As referenced in one of my previous posts about Quickfires, I try to make each Quickfire leveled, so that as we work with different teachers, we can push the students a little more to help them activate higher-level thinking as well as the world beyond themselves. This is the first time we will be doing a Quickfire with this 1st grade class, so I am starting at Level 1. It is still early in the school year and the kiddos are getting used to many new things, so we want to make sure we are meeting them at their level all while having fun (and this also gives us a good benchmark of their critical thinking, problem solving, and communication skills are so we can adjust for next time).
10 Apples Up on Top
HOW MIGHT WE build relationships through engineering designs?
- Work cooperatively to build a single structure
- Use problem solving and critical thinking to work through a difficult task
- Communicate thoughts, ideas, and opinions constructively
- "Apples on the Ground" - Kids place their hands on the ground in front of them.
- "Apples in the Tree" - Kids place their hands on their shoulders.
- "Apples on My Head" - Kids place their hands on their head.
- "Apples in the SKY!" - Kids wave their hands above their head.
In talking to Carol as we were watching and talking to students, we incorporated some of what she was also doing in her math class while we had our "apples" out. We had the students take a handful of their apples and place them on on the floor. Then in small groups, the students:
- Counted how many apples they had total
- Shared different ways how they could visualize their groups of apples
- Organized apples into different sized groups
- Talked about what it means if you can't make equal groups of apples (odd numbers)