Balderdash: Gamify Vocabulary

We all know that selective word-choice can enrich writing (Academy, 2021). It will lend clarity to a story, deepen emotional attachment to a character, and broaden the understanding of a topic. Contrastingly, misused vocabulary can harm the message of a text. And, weak words will water down its substance. Therefore, building a thorough understanding of a wide array of words will prepare students for increasingly effective communication. As it turns out, I have a game that will make your learners crave vocabulary-building.

Would you like your students to beg you to learn new robust vocabulary? Try Balderdash.

I call the game “Balderdash.” (There is a board game version, but I’ve never used it. From the description, it seems to contain the gist of what I present here.) The name is unique enough to spark interest and be memorable. It also lends itself to the core of the game; Playing with unknown words.

I’ve used Balderdash to introduce vocabulary, deepen background knowledge, and explore literature concepts for years.

This is how I introduce the game to my students. I start off by explaining that this is a game of definitions.

“How many times have you been reading an entertaining story, and really enjoying yourself; Then you come across a word that trips you up? All of a sudden, you don’t know what is happening. Why are the characters acting so weird? What did you miss? They aren’t always big words, but misinterpreting the meaning of a word can turn a heretofore simple tale on its head (irony in italics;).

“In this game, you will be presented with a word that you probably don’t know. That is okay. You aren’t supposed to know what the word means. If you DO know what it means, or if you think you know what it means, that is okay, too. But, don’t tell anyone. You can earn points by writing down a definition that is really close to accurate.”

Here’s how it works

Sometimes, the game originates organically. In the middle of conversation with my students, I might use a word that they don’t know. Rather than simply telling the Polite Pirates what it means, we break out Balderdash to have fun learning its definition.

Have a list of your students handy.
Hand out index cards or sticky notes. Tell students to keep the papers UNFOLDED. Also, do not write on the cards until instructed. (They must look the same.)
Have your students write their names on the top. Everyone should use pencil, and don’t do anything to your card to make it appear unique. (You will understand why in a minute.)
Next, come up with a word that students will not know. You could begin with “balderdash.” This would make the game that much more memorable! You could use a vocabulary word from a list of words you want the class to learn. You could even flip through the dictionary, looking for tough words.
Write the word on the board, so that everyone spells it correctly. You may want to write down some phonetic tips. I will sometimes explain what part of speech it is; perhaps even a hint. (i.e. This is a noun; and although this game might be named “Balderdash,” that isn’t what it means.)
Tell the students to make up a definition for the word. Explain to them that their peers are going to vote on which definition sounds most likely to be true or accurate.
While the students are writing their definitions, you look up the true definition of the word. (I don’t recommend relying on your own interpretation. Even if you do understand the word, it is best to deliver the scholarly definition first.) You will need to put the definition into kid-friendly language. Your definition will need to match the ones that students hand in.
Walk around and collect everyone’s index card. I recommend using a bucket or top hat for this.
Read through the definitions to yourself, making sure that you understand what they say and are able to read them fluidly. You don’t want to supply any “tells” that one is NOT the accurate definition. If there are any that are similar to the actual definition, provide that student a point and remove the definition from the pile. (Reading 2 of the same definitions would let them know they are the true definition.)
Next, place them back into the hat or bucket. Pull one at a time and read it. Do this once through without any voting.
Then, repeat the process, but after each reading, have students raise their hands if they think it is the correct definition. You can only vote once, and you can’t vote for your own definition.
Give the pupil who produced the phony definition a point for each vote. Whoever votes for the true definition also gets a point.
After each round, share who earned the most points and the real definition.

Gamifying #Vocabulary lessons…

Teaching 4th graders how to play #Balderdash pic.twitter.com/89Oq2kF2mN
— Matt Weimann (@MrWeimann) September 27, 2024

In the same way a serious athlete might take creatine supplements to boost muscle-building ability in the body during intense exercise (Creatine, 2021), using games to increase enthusiasm for definition development can motivate kids to grow their vocabularies. Rather than get fatigued when faced with unknown words in texts, your students will view these as opportunities for growth.

An athlete takes creatine supplements to prepare their body for doing a little bit extra in each exercise, making the workout that much more beneficial. Balderdash is a reason for collecting large, complex, unfamiliar words, and tucking their meanings into memory banks for future use. Plus, it’s a lot of fun! game

Sources

Academy, E. (2021, November 12). Word Choice in Academic Writing: Tips to Avoid Common Problems. Enago Academy. https://www.enago.com/academy/word-choice-in-academic-writing-tips-to-avoid-common-problems/

Balderdash Board Game – the Game Of Twisting Truths. (n.d.). Mattel Shop. https://shop.mattel.com/products/balderdash-cfx43

Creatine. (2021, February 9). Mayo Clinic. https://www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-supplements-creatine/art-20347591

This 4th grader got to wear the “Balderdash hat” for our photo as prize for collecting the most tally marks.

Paper Football Field Goal Line Plot Lesson

Driving question: What is the perfect length of a paper football field? We are talking, one that allows some paper footballs to score goals, but not every “kick.”

Goal: Students will create and use a line plot to categorize data in a way that makes it easy to interpret. They will analyze the data to determine the best measurement for flicking a paper football accurately.

Prep: I folded a paper football out of an ordinary,letter-sized piece of paper (8 ½ by 11 inches). You fold it the same way you fold an American Flag. Have one pre-folded, but this could be part of the lesson, if you have time. (I didn’t have X.)

I placed two tables end to end, creating a lengthy runway for measuring. Before students arrived, I taped rulers to the table top the entire length of the two tables, about 3 inches away from the center. I put pieces of tape at each foot so that it would be faster and easier to locate the increment.

Lesson: I told the students the object of the lesson was to determine the “goldilocks length” of a paper football field for this group of students. Another group may be better or worse at flicking the paper football. We are going to collect data that will help us tailor our “field” to our group.

