Learning

With Mr. Trujillo

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"Gamification" is something I've always been interested in. So I decided to create my own game!

This Air and Water game allows kids to build their own city! While following the rules of the game they will see that everyday needs of people are taking a toll on our environment.

Through trial and error students will explore renewable energy ideas as well as energy conservation and environmental awareness.

If you would like to see the game, let me know! I'm always looking for a second opinion.

Every fall at Keystone Academy students from grade four to twelve we take a camping trip for three days. I was the leader for the most recent grade four camping trip. During our three day camping excursion we planned several problem solving and team building activities. Above you can see students working to build a raft that can hold the weight of three to five students without sinking. After accessing the supplies at hand, the students all submitted design ideas before they settled on a choice. Next, they began to organize pieces of the raft into position to get a better idea of what the final product would look like. Students had to cut string, saw logs and learn/use expert knot tying skills in order to complete their task. The final touch added to the raft was recycling old water bottles in order to add buoyancy. The whole process took several hours but was a real exciting experience to be a part of and observe. Students were working together like I've never seen before. Students naturally fell into various leadership positions while working through design, construction and assembly. The raft was successful in holding five students without sinking but I failed to capture photos of the test.

Ever since moving to China I have been frustrated by the unique challenge of not being able to use a Google platform school-wide. I have previously used google for almost everything in my professional life but now need to look for alternatives, especially when being able to share our learning experience with parents and the rest of the school community.

Since the start of the school year I have been using Seesaw in my science lab in order to capture moments of learning.

Here you can see some of my lower elementary students using iPads to take photos and making videos of what they are doing in class. The media is then shared on private feed where parents, teachers and students can interact with the posted material.

In science class students are always encouraged to ask questions about their surrounding world.

On this particular day students came into class wondering if "Taller students are faster and shorter students?". As a class we designed a testable experiment, collected data (height in cm) on all the students in the class then made our way outside to race! We timed each student as they raced 100m dash across the soccer field. Then plotted our findings on a graph in order to visually understand the results.

Students came to the conclusion that just because a child is tall or short it does not mean one will be fast or slow.

After this successful use of the scientific method, students wanted to try the experiment again but this time with foot size.

Problem solving and collaboration skills are something we are always working on in the science lab.

I use this "minesweeper" type game to let students find creative ways to work together in order to find their way through the maze. Students watch and learn from others mistakes in order to remember a pattern.

Another reason I like this activity is because it exposes kids to failure. I am a big fan of failure in the classroom! Fail fast, fail often. Kids don't get to experience it enough. It allows them to make mistakes but to learn from them in order to move forward an accomplish something great!

To the Left:

When students finish reading a book I always recommend they write a review and share their opinion of the text. In this particular situation a student tweeted to the author @AuthorStuGibbs and the author replied! This student was so happy to get contacted by a famous author.

To the Right:

Weslandia by Paul Fleischman is a favorite mentor text of mine. On world read aloud day I dressed up like the main character, Wesley. I think I did a pretty good job!

During math class I often used rotating math groups.

This allows me to differentiate instruction, ensures all students get face to face time and let's students show what they know in various forms . On this particular day I set up five different stations. The first was at the SmartBoard where students worked their way through a math topic. Next came time with me at the U-table where depending on the group of students, I focused a pre determined math concept. After that was a station where students logged into the math program Aleks and worked on part of their "pie". The second to last station had manipulatives related to the math concept of the day and the last station was set up in the hallway where the students were creating a movie with the app ExplainEverything to share on their Haiku page.

BreakoutEdu is a great way to get kids involved and excited about a topic.

This activity was done at the end of a Simple Machines unit.

The video is a bit on the long side but check it out if you want to see how BreakoutEdu works.

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