Sabot on the Radio

I took some time this morning to listen to Sabot on the radio. Enjoyed it. You might too.

http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/68202

Thinking about Population Density

We had already plotted out our game board territory and had just finished counting our populations. The population count was posted on our game board and we were seeing the numbers for the first time all together. Here are pieces of the conversation.

Mason: It is sort of like the real world because Giovanni has this big piece of land and 42 people. Aliza has 1 square but she has more people than Giovanni.

Teacher: More people live in that one square than in that whole green country. How will it impact their lives and their cultures?

Ellie: I have a question. Is the population going to affect how many people immigrate from our country?

Teacher: That is something we need to think about.

Aliza: It might matter because like in China, if there are too many people, they might want to move.

Teacher: If you are in Aliza’s country and there are 71 people squished into that tiny square, do you think they might be anxious to get out to where they could have more land?

Teacher: We should figure out how many people per square so that we can compare them.

Giovanni: Joe’s country will have a really big immigration rate. They will feel really squished. There might be a lot more people immigrating from Joe’s place because they are squished.

Kali: I think the population does matter. He [Joe] has tons of spots and tons of people, but they are also squished among other countries that have tons of people, mine and Mason's. Our countries are practically hugging each other. They are surrounding each other. And they have got millions of squished people. You want to move. You want to get out of there. There are places like Giovanni’s where they might have too much room and people start to feel too free.

Giovanni: I don’t think that it is possible to feel too free.

Kali: They have too much room so they want to move somewhere else.

Rose: Population does matter. If you have a huge country and one person in it (haha) that person would just be like “Hi?.... Hello??”

Teacher: So if there is not enough population people might feel isolated and lonely?.

Max: The population would matter because in Aliza’s country, there wouldn’t really be room for an airport. The air plane would be running over people.

Teacher: I also think about them having to have really tall buildings.

Rose: Like China!!

Max: The other thing is, see in a lot of these countries. Kirby has 142 and Aliza only has 71. Aliza still kind of has more

Teacher: More PER…

Max: More density because even though Kirby has about double… no, exactly double, but she will have a lesser density because her land is much bigger than Aliza’s.

Emeline: I don’t think it really matters because we are doing a game about mixing cultures. I think it is getting off track.

Teacher: I think it will affect your culture.

Giovanni: I think the population vs land does matter. Joe has the most people and the most land. Joe’s country won’t have much need to technology. Aliza’s country will need a lot of technology. She will probably need airplanes that take off from sky scrapers.

So, we set out to calculate our population density. It is fairly straightforward until you have left over people that need to be split evenly among the squares of land. There was a variety of methods. Here are a few (quite beautiful, if you ask me!). The children worked for nearly 2 hours. Students who had figured out a good strategy for dividing the left over people made their way around the room to help support their friends.

"We have 24 5/8 in each pile, we took about an hour to figure it out. This is the final way I did it , but I did two other ways that were NOT right! We made 8 towers (one for each square of land) and added 2 people to each tower until we had 24 people. We had a few extra people, not enough for each tower to get one more, so Kirby found out it would be 5/8. She knew I had 8 squares of land and we have five people left. So she divided the five squares into eighths and gave 1/8 to each square. She did it again until she had given away all five people making the final answer 24 5/8."

 

Habits of mind this child identified using:
Persisting
Creating, imagining and innovating
Taking responsible risks
Thinking interdependently
Finding humor
Thinking flexibly
Striving for accuracy
Listening with understanding
Remaining open to continuous learning
Managing impulsivity
Questioning

 

Detours Are the Learning

When I was young, we often took family road trips. My whole family squished into our van and headed for some destination. Inevitably, my dad would pull over at some historic detour so that we could read the plaques and see the sights. I remember thinking, "Why can't we just be a normal family who rents jet skis or goes to amusement parks for family vacation?" We were always stuck with this history stuff. And then last summer, when I was with all of my siblings again, WE were the ones that wanted to go to all of the quirky little historical spots and read the plaques. All of these detours shaped us into curious people and helped us build a sense of ourselves as part of something much bigger. We came to see that the spirit of road-tripping is the detours. Finding yourself in some unexpected place, being introduced to some American oddity one didn't know existed is the most compelling piece of the experience.

I think about my childhood road trip detours during our project work at school. Our approach to learning is often organic and meandering. We find LOTS of detours. The detours aren't separate from our learning, they just seem like they take a long time. We're trying to create a culture mixing game and it feels like it is taking FOR-EV-ERRRRR, but that is because we are taking time on some of our detours to examine things like how population density affects cultures and how location on the globe impacts one's climate (and because we have things we're trying to finish before the end of the year.... and because we're in the middle of our end-of-year testing, but you know what I mean).