“We don’t want the field goal too close, or every single flick will score a point. We also don’t want the field goal too far away. Then no one will score! There will be a window where some will score, but some won’t. We will use data to find that sweet spot. And, we will use a line plot to help us read the data.”

The first thing we did was figure out the width of the field goal, so that we could finish constructing our mock field. I had each student form right angles with their thumbs and index fingers. Then, touching thumb-tips, they placed their finger field goals on the measuring tape (ruler) I had already taped to the tables. As students shared the measurements of their finger field goals, I wrote them on the dry erase board. We had 6, 6, 5, 5 inches.

5th grade #MathEnrichment today consisted of documenting data from #PaperFootball #Fieldgoal game in a #LinePlot #Mathfun #Mathgame #STEAM #WednesdayMotivation #graphing pic.twitter.com/Hq2RFpmdH5
— Matt Weimann (@MrWeimann) March 20, 2024

I had taught my students how to average numbers earlier in the year. They were bouncing with the information, now. “It’s 5.5,” a girl offered.

“How do you know?” I queried.

A boy suggested that it was right in the middle of the numbers. I affirmed this by circling the middle four and five. The girl who had provided the original answer shared what she did to get it, and what one should do to find the average of several numbers. “You add all of the numbers, and then divide by the number of numbers.” We discussed dividing 22 by four in order to review fractions and decimals, and to double-check our answer.

Next, we used mini (six inch) rulers to measure five and a half inches distance between the already taped down ruler and a new one. I had the students tape it down. Now, we had a runway that was the average field goal width, running about ten feet long.

I demonstrated how to flick the paper football. Each student got three tries. If any of them were duds (didn’t fly), we conducted a retry. There were a few very short flicks, but all in all we collected some valuable data.

This line plot is not great because the line is not accurate. There ought to be measurements that do not have Xs. Every 1/3 foot should be labeled.

About half of the flicks landed between the two rulers; within the field goal range. These measurements were written on the board in one color. The flicks that did not land between the rulers were recorded in a different color. All of the measurements were recorded to the nearest ⅓ of a foot, in order to use mixed numbers on our line plot.

Once the line plot was finished, it was easy to see the window where the field goal ought to be erected. There was a collection of accurately-flicked colored Xs up to a point. Then the other color, the color of missed flicks began to move in. At a certain point there were no longer any accurate flicks. The brackish space containing both colors contained the available distances.

Some students wanted to place the field goal at the first measurement that recorded a miss. I explained that, were we to place it there, nearly every flick would score a point. Even the misses that went far could pass between the goal posts before veering off to the side. I drew a picture illustrating what I meant.

We drew lines at measurements that we thought the field goal would work best. Then we discussed pros and cons referencing the data.

One student wanted the goal posts erected right before the very last successful data point; The last one to land between the two rulers. I told him that “This would guarantee that only one person would get one point for one flick out of… How many did we do? That might be too frustrating, and not very fun.”

We ended the lesson without deciding on the perfect distance. Basically, the thing to do was to use the data that we collected to try out some reasonable distances, and see which ones were more fun. The beauty of the paper football field goal game is that the field is so malleable. It is all about fun, and that’s what I hoped the line plot lesson would generate. If nothing else, it was memorable.

Paradoxically Powerful Parameters

This student took a picture of himself, so that he had a model for his artwork.

As promised previously (Parameters Are Classy), I can’t help but explore the profound paradox of boundaries liberating thinking. How could a strict rubric extend creativity and help students be even more successful? That seems counter-intuitive. Don’t rules hamper the imagination? Buckle up, because I plan to argue that tightening up the parameters actually helps foster inventiveness and deepen artistic design.

Several years ago, I did a get-to-know-you lesson where I had my 3rd grade students, The Polite Pirates, make self portraits. It was the beginning of the year, and I thought that this would be a fun way to both decorate the room and learn a little bit about the personalities of my pupils.

The @EPSDWillowLane 2nd graders were very impressed with this #SelfPortrait of a 5th grader. “It’s really cool.” #art #GiftedTeaching #STEAM

New #Blog post about #Parameters and #Power…https://t.co/hDNUT17aE5 pic.twitter.com/QYC7BEAYCs
— Matt Weimann (@MrWeimann) October 3, 2023

The Polite Pirates (politely) stormed the art room and used scrap pieces of construction paper and loads of glue; NO scissors or any drawing tools; to make our self portraits. Each student was supplied with a 12” by 18” piece of construction paper. They were told to tear the scrap papers with their fingers, and glue them onto the large piece of colorful paper. “It should look like you, but it obviously won’t be a photograph,” I told them. “Have fun with it and be creative.”

I had made an example the night before. I showed them how mine had some 3-dimensional qualities; my bowtie was a loop that you could see right through if you turned the artwork, and my hair (I still had a little at the time–this was a while ago;) curled off of the paper. I also pointed out that you don’t have to use realistic colors. I made my hair blue and green.

You were supposed to include something that made you unique, and it didn’t have to be your looks. For instance, I made my hair blue and green to symbolize the ocean, because I like the beach. I had curled each hair, so that it stuck off of the paper, not just because I had curly hair, but to simulate waves. I also pointed out that I gave my self-portrait-me a bowtie, because that is kind of my thing. I wear bowties every Tuesday (#BowtieTuesday !).

This was a reply to @LeonoraBenton3 on X.

The Polite Pirates tore it up… Literally! They jumped right into the assignment, and we were nearly done in less than an hour. Only a few needed to add a little more detail to their portraits. They came out great and our classroom was adorned with these magnificent portraits for most of the year.

Skip ahead to this year. As I prepared to teach the kindergarten through fifth grade gifted students at my school, transitioning from solely 3rd grade teacher to gifted teacher, I thought about doing this self-portrait lesson again. Only, this time I didn’t want my students to be so limited. I was curious to see what these bright students would come up with if I took away the strict parameters of having to use only scrap papers, and prohibiting scissors or drawing tools. This time, students could cut, draw, and even bring in items from home to stick on their self-portrait.

