomness of the bald guy!

After all, regurgitation is easy, but putting knowledge into practice is the difficult challenge.

Source of idea: http://www.hightechhigh.org/unboxed/issue8/wild_about_cramlington/

Can you remember what they were?” Immediately, the students name every single one. After all, regurgitation is easy, but putting knowledge into practice is the difficult challenge.

This is just a quote from the link shared above. I have given much thought to teaching practices and how we teach our students. I always reflect on how I teach and if I am truly doing things right.

This statement just stands out to me. How many kids can simply memorize terms, vocab, formulas, definitions, dates, etc. yet one week later probably could not pass the test they just aced?

The question I pose is, "What good does this type of learning do for our students?"

Nothing. They are simply jumping through hoops. Have students understand momentum and physics. Have them understand the basics. Then have them put the knowledge to use. Our 8th grade teachers had students build trebuchets and other projectile flying devices. Not only did students have to learn the field of physics, but they had to apply it. Now the students had to build an apparatus that demonstrated their learning. They had to tweak this, change that, rebuild this part, etc. This caused them to bring their learning to a whole new level. This forced them to put their knowledge to practice.

Knowledge is not as needed as it once was. I use my iPhone to find any answer I want in seconds. The key is what I do with that information. I can read about building a garden box for my kids at home to plant their own garden. It is easy to find instructions. It is something else altogether for me to actually build it and make it look good for my kids to use.

This is a reason why I love Project Based Learning. It does as the quote states. It puts knowledge into practice.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this and what you do as an educator to make sure that students are just simply regurgitating information.