Quincy Sturgeon Guard 2012 Onoway Michigan

What a great weekend camping trip with the Sturgeon Guard crew!  Several families and teachers made the trek up north to a small town of Onoway Michigan, near Cheybogan to participate in the famous Sturgeon Guard of the Black River.  We had fun bonding, and creating unforgettable memories from this amazing experience.   We had our first up close and personal encounter with wild adult sturgeon!  We met professional scientists, professors, and they gave us a quick tour of the local hatchery!  It was a weekend I will never forget, that's for sure!  Thank you again to all the families that came and all the good times!  With out you these types of experiences couldn't take place.  I hope you enjoy your summer and I can't wait to see everyone again in the fall!

On a Quest for Learning at Ludington State Park

We had a rough start to our famous Ludington State Park trip this year.  It was pouring rain when we started out on the charter buses.  Did that deter us?  Of course not, this is fourth grade at Quincy!  We are up to the challenge, and plus the weather was supposed to clear up.  It was another great trip, and we had an amazing opportunity this year.  We got to see a real live hognosed snake, which is very rare to find out in the wild.  In fact, our ranger Allen said that he has been leading tours in the dunes for 19 years, and this was only the second time he had seen one with a school group!  The kids always get excited to search for Petoskey Stones in a special area where at least 1 or 2 students find one every year.  It was a great day for all, and my favorite part is always the lighthouse climb, and looking out over the vast Lake Michigan and all the beauty of the unique freshwater Great Lakes Dunes.  A few people always over come their fear of heights and walk out on the little lighthouse railing.  Adventures in education! 

Great Lakes Lighthouses and Electricity

The lighthouse project has been part of our electricity and magnetism unit for many years.  Students choose a Great Lakes Lighthouse to research and build while learning about electricity and magnetism.  They worked on a Profiler Project for our differentiated choices at home and then constructed their lighthouses here at school.  They are then tasked with wiring a simple circuit to making their lighthouse come to life.  Last Friday we put together our Great Lakes Lighthouse Museum and had some visitors from third grade, and the other fourth grade classes to see what a great job we had done!

Math Tip of the Day + Educreations

Hello everyone, excuse for being a bit brief with this post, but I still have a pin in my finger from surgery two weeks ago, and that makes typing a bit of a challenge.  I wanted to invite you to view my profile on Educreations website; you should be able to view all of the lessons for our math units.  As the students prepare for the test tomorrow it may be helpful to review some of these lessons a few times.  Good luck tomorrow students!

http://www.educreations.com/profile/659302/

Slavery and the Underground Railroad + Harriet Tubman

The students once again did an amazing job with this readers' theatre!  After spending several weeks reading, writing, and working on differentiated profiler projects about slavery and the Underground Railroad in the United States, the students practiced and performed a readers' theatre on Harriet Tubman for their fourth grade peers.  It was another great museum day in our room as the students adorned our classroom with their murals, maps, and various other projects they chose to do.  As the other fourth grade classrooms entered they were immersed in visual images about slavery and the Underground Railroad.  The students love this type of sharing, and we are looking forward to our next museum day here in Mr. Braymer's classroom!

The Story of the Christmas Tree Ship

The story of the Christmas Tree Ship, or otherwise known as the "Rouse Simmons" is a part of the Midwest's and Great Lake's heritage.  This story has been revived due in part to a popular musical, recent paintings by Charles Vickery, and a book by Rochelle M.  Pennington.
   
It has become an important part of our studies here at Quincy Elementary, and this year our group took this story into their own hands.  It was a daunting task to pull off this short play in just two days.  From learning about the story, writing the script, designing the props, and bringing in costumes, all the students pitched in to pull this off.

We had some help from an activity gleaned from an amazing Odyssey teacher named Linda Hamilton of Richmond Schools, who put together quite a performance of this story.  Next year we hope to build on what we learned from this years group and help bring this story alive for more than just a classroom.  Thanks again to my phenomenal group of fourth grades for making this story their own in just two days.  The memory of the Christmas Tree Ship lives on!

Structured Academic Controversy

        Structured Academic Controversies are a fantastic way to allow students to interact with history.  November 10th is the anniversary of the sinking of the famous Edmund Fitzgerald on Lake Superior. The kids had a great time researching, supporting, and debating how the Edmund Fitzgerald sunk.  It was exciting to see them so engaged right up until the end of the day on Friday.  Most kids didn't even notice it was time to go home for the weekend.  These experiences are fundamental for students to begin the inquiry process.  They need to have authentic questions to research and support their thinking.  These experiences cement the learner and engage them in the content.  I have been a long time fan of John Dewey and his work with experiential learning.  When we return from Thanksgiving Break we will be learning about several different types of Social Scientists (Historian, Political Scientist, Economist, Geographer), and how they look at the world.  Through these hands on, engaging experiences students can build a framework by which to ask deeper questions and respond to them with experience and examples. 

        As stated,  Dewey advocated that education be based upon the quality of experience. For an experience to be educational, Dewey believed that certain parameters had to be met, the most important of which is that the experience has continuity and interaction. Continuity is the idea that the experience comes from and leads to other experiences, in essence propelling the person to learn more (Experience & Education, Dewey).

Description:

The SAC (Structured Academic Controversy) was developed by cooperative learning researchers David and Roger Johnson of the University of Minnesota as a way to provide structure and focus to classroom discussions. Working in pairs and then coming together in four-person teams, students explore a question by reading about and then presenting contrasting positions. Afterwards, they engage in discussion to reach consensus. 

Rationale:

By the time students reach adolescence, many believe that every issue comes neatly packaged in a pro/con format, and that the goal of classroom discussion, rather than to understand your opponent, is to defeat him. The SAC method provides an alternative to the "debate mindset" by shifting the goal from winning classroom discussions to understanding alternative positions and formulating historical syntheses. The SAC's structure demands students listen to each other in new ways and guides them into a world of complex and controversial ideas.