I showed my gifted students and talked about the self portrait project from long ago. I mentioned the parameters of the previous project, but informed this year’s students that the laws were loosened. I thought that this would free them to be more creative and therefore motivated. I was very surprised at what happened next.

Many of my gifted students floundered. Several had no idea where to start. The students who led the charge into artwork did so by following the guidelines of the previous lesson, tearing scrap papers to glue onto their colorful construction paper. I reminded them that they did not have to do this. They could use scissors. They kept right on tearing away. That was the mental framework (imagination-parameters) that I had set up for them. It was like water running downhill through the path of least resistance.

There were a few rules: The self portrait was to be contained to a 12” by 18” piece of paper. The student had to produce it. No getting parents to do the work for you. And, no printing something out to paste onto the paper. Also, I told them that it had to be done by Friday, but I wanted it to be worked on all the way until Friday. In other words, no drawing something simple on day one, and saying, “I’m done.”

A couple of students used pencils to draw a picture on their papers. They had to be pushed into continuing to work on their portraits. Some students got stuck looking at pictures or using a drawing app on their iPads. They wanted to print out their digital drawings. I eventually had to tell them to put the electronic tools away and focus on their paper projects.

This student made a sculpture of herself out of tin foil, covered it with purple table, and placed a handmade book in its hands.

In the end we completed our self portraits by Friday. They all got hung on the wall. Each one is very unique, represents its creator, and fulfills the requirements. Some of them are super creative. I was able to learn a little bit about the students through witnessing how they tackled the project. In that respect the lesson was a success.

I also learned a valuable lesson about parameters. Generally, students do better when the parameters are tight; not rigid; but clearly and firmly established. Not only was my original self portrait project completed quicker, but if I were to conduct a survey, I think that the first lesson produced more positive vibes when it was all said and done. My gifted students were flummoxed with what to do and how to do it.

When there are strict parameters, every portrait had the same characteristics. Each was made from tearing and gluing paper. There was no flexibility for someone to bring a cool item from home to stick onto their portrait. Even though every portrait was very different, they were equal.

In order to preempt any unfavorable feelings of comparing someone’s portrait to another’s this time around, I put it right into the rubric. I told all of the gifted students on the first day that this was supposed to be fun, and that there will be no judging. Do your best on your work, admire your neighbor’s work, but do not say anything negative about anyone else’s artwork. If someone chooses to draw a stick figure, they can. It simply has to represent the artist in one way or another, be done by Friday, and be worked on until Friday. Good luck making that last parameter stick with your line art!

This student kept the outer boundary of the 12X18 construction paper, but attached a box to it so that she would have a stage for her self portrait to pirouette! Out-of-the-box-thinking inside a box.

When I had very strict guidelines during the tearing and gluing lesson years ago, there was still room to be creative. It was more challenging to make your portrait unique since everyone was using the same mediums, but the uniqueness was more evident. The difficulty-level caused students to stretch their minds. Whenever I am given a task in a grad class, at a professional development session, or at a seminar, I always see how far I can bend the rules and still remain within the parameters of the project. This helps me make a boring (sorry teachers of teachers; they are) requirement fun or at least less mind-numbing.

When you narrow a channel of water, it becomes more powerful. Parameters are boundaries. Like a pressure washer, they focus all of the energy and attention on specific goals.

Experiment: Make a barrel for a projectile to travel through. The parameters are the sides. Shoot something through the barrel. Shoot something with absolutely no parameters. Which goes farther? Which is more accurate? At what point do the sides prohibit the distance? When do the parameters prohibit success?

This student used only different colored tape to make his artwork.

Parameters can standardize results. This is often perceived as a negative thing. Educators don’t like being boxed in, confined, or limited. Rubrics guide our evaluation of students’ work. Using one to score a writing piece does not mean that students can’t use narrative to explain a nonfiction topic. It focuses attention on whether the student developed and mastered the skills taught. If you are looking to see if a student can research a topic, and they decide to show you that they can through producing a play, were they wrong? Did you put in your rubric that it has to be a six-sentence-paragraph? And, if so, why? Are you measuring mastery or how well the kid can be squeezed into a box?

I’ll end this parameter perusal on a positive product from my most recent self portrait lesson. Don’t be afraid to be creative in constructing parameters. I told my gifted students that they were not allowed to get stressed out. I put it in my rubric. If they felt like they were getting worried, they had to talk to me. This was supposed to be fun. If it wasn’t fun, they were not doing the assignment correctly. “I will dock points from anyone not having fun,” I mock threatened to smiles. My aim was to introduce my students to my goal; Which is to make working hard and tackling challenges entertaining.

Pull the string to see the student pirouette; Push the button to light up the idea above another pupil; And, check out the shelf our reader is sitting on!

I already mentioned that, in addition to completing the artwork by Friday, they had to continuously work on their projects when they were in class. If they weren’t working, they were not meeting the expectations. This allowed me to praise them for working, rather than on the product of their work. (More on this later.) Lastly, as mentioned previously, rather than only telling my students to not view this project as a competition, I put it right into the rubric!

Inspired Writing With Kidblog

What’s the best writing activity you’ve ever done with your class? Have you ever tricked your students into wanting to write a ton? How’d you do it? What do you use to inspire creative writing?

Screen Shot 2020-04-04 at 6.57.23 AM.png — I’ve never witnessed more passionate writing before or since.

The most entertaining writing I ever witnessed my students perform came as a spur of the moment activity. Completely unplanned, an explosion of blogging happened in my class, thanks to Kidblog and creativity.

There are so many reasons that I love teaching third grade! One is that this is oftentimes the last year that personification is more than just a literary element. Leprechauns actually hide gold. There is a Tooth-fairy; “How else do you explain the money under my pillow–and, my tooth was gone!” I can get away with using puppets. Santa totally has a list, and he sends elves to check on things immediately after Thanksgiving.

