Week 4 Strategies

Identifying Similarities and Differences
Identifying Similarities and Differences is very important for getting students to apply the knowledge we have taught them to real situations. I did an activity for this the first week of school this year in order to get to know my students better. I asked each of my students during Morning Meeting what their favorite foods were. After collecting all the data, we organized our foods by category and put them into Venn diagrams to identify the similarities and differences between all the foods. I used the Notebook software for my SMARTBoard to create the diagrams. I thought the lesson went very well and my students picked up the Venn diagram very quickly.
When I was reading about this strategy this week, I came across so many great ideas for how I could use this strategy in my classroom. I would like to start entering some of our data in Microsoft Excel and then make graphs to incorporate Identifying Similarities and Differences between our data sets. We do a Sunrise and Sunset chart for Everyday Math, and I think it would be great to put that data into Microsoft Excel like they mentioned in the book so the kids can see how the length of day changes and make note of the patterns.

Homework and Practice
The purpose of Homework and Practice is for students to apply and continue practicing what we have taught them in the classroom. When I first got my SMARTBoard, I created a Powerpoint game for my students to practice naming the continents and oceans of the world. Students had to drag the name of the continent or ocean onto the correct spot on the world map. When they were finished, they would click on each item they had named, and the hidden answer would be revealed so they could check their work. We always start out doing this game as a class on the SMARTBoard first, then I link the Powerpoint game to my class website so my students can go back and practice it whenever they have time. I thought this game turned out very well, and it helped my students to practice and apply what I was teaching them in Social Studies.

Generating and Testing Hypotheses
When students generate and test hypotheses, they are using higher level thinking skills and applying all of the facts and vocabulary we have taught them. I often have my students make and test hypotheses in the Science units I teach for third grade. During our rock unit I have students look at rocks, list their characteristics, and generate and test hypotheses about what each type of rock might be. We have only been using our new Sciece program for two years, so I haven't had a lot of time to incorporate technology, but I would really like to make the time to do that this year. One of my goals for my students this year was to get them to use Microsoft Excel, and I think creating spreadsheets would be an excellent activity for charting their hypotheses as they test them, instead of having them do it on paper like we have done in the past.