We are starting to rock and roll

As we near the 10 day count, I am starting to see students engrossed in curriculum.  Things are starting to rock and roll.  And guess what????  The work we are doing at Sexton is incredible!   I am so excited by what I am seeing already.  When students have journals out on their desks, I have been sneaking a peak and I am already amazed at the processes being put into place with the journals from the beginning of the year.

So what are students working on in their journals?  Well in science I am already seeing some of Paige Keeley's science probes in the journals.  Students are responding with their own thinking and then working in pairs to validate their thinking or maybe question their misconceptions.

One classroom I have seen this in action was in Kelly Czarnecki's class.  Kelly is one of our third grade teachers.  She had the probe glued right into their science journal and was also starting a bar graph to keep track of where students started in terms of their original thoughts pertaining to the probe.

If you have never seen a science probe before, they are great to use before starting a science unit.  Students become very attached to one of the opinions and will often times defend it to the very end, which makes the unit even more exciting as the students continue to try and prove each other wrong by using their science experiences.  Here is one example from a student journal.

Once the students have had an opportunity to organize their thinking, Kelly surveys the students and creates a bar graph to display initial thinking (what a great way to incorporate some math into science)!

I am so excited about the work already happening at our school.  There is such a fantastic energy in every classroom.  I really can't wait to see more journals in the month of September.  Great Job Kelly!!!