Holly is my classroom’s Elf on the Shelf. She appears every year on the first day of school after Thanksgiving. Most students know the rules already. Many have their own elf at home. Each year’s students behaves differently. One year the Polite Pirates (my students) absolutely fell in love with Holly!

Throughout the day, while I was trying to teach, students were writing notes to Holly. They knew they couldn’t touch her, so they snuck the notes as close as they dared. There was an impressive pile at the end of the day.

What did I do with all of these notes? The tiny papers were full of love, teeming with curiosity, and fueled by Christmas magic. I brought them home, and Holly began a Kidblog profile within our classroom account.

At 5AM Tuesday morning she began to type. She shared good tidings from Santa, whom she had visited during the night, as she does every evening between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Then she jumped right into thanking the Polite Pirates for all of their enthusiastic writing to her and began answering their questions.

By making blogs “Public” parents and others without accounts can access Kidblog writing.

I don’t know how she did it, because you have to have a teacher profile to make your blogs in Kidblog “public”. Holly must have used some Christmas magic in order to foster faster reading of her blog. The students didn’t even have to log into their accounts before reading Holly’s message.

The class had already been using Kidblog, so they were actively checking to see if friends had left comments when they found Holly’s new blog. Before morning announcements began the room was already a buzz with imaginative play.

All in all, Holly wrote only nine blogs, but she replied to hundreds of comments! The variety of student writing was interesting. Some students wrote lengthy diary-style entries from home. Others had to jump right into their kidblog accounts right then and there to ask Holly, “How’d you do it? Are you real?” among other pertinent questions. Holly tended to reward students’ writing by mirroring their compositions with a similar amount of text, thought, and imagination. She was classy, creative, communicative, and caring.

Holly modeled friendship, as she became the students’ friend.

Holly taught the students how to be friends.

At times impromptu grammar lessons were shared.

Holly took on the role of listening ear for some journaling writers.

In addition to her writing, Holly enjoyed taking pictures of her hiding spots. She’d leave clues in the header of her blogs as to where she was camped out for the day.

Screen Shot 2020-04-04 at 7.38.49 PM.png — Viewing the classroom from an alternative perspective, Holly taught the Polite Pirates empathy.

The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) sub-standard 3.A reads, “Create experiences for learners to make positive, socially responsible contributions and exhibit empathetic behavior online that build relationships and community.” This falls under the category of Citizen. Not only did the Polite Pirates welcome Holly into the classroom as a legit member of the crew, but Holly helped eight and nine-year-olds see life from a different angle… It was new every day, in fact, whether she blogged or not! Also, Holly’s positive relationships with the shelf-elves of the students, modeled through her commenting on Polite Pirate inquiries, were lessons in themselves.

Boys beg Holly to blog.png — A passion for writing comes from passionate writing.

When Christmas vacation took Holly from us, the joy of winter break was bitter sweet. I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed more passionate writing before or since. What have you used to inspire imaginative writing?

This was a really fun and exciting teaching experience.

To Evaluate is Classy

“Kira – Kira” by Cynthia Kadohata

The title of this Newbery Award winner intrigued me. I read it in October of 2018. I have struggled to blog about it. What angle do I want to use? How can I talk about this novel’s impact on me without giving too much of its plot away? I loved it, and I hated it; like something so bad that it’s good. And, I don’t mean poor quality–It won a Newbery Award!

Right after the new year, I was scrolling through Twitter, and I came across a tweet from the American Library Association that got me thinking. I replied to the idea, but haven’t stopped thinking about it since. I haven’t stopped thinking about it because I disagreed with it. The tweet suggested getting rid of books that don’t bring you joy. My reply communicated my dissent. I have loads of books that are only sad and some that are downright scary, quite the opposite of “joyous”.

It didn’t take long for someone to rebut my reply. Don’t think of joy as “happiness” the person suggested. After a few more back and forths, I began to understand it to mean “emotion”. As in, if a book does not “do something for you emotionally” (bring joy), toss it. This was still difficult for me to swallow, for I adore books. I love them the way I love students. Would I “toss” a student?! Of course not!! You can learn something from every single book and, in one way or another, help every single student.

I continued to wrestle with this concept for a while. I was trying to decide whether I agreed with this definition of joy, and whether it was a good enough reason to get rid of any books. One idea I had was that some books can actually be dangerous. I own books that I not only disagree with philosophically, but that have been shown to contain falsehoods. These books are actually hurting the public who read and believe them. Why would I own or keep them? (My wife is constantly trying to purge our library of them.) They serve as reminders and warnings. As the saying goes, keep friends close, but enemies closer.

Another thought I had concerned the books that I have read that didn’t do anything for me. They ended up being time-vacuums. I did not gain a thing by reading them. Could I get rid of those? Well, I did actually learn something through reading them: That they were pointless and a waste. This is a very important lesson. They could be kept to simply remind me of that danger.

I am aware that this could come off as a defense for keeping every single book, but what I am aiming to show is the process of “evaluation”. In this case, it looks more like “justification”, but simply thinking about each text from my library with the question, “Can I part with this one?” instigated a process that caught my attention. Evaluating is a higher-level metacognitive skill that is very valuable; And therefore extremely classy.

Each one of my books was evaluated on several different criteria. Did it evoke emotion? Did I learn a lesson from it? Was my life or world-view changed as a result of reading it? Would I recommend this text to a friend, and why?

Eventually, I came to “Kira-Kira”, the book that I have wanted to blog about, but couldn’t quite bring myself to sharing why I liked it… or warn people of its harm. Of course, it elicited emotion! There were a few things in the book that could be potentially dangerous; concepts that immature minds may not be ready for. Obviously, I wasn’t going to part with it… But, wait a minute. What was I doing? I have mulled over this one book, that was probably my least favorite so far, in the way of bringing me the traditional definition of joy, more than any other! Through my “evaluation” of the text I am getting even more out of it.

