Addition/Subtraction with 3rd graders

The 3rd graders demonstrated their addition and subtraction stories that they written last week using the Dienes Blocks. Initially, the children were confused with the words addition and subtraction. They were doing subtraction instead of addition. After some more practice they were able to do well.

Unit conversion

Along with the 6th and 7th in Isaiambalam school, we wanted to estimate how far one Km would be. All the students made a guess and wrote down their check point on a route from their class.

The children wrote down how far their guess was compared to a Km, and took other nine checkpoints of other children, when they went back to class they decided to convert each checkpoint to meters, decameters, and hectometers.

Seeds and Seeds

This week 5th Graders studied Seeds and Seeds lesson from their curriculum and completed half of their lesson. They were excited about planting seeds in the school. So we decided to plant Chik Peas, Moong Bean and Mustard and kept under observation.

Children making name flags for each plant
Planting Chik Peas
Planting Moong Bean
Children got few seeds from their home

Dynamic image changing and JavaScript debugging

I and my  colleague are creating a software to track the students plan regarding their progress in their academic . In that we wanted to upload the students pictures when they select their name. I learnt to deal with dynamic images and to debug the code in JavaScript using

<div class=”animptext” id=”animptext”>This is just a text I want to change </div>

document.getElementById(“animptext”).innerHTML = standard;

Measurement – 5th graders

Kishor: I learned how to measure the width of tree using thread. We measured the length of the thread using a scale of 15cm. There was team work and we were able to complete the work in time. We measured using creepers as we didn’t have any material in the beginning.

Praveen: I learned to measure width of 5 trees and compared which tree is big, small etc.. We measured the perimeter of the first building.

Guru: I learned to measure length and breadth of the kitchen using thread.

Monika: I learned to measure the width of the tree.

Sharani: I learned how to measure the length and breadth of Anitha’s house and learned to  measure the width of the tree in cms

Ajay: I learned to measure the length and breadth of the prayer hall.

Pratap: I learned that our school has trees that have a circumference more than 350cm. The Gaya trees are big and there is a rain tree (Sirish / thoonga munji maram). I noticed that children don’t need to be given certain fixed instruments for measurement. They were able to find innovative ways to measure.

The first time we measured, it took everyone a long time to measure the circumference of a single tree. The next day, we gave the children a challenge to find five big trees. I noticed that they marked the first circumference measurement on the floor with chalk and thereafter, the rest of the measurements were marked in such a manner as to get a relative idea of the circumferences of different trees. The children were quick to note which tree was bigger. It was a satisfying learning and teaching experience for me.

Garden EBD

-Sundar and Arun

The children in Isaiambalam, had started an EBD on garden. There were already two two sets of steps(for creating beds, in order to plant) built using cement and bricks on the front side. The left side looked a little incomplete, The task was to complete a step on the left side of the structure. To do this the children had to dig out the excess soil to lay the first set of bricks.

To create the trench children had wired and made a straight line before digging. Before laying the bricks the leveling had to be checked, this was done using a tube level( a tube filled with water)

Then the cement was mixed to sand in a ratio of 1:3 along with required amount of water.

Brick work started.

Once the side steps where complete the children used the fraction kits to tell stories of proper fractions. Which they had used to while mixing cement of sand. They needed 7 pans of sand and 2 and 1/3 pans of cements.

Once the structure was complete the students had come up with values for the project. That were Respect, equality, and perseverance, and helping.

Then they started to estimate the build of materials and their cost. It started by calculating the number of bricks for 1m and expanding to number of meters they used it for. With this they started to tell multiplication and division stories.

 

 

 

 

3rd standard kids ambitions and their eagerness to learn things

Today I did an activity with 3rd standard kids in making a chick with colour papers and at the same time they learnt different shapes such as cylinder, triangle, square and rectangle. They all were so energetic and enthusiastic to see their chick at the end after doing all the cutting and sticking activities. They all learnt it so eagerly and were so happy to see what they made and ran out of the class to show it to their friends and shared their experience in doing it. In the second session the kids closed their eyes for few minutes and identified their goal and drew themselves showing how they would be when they achieve their goals. Some of their goal was to become a teacher and some wanted to become a police. It was so cute and proud to see our future leaders drawing themselves and their dreams to achieve things.

Poovizhi

Tessellation kit:

In Isai Ambalam school the 5th graders were able to identify the different shapes using the tessellation kit. They learnt the names of shapes like triangle which has 3 sides. They also learnt pentagon, hexagon, heptagon, octagon, nonagon, decagon. By using the shapes they were making different structures like fish, flower and some mandala structure. I learnt some new shapes names like heptagon, decagon and nonagon. It was interesting for me that I learnt something with the children.

Pratap.G

 

Hot Air Balloon:

The 5th graders started to build a hot air balloon in Isai Ambalam school. We started gathering  information how to make a hot air balloon. Then we watched some videos to make the hot air balloon. We found the reason why the hot air balloon fly towards the sky. The  we used tissue papers to make a hot air balloon. The things that are need to make a  hot air balloon are glue, tissue paper and binding wire and scissors. we learnt that the hot air moves towards the cold air in the sky and this is the reason why the hot air balloon move towards the sky. I felt the student were excited while doing it . While doing this activity I found the children were responsible for the materials and team work and helping each other and sharing the materials and everyone got equal opportunities for doing the activities.

Pratap.G

 

Reflecting on my Previous year 7th Graders

Today I went to Isai Ambalam with the plan of starting Gardening ( Sat school – every Saturday, interested children will come to learn/build something new). At the end of the session, Varsha ( Old student of IsaiAmbalam) came to me to say ‘Hi’. It was very pleasant for me to see her back.

Kameshwari, Valarkavi, Varsha ( From left to right )

The reason was, the choice was her’s and she chose to attend the