Mr Hammerlund

In response to the post @whatedsaid made, I decided to create a Wordle showing what my blog says. I am glad to see the most common word is students since this is a reflective blog after all.

Sendai, Japan in the winter I began thinking about this post topic today while reading the section about perception in  Engaging Minds . I was particularly moved when the authors talked about how a participant in the research study brought to attention Christian symbols in the school. (p. 53) They talked about how we can sometimes dismiss these claims as not getting into the spirit. But it is really? The winter holidays here in Japan look a lot like they do in the U.S. There are decorations all around, people are out and about shopping, and there are lights put up all over the place. Every year our school does some caroling with traditional and non-traditional songs. They are even sung in different languages. It can make one feel as if everyone is on the same wave length about what it all means. My class is currently in the middle of learning about Fairy Tales, and for part of this unit I want the kids to practice acting and performing. So, be...

One thing I want to do more of is cross-unit projects. I would like to start a project in one unit, and be able to use the same thing for further learning in the next unit. Act 1 Way back in September I had my students try something I knew way way over their heads, but I wanted to see how they would tackle a challenge. I asked them to make a sphere with these geometric shapes I have. All in all they did a good job. After all, they are only in first and second grade. The first group was generally in going in the right direction by making a box-type thing. Their problem was that it was too heavy and kept falling in on itself. The second group started making their sphere using hexagons using the theory that the hexagons were close to circles. (I was hoping they picked them because soccer balls have hexagons on them.) This group ran into the same sides-were-too-heavy problem that the first group I described ran into, but they got to that point faster than the other group. A...