The tweet that I originally disagreed with also caused me to evaluate. I had to look at the word joy from many perspectives. It drove me to look at a thesaurus, for crying out loud. I didn’t like the tweet. But, in the end, it was one of the most powerful, because it caused me to think the deepest. And, finally, I find myself doing the only metacognitive act higher and classier than evaluation: creation.

e56baeb7-646c-4020-a07d-b536633ee8c6 — “Kira – Kira” by **Cynthia Kadohata**: Loved it/Hated it (healthy kind)

How are you using evaluation in everyday lessons? What do you have your students evaluate?

Sources:

American Library Association. (2019, January 4). Retrieved January 10, 2019, from https://twitter.com/ALALibrary/status/1081299680535998464 %5BThis is a link to the original tweet that sparked the thought for this blog.]

Armstrong, P. (n.d.). Bloom’s Taxonomy. Retrieved January 10, 2019, from https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/blooms-taxonomy/

“Sympathy for Creativity” A GarageBand Project

Creativity is one of those things that everyone understands, but has a hard time defining. I think art, and especially music emulates the essence of creativity the best. Musical artists seem to tap heaven when coming up with completely new melodies.

Henriksen, Mishra, & Fisser (2016) use three concepts to build a definition of creativity: novelty, effectiveness, and appropriateness. This is perfectly fine, if we are using creativity solely to solve specific problems within the context of an educational environment. In my opinion, the last two concepts flatten creativity into a two-dimensional word that can be explained away in a paper.

I think that you can stop after “novel”. The authors of “Infusing Creativity and Technology in 21st Century Education: A Systemic View for Change” (2016) take the magic of Willy Wonka and stick it into Henry Ford’s assembly line when they push productivity onto creative people. They, like many, seem to be looking for ways to harness creativity in order to power old machinery. Sticking art in the regular-ed classroom won’t transform it. We need to break down the walls!

Applying the limiting definition of Henriksen, Mishra, & Fisser (2016) to a problem like making Internet connections faster would make wires carry more and more information, faster and faster. Perhaps there brand of creativity could even think up Wifi. The most creative person might harness the Earth’s Mantle to transport information from one side to the other instantaneously without using energy. This is all super helpful, would benefit society, make money for companies, save money for others, create jobs, foster new research, etc. But, what about the kid who thinks about changing the information from the Internet in general. We praise the kid who builds the most amazing structure with Legos and punish the one who uses the Legos to form a picture. That is not how Legos work. You did not build anything. Another kid makes the Legos dance and sing. They put on a play. Still another builds with the Lego people a structure that the blocks live in. Whoa, that kid is reeeeeaaaally wrong!

Play for play sake. Be creative just to be creative. Come up with new ideas, just cuz.

This past summer I decided this would be the year that I explore a program that has evaded me for a while now: GarageBand. I watched a tutorial video that lit a fire in me to make my own music for the videos that I create. (I produce a lot of movies that I post on Youtube.)

The Rolling Stones — The Stones 1968, the year “Sympathy for the Devil” was recorded

I had a cool idea for how to use GarageBand: My class will take a song and change the lyrics, making a classroom song. I chose “Sympathy for the Devil” by The Rolling Stones. I’m sure that you think this is a crazy choice for a 3rd grade classroom. It is, but let me explain with some A, B, Cs… and a D;)

A

A is for A+. I love the song. The music is catchy, singable, memorable, rhythmic, and fun. Also, it uses tons of different instruments. This would be great for my class, because everyone could have a “part” in its construction. If we were to perform the music live, literally every single kid could be playing a totally different instrument!

Mr. Peters shows Ss some different instruments available.

B

B is for Beginning. The song is sort of a riddle, asking listeners to “Guess my name”. At the beginning of the year (when I had thought about working on this) we are all getting to know one another. I had my students make “Who Am I Riddle Poems” to share things about themselves that are unique from others. We would take this concept and use it “whole group” to distinguish our class from other classes.

C

C is for simple, yet complex. The song is made up of 4 verses with a repeating chorus. The chord progression is E, D, A, E, with the change on the first beat of each of four measures. Dylan Peters (@DylanPetersedu), the brand new Technology Innovator Specialist hired to East Penn School District this past summer (2018) worked with me from the get go to teach my students (and me) how to use GarageBand. We used the “Autoplay” feature to have the instruments play simple rhythms. After guiding groups through creating the same set of four instruments playing the same four measures of music, we showed them how they could change the instruments, altering percussion styles, and fooling with some really funky disc jockey features.

Thank you, Mr. Peters for all of your help with this project!

D

And, D. is for “dynamic”. [Dynamic was the theme of a recent #livechat I participated in from #masterychat, @teachbetterteam. I looked up the word, and found that it means “change”.] The original song by The Rolling Stones changes throughout, progressively increasing the tempo, number of sounds, and musical involvement. This is not only fun, but would allow for my entire class to be hooting and howling by the end! (Give the song a listen, and you’ll see.)

So far, the groups have been working on changing the instruments within GarageBand to customize their four measures before we piece them all together. The aim is for four totally different styles of the same music to be joined just like the students of my third grade class came from different 2nd grade teachers, possessing very different styles of teaching, personalities, and methods.

This past week I began teaching poetry, in preparation for the class to write the lyrics that will accompany our music. Dylan Peters plans to bring in a professional-style microphone to record the class’s singing once our composition is complete. Check back with me to see and hear the final product.

I mention this GarageBand project not just to share a pretty creative idea, but because of a question my wife posed: What are the learning outcomes for this? At first, I thought about justifying the time, energy, thought, and work by suggesting ELA, Art, or Math standards. Then I thought about explaining to her the camaraderie-constructing merit of the project. I settled on “We are just doing it for fun.” Why does this seem so wrong in today’s educational climate?

Sources:

Henriksen, D., Mishra, P., & Fisser, P. (2016). Infusing Creativity and Technology in 21st Century Education: A Systemic View for Change. Educational Technology & Society, 19 (3), 27–37.

[Sanjay C]. (2018, January 20). GarageBand on your iPad Quick -START TO FINISH! . Retrieved from https://youtu.be/ykGRexBtcXQ

Weimann, M. (2018, September 23). Critical Thinking is Classy. Retrieved October 20, 2018, from https://thecaptainofclass.com/2018/09/23/critical-thinking-is-classy/ [This is the first time that I have ever cited my own work.]

[zwwlg]. (2016, March 12). Ken Robinson – Do schools kill creativity/TED Talks. . Retrieved from https://youtu.be/tQzC7ubJriE

Can Tech Tools Stifle Creativity?

Just over a week ago I produced the coolest off-the-cuff formative assessment using Google Slides. Students accessed a slideshow that I threw together right before getting them from recess. There was a picture in it that I wanted them to use to identify arrays.

My 3rd graders have struggled with learning multiplication at the very beginning of the year, as I have struggled teaching it right out of the gate. See, my district just signed on to use iReady math, and everyone is experiencing some growing pains.

Scarlet plays with some blocks I brought home.

We have been looking at arrays, frontwards and backwards. I had brought some connecting blocks home to take pictures for a quiz I would administer, when an idea hit me. My daughter Scarlet was enjoying constructing shapes with the blocks, and she built a robot. Rather than making nice neat rectangles for my students, I’d have them find the arrays that lay hidden in this robot. I love combining life experiences and teaching moments, so I told my students about the robot’s inception and their assignment. They loved it and jumped right in.

I had taken a picture of the simple combination of blocks and uploaded it to a Google slideshow. Students were to find the slideshow (a copy per student) waiting for them in their Math Google Classroom. They were to identify different arrays by circling them. I also told them to label the arrays appropriately; Putting the number of rows first, and then the number of columns.

My classroom has a mishmash of different devices. I literally did not know how they were going to outline their arrays, but I did know that there was more than one way. The iPads are pretty easy. Kids can click on the assigned Google slideshow and immediately start drawing and writing all over the slides, without opening it in the Google Slides App. When students are done they can save/submit the work as a PDF.

On the Chromebooks and Macs, students could put shapes on top of the arrays, but then they would have to adjust the shape to be transparent. Students found a tool called “Scribble” under the “Line” icon within slides that worked the best. They could draw (using two hands) a rectangle around the arrays they found. Then they used the regular “Line” to connect the array to a “Text Box” that they typed the array inside. These lines were very thin and black, so students worked out a way to change the color and thicken up the lines. They also used this experience to find out how to change the font size, color, etc. of text. I witnessed my students teaching themselves the technology, problem-solving in many more ways than one, using creativity for practical reasons, and experiencing tremendous success, both practically and mathematically!

All in all, the lesson was a smashing success. I was very happy with how well my students did identifying the arrays. And I was incredibly impressed with the ingenuity they showed in figuring out the best ways to show their work, using the tools at their disposal.

animated — Heather Moser Empowers EPSD Teachers w/ Terrific Tech Tools

Now, this is where the title of this blog comes into play. The aforementioned lesson took place on the Thursday before Columbus Day Weekend. On Monday (Columbus day) my school district had a professional development inservice. I attended an incredible session titled “iPads Untethered”, taught by East Penn Tech Instructional Assistant, Heather Moser. She started out the teacher learning time with an app called “Sketches”. Kids can use this app to easily draw all over images that are either shared with them or they generate from taking a picture. The sketches can be saved in organized folders, shared, or submitted. We then moved on to doodling all over images in Notes, another easy to use app that comes preinstalled on iPads. It was as though Heather knew about my lesson and was saying, “Gee, Captain, you could have simply used one of these.”

The catch is that both my students and myself grew threw our productive struggle. Problem-solving ways to show arrays within Google Slides helped us learn all kinds of things. Also, I liked my ability to link comments to student work when it came time for me to provide feedback and grades for this assessment on the fly. In the future, when my students have one iPad/kid I can use the awesome apps that Mrs. Moser showed teachers during professional development.

Those simple-to-use drawing tools would make it much easier and faster to perform an assessment like the one I had planned, but would this rob my students of the opportunity for productive struggle? As digital tools make life easier and easier, we teachers will have to be creative in finding ways to make tasks challenging.

It’s #Playtime!

For years I’ve let my students bring in a snack, but I usually have them eat it while working. I tried that this year, but quickly realized that this wasn’t going to work.

These kids missed the classroom #playtime, so they took a brain-break in the hall.

Because of an early lunch, my students and I have a very long afternoon. Our math time is from 11:30 to 12:30. Then I have Language Arts time until 2:25, when Special time begins. So, I have students for about three solid hours!

I never even considered playtime before. I figured, that’s what recess was for. But, a class I am taking from Kutztown U changed my mind. During snack time, I have introduced our classroom makerspace. I am calling it playtime, but the idea is that students will be involved in creative creating or building.

Mission Statement:

Students will take a break from formal learning every afternoon post Math time and prior to Language Arts learning (12:30-12:50, approximately), in order to creatively construct things with a variety of toys and tools, while snacking.

Philosophy: Hybrid of “Open Space” (self-driven) and “Workshops” (learning/practice time)

Merriam Webster defines playtime as “a time for play or diversion” (n.d.). The very first time I introduced this idea, I talked all about the concept and went over the parameters or policies prior to math time. Then during math we used connecting blocks to build arrays that were broken apart, displaying split multiplication problems. When math time was over, I told the students that they could keep using the blocks, but now, they could “Build whatever you want.” They were in heaven. It was like I had taught them the proper way to use the monkey bars, and then told them they could play all over the playground doing anything they wished. Stay within the fence, and follow the general rules, but have a blast and blow off steam. They sure did.

Playtime isn’t relegated to only grade-school pupils; parents and adults can benefit from merriment as well (Chatty Feet Team, 2016). It helps us relax and promotes problem-solving skills. Also, it will help us play with our kids better. Libraries are using playtime to help kids develop literary skills. Parents at a library in Texas get out toy cars, tape, race tracks, and bowls of tiny road signs (Celano, Knapczyk, & Neuman, 2018, p. 68). Playing and building with these road toys helped the kids learn some of the concepts necessary for understanding the read aloud they were about to experience.

Policies

This is NOT a “free-for-all”, nor is it even “free-time”. It is playtime, and it is governed by rules.

No fighting or arguing.
Don’t be too loud.
Share/Play nice
Keep clean; Wash hands first/keep snack away from toys.
Don’t be gross. No licking your fingers and then touching the toys. (I’m not even going to mention picking noses.)

Supplies

I limit the supplies that my students have access to during their playtime. I do this for a variety of reasons. One is that I want this time to be manageable. If there are ten different things out and spread around the room, it will take too long to clean up. Another reason that I limit the supplies is because I want the groups of students to interact. If one group is playing with Legos and another is building with Lincoln Logs, kids will not be as likely to share, collaborate, blend groups, etc. They have to stop playing with Legos in order to work with Lincoln Logs. Eventually, I want to see the class creatively incorporate a variety of building mediums into the same project, but all in good time. I want the kids to have some experience with each one, learning, exploring, and problem-solving with a single medium before branching out and combining.

Here is a list of the mediums that I have so far.

Abe Lincoln may have carved these, himself. They are from my childhood!

Connecting blocks
Legos
Lincoln Logs
Tinker Toys
Robotix
Thimios (robots)

Potential Future Play Mediums: Video and Music

A future direction of this playtime that I foresee is publishing videos. Students will use the things that they have built to produce films with plots and themes. I imagine these to be silly and fun; Remember this is playtime! I can picture students making Monty Python-esque cartoons, old school Gumby claymation-style movies, and motion-stop videos.

Publishing videos on Youtube is scarily public. Students and kids have no idea what that means. They are lured by the fame of notoriety and the glamour of numbers. The idea of something going “viral” is the new “anyone could be president”. Except that there are serious hurdles to achieving most powerful person in the world, while going viral needs nothing more than a video camera, creativity, and luck… mostly, luck. And, every kid in America is banking on luck, these days. What if one of our videos did go viral? It is important that our movies present an accurate picture of our playtime.

When kids publish to Youtube or another online video platform, they are taking their play on the road… or information highway. What kids want is for their numbers to rise: They want the number of views to go up. The way to do that is to promote the videos, but more importantly produce something that people want to watch. In the same way that playing the games that others enjoy playing will get more people to join your playtime activity, videos that are attractive will get the views. In the incredibly interesting and informative article on this subject, “Raised by Youtube” author Alexis Madrigal (n.d.) writes about a company that I hadn’t even heard of: Chuchu Tv. This company is dwarfing Disney, Sesame Street, and all the rest of American video producers on Youtube. Their BILLIONS of views make these other companies look like online ants. The Indian-based company uses seemingly lotech imagery–two-dimensional characters to tell traditional nursery rhymes. Madrigal (n.d.) went to the headquarters and interviewed its creators and CEOs. The concept began with an audience of one: The creator’s toddler. The entrepreneur with a background in media began making videos for his young son. They almost instantly took off and went viral. He now employs 200 artists. Compared to Disney’s thousands of employees, this number is infantesmal! The mission of Chuchu Tv is to provide wholesome videos for toddlers that share moral messages. Madrigal spoke with a child development expert who reviewed Chuchu’s videos, Colleen Russo Johnson from UCLA’s Center for Scholars & Storytellers. She told him that the videos were so overly-stimulating that the good message is lost on young kids. Chuchu was born on the concept of seeking the most views. Although its mission is admirable, Chuchu plays to what is going to be viewed the most. Johnson sees this as dangerous, because it will develop viewers who want (need, like an addict) more and more stimulation.

I’ll be blogging about this a lot in the near future, but suffice to say, the app Garageband is a virtual playground of music. We had one lesson with Dylan Peters, and I now have to pry the iPads out of student hands!

My students and I are super excited for this new #playtime initiative. I haven’t told them about making videos, yet. But, our creative building has completely revolutionized our Language Arts time. Kids are more attentive, well-behaved, and cooperative in centers, after having a brain break. I look forward to sharing more about this time, how it is working out, and what my students are producing throughout the year. Please share with me articles that you have read that either support this idea, add to this concept, or even contradict my thinking. Thank you.

Sources:

Celano, D. C., Knapczyk, J. J., & Neuman, S. B. (2018). Public Libraries Harness the Power of Play. YC: Young Children, 73(3), 68. Retrieved from https://search-ebscohost-com.proxy-kutztown.klnpa.org/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=sso&db=edb&AN=130304856&site=eds-live&scope=site&custid=s3915793

Chatty Feet Team. (2016, June 14). Why It’s Important For Adults To Play Too. Retrieved October 7, 2018, from https://www.chattyfeet.com/blogs/chattyfeet-socks-blog/the-importance-of-play-for-adults

Madrigal, A. C. (n.d.). Raised by Youtube. Retrieved October 6, 2018, from https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/11/raised-by-youtube/570838/?utm_source=twb [No publishing date, but available in the November 2018 print edition.]

Merriam Webster. (n.d.). Playtime. Retrieved October 7, 2018, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/playtime

Critical Thinking is Classy

To be able to critique something, one must have background knowledge. Unfortunately, some teachers focus solely on pouring information into their pupils (Watanabe-Crockett, 2015).

What Does Critical Thinking Look Like?

I tried something new this year to get kids to introduce themselves to each other. The class visited the art room outside of their typical art time. Kids were told that they were going to make a self portrait. The catch was that they could only use scrap paper and glue; no drawing utensils, no scissors, only their hands and glue. They had a blast tearing the paper and sticking it together. Making shapes round was tricky. Some students made their art three-dimensional. Some used nonconventional colors.