Eventually I figured out that detours were the road trip. I'm being reminded of that in our project work. Even if our game were never to be completed, all of the thinking and conversations along the way about cultures mixing, what happens with different generations of immigrant families, what factors helps shapes one's culture, how we are all the same in that we are a mix of cultures but that no one quite has our exact recipe, or how having the highest population density may be a catalyst for more emigration out of one's country. In the end, these detours are the learning.

Totally Worth It!



This morning I was sitting in a room full of children busily building polyhedra. There were straws and twisty-ties EVERYWHERE! But people were engaged and excitedly talking about what happens when you squish a cube or what a twelve-sided polyhedron is called or if there can be a polyhedron with exactly three faces.  

 

Meanwhile a conversation started between students about how much they liked this kind of math. "At my old school we had to sit at our desk and do stacks of math worksheets!"

"Yeah, Sabot lets you have some creativity while you work."

The conversation went on an on. I was half listening as I called people over to demonstrate their understanding of these 3-D shapes by building a shape from clues about attributes.

"Build a shape that has exactly 5 vertices."

 

Later, we had to postpone snack (never a very welcomed change to the schedule) because it took so long to clean up. We ran out of time before P.E. I made a side comment about how doing these fun things took a lot more time to clean up and that we had to be flexible if we wanted to do things like this. On the way out the door one child said, "Well it is TOTALLY worth it!"

 

All in all, I just really appreciated the recognition the children had that they were being allowed to know and learn beyond making marks on paper. They were working with 3-D shapes as they were intended to be known-- in 3-D! It might be messier and it might now always translate to a multiple-choice test, but it is the kind of learning I value.

 

On another day, the children worked to produce designs that were
half-yellow as part of our study of fraction.
The children worked to develop systems of checking themselves.
How did they know their shape really was half yellow?
 In our checking, we often found errors and were eager to make
adjustments to have EXACTLY half yellow.

The Culture Game

Our school is hosting The World Peace Game this summer!

I've heard a lot of discussion about it lately as some of the children in my class are going through the registration process. I think the game is on our minds because our history investigation is developing in the path of a game, The Culture Game.

The inspiration for our game came from Parent Night.

Kali: They made green children because they were multi-cultural and they had two different cultures, not just one because if the orange culture is its own culture and the blue culture is its own culture, then they are technically making a new culture when you make it green.

Max: Then if even one orange person came over here, there could be hundred of green people because if more orange people come, then maybe one of these orange people could marry another blue person. We would end up getting a bunch of different cultures that you didn’t even have in the first place if just a few people didn’t immigrate. And it all started with just a few people immigrating here.

 

This conversation got us thinking about new cultures that develop as a mix of other cultures and wanted to think with color to represent the morphing of cultures as they mix.

How many colors would develop in America?

We each got a color of clay and made tiny ball people. We planned to mix them.

Wondering how to proceed with some sense of order and knowing the children had been thinking about creating a game to help them think and share about immigration, I saw an opportunity to slow down."We can mix our colors now (I think it will probably be over in about ten minutes) or we could slow down and turn this into the game you've been wanting to make. I think we would learn more."

While they were anxious to mix the clay, they were also willing to delay the immediate desire to make way for a slower, more deliberate process.

The initial set up-- just before we decided to slow down.

The children have been developing cultures for their people.

They thought of so many different things that could influence a group of people and their values and traditions.

• Language
• Values
• Likes/dislikes
• Talents of the country
• Celebrations
• Resources*
• Pollution Rate*
• Hemisphere
• Climate temperature*
• Water level*
• Water purity*
• Technology/modernization*
• Type of ruler*
• Ruler's Disposition*
• Traditional Food
• Music
• Legends
•  Vulnerabilities*

 *= were drawn at random out of a bag



Our current map.
A roll of the die determined the number of squares a country would inhabit.
How would the land size and the population work together to form the culture?
 Placement on the map was determined by the hemisphere
 and the temperature of the country's climate. Hot countries were placed near the equator
and cold countries were placed near the poles.


 

We are trying to determine how to proceed. How will we take turns? How many people will immigrate? How will the cultures mix? How do we keep track of the changing cultures?

 

We shall see what the future holds...



Looking Through The Lens: Habits of Mind

We revisited the Science Handbook that we wrote earlier in the year,
but this time we looked through the lens of the Habits of Mind

 

We found the most of the sections in our book matched at least one Habit of Mind.
It was exciting to see that the characteristics of successful people were so closely
related to the skills the children identified themselves doing
as successful scientists researching shadows.
 



While the children learned a great deal about shadows,
 there will always be more to know.
These habits are the learning that lasts.
 It is the learning that will carry them forward through their next challenges.

Our Guidebook Section                                          Correlating Habit of Mind

* Using our sense to observe                                *Gathering data through all of the senses

*Making connections                                            *Applying past knowledge to new situations

*Try, try again                                                       *Persistence

*Be willing to change your mind                          * Remaining open to continuous Learning
based on what you observe        

*Think outside the box                                         *Creating, imagining and innovating