Friday, January 14, 2011

Our Pets

This morning I had the opportunity to help with another great Van Meter Merton connection! Our second grade teacher recognized the need for differentiation of her math unit. Three students who knew the material well and did not need to sit through the lesson again were instead assigned an alternative math project. These students created a survey about the pets students have both in their class here at Merton and their friend's class at Van Meter. Each class completed the survey and the three students used the information to create a game for their class to play.

Once the information was collected, the three students created a column graph showing their data results. Using this graph, they then created questions such as "How many more dogs does Van Meter have than Merton?" Each question also had an answer written on the bottom of the card. The rest of the class will be given a copy of the column graph and the questions to play a math game. I came in and helped the three students use Excel to create the column graph and then use Power Point to make question cards. All three students were very engaged and excited about this project! What a great way to make another connection between the two classes!

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Our New Van Meter Merton Connect Wiki

With the collaboration, creating, and sharing between our two schools continuing we needed a place to showcase student work. We have created the Van Meter Merton Connect Wiki .

The first project that we will be sharing is the 3rd Grade Glog project that our students created in December about their holiday wishes. The students created these amazing projects using the Web 2.0 tool called GlogsterEdu.com. Lisa created them with the 3rd graders at Merton and I created them with the 3rd graders at Van Meter. The students will now have a place to look at their friends Glogs too.

As we move into the second semester of school, the connections that we have started will continue to grow. We will be excited to share the work of our students on the Van Meter Merton Connect wiki and hope to inspire others to make similar connections too!