Polite Pirates of Room 207 Make Self Portraits

After making the self portraits, students composed “Who Am I” riddle poems. They had to write down a list of sentences telling information about themselves that makes them unique from others in the class. They wrote their names on the back of the papers. I attached them to the self portraits. The kids got to read each other’s poems, guessing who fit the characteristics listed. The portraits were little more than clues, since they were not very realistic.

The project was not only presented several facets of critical thinking, but it also dressed up my room for Meet The Teacher Night! Parents loved trying to figure out which portrait/poem combination was their offspring:)

How to Foster Critical Thinking: Don’t Settle

When I have students figure out a math problem, I tell them to solve it multiple ways. This forces them to rethink the math. They are required to analyze the problem. My students are asked to not only “show their work”, but also explain how they arrived at their answers. When they share the process with a partner the two of them evaluate each other’s work. Having to find other ways to solve a math problem causes students to be creative, looking for novel ways to think about the numbers.

Come up with several ways to figure out how many spaces there are on a chess board.

A way to inspire critical thinking during a writing assignment is through allowing students to view their peers’ written responses within Google Forms. When I administer an assessment through giving a quiz from Google classroom, I instruct my students to click on “See Previous Responses” upon submitting their quizzes. They are to read their classmates’ writing, evaluating the responses and comparing them with what they wrote. They may go back and add information to their own writing, then, adapting new ideas to the answer.

One More Thing: Call it what it is.

Watanabe-Crockett (2016) suggests actually using the term critical thinking. “How to Develop A Critical Thinking Mindset in Elementary Students” supplies a graphic aid from Andrew Churches that shows Bloom’s Taxonomy applied to technology. It has long lists of verbs under each thinking skill. It isn’t a bad idea to make a poster of this and put it on the wall.

In order to critique something, one must create an opinion. With this end in mind, educators can work to teach students how to think critically in order to complete the task.

Sources:

Watanabe-Crockett, L. (2015, July 24). The Importance of Teaching Critical Thinking. Retrieved September 22, 2018, from https://globaldigitalcitizen.org/the-importance-of-teaching-critical-thinking

Watanabe-Crockett, L. (2016, May 28). How to Develop A Critical Thinking Mindset in Elementary Students. Retrieved September 22, 2018, from https://globaldigitalcitizen.org/critical-thinking-mindset-elementary-students

Cloning Creativity Is Classy

Consider Cloning Your Creativity. It’s Classy. Cloning myself

A person is considered creative by others if he comes up with new and novel ideas. To use a cliche that’s been chopped down, chewed up, and spit out a billion times, in the Tree_Falling_Down_-_panoramio same way a tree does not fall in a forest if no one is there to hear it, a person is only as creative as people recognize it. My suggestion: Cloning your creativity is classy.

This is classy because it helps you and others. It is helpful to you because it will make you feel meaningful and important. The greatest form of flattery is for someone to copy you. Sharing your ideas says, “Flatter me, please;)” Also, others may find ways to improve what you came up with. This shouldn’t make you feel badly. You invented the table. Others are simply lengthening the legs, sanding the rough edges, and polishing the finish. No one would be using it at all, had you never considered cloning your creative contribution to the culinary art! How classy.

Here is an issue: I came up with a lesson years ago that I hadn’t put together until just recently. I thought of having my students make “Choose Your Own Adventure” stories to make narrative writing fun and creative. (They can also explore multiple solutions to problems within plots.) In preparation for teaching a professional development class on using iPads in the classroom, I decided I’d finally try my hand at making one of these adventures. I created a planning paper, made a Google slideshow, hyperlinked slides together, and wrote a silly little story about the teachers that would be attending my iPad course. I even made a movie to show teachers how I did what I did, so that they could reproduce (clone) it.

I haven’t actually mentioned the “issue” yet. All this goes right along with the theme of this blog: Sharing your creativity is classy. Here is the issue: I just… just now, as I am in the middle of typing this blog, googled “Choose your own adventure lesson,” and do you know how many other people had the same idea as me? Well, it took Google half of a second to produce eighteen million hits. So, was my idea a creative one?

Has this kind of thing ever happened to you? Have you ever excitedly told a colleague or friend about a grand idea you had, only to have your audience say, “Oh, (so and so) did that last year”? Talk about taking the wind out of your creative sails!

Here is a classy consolation: How many artists were appreciated during their lifetime? Additionally, do you think Edgar Degas was the only artist who painted ballerinas? Did Michelangelo invent sculpture? As creative as people may seem, they are building upon concepts that already exist. It is what’s done with the creativity that makes it classy. A creative idea that sits in the classroom, confined to 24 students, and never tried by other teachers, isn’t any more useful than a tree falling in the middle of a forest is beneficial to a carpenter. Yeah, people are building tables all over the place. So, your raised wooden platform that people place food on isn’t all that novel in a global market, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t make one. Many people had painted portraits of women before the Mona Lisa. What if DaVinci thought, “That’s already been done. I don’t want to look lame, copying others.”

Not classy: Failing to give credit where credit is due. No explanation needed. Also, withholding compliments is not classy. A person can feel jealous when a colleague is getting attention for his creativity. Don’t let corrosive competitive feelings creep into your soul. They will kill your creativity. This is not a war or competition. Be congratulatory. That is classy. An attitude of admiration will boost you forward, usher you into a collection of collaborative creators, and fuel cogitation. A poor attitude will find you lying under a fallen tree in the middle of the forest, trapped, forgotten, and nonexistent.

Here is the lesson that I dreamed up, created, and found out already exists… millions of times over;) https://tinyurl.com/y8pnpybm

Here is the movie that I made to show off how I did what millions of others have done before me. https://youtu.be/xzi1Q0nAsBc

Although I am laughing at myself for thinking that I was soooo creative, coming up with this lesson, only to find out lots of others before me have done something similar, I remain please with my product, and encourage you… I would be flattered if you were to check it out and even use it. Let me know what you think, and if there were ways to improve upon it.

Final thought: Where would this lesson fall on the SAMR spectrum? Is the use of technology Substituting, Augmenting, Modifying, or Redefining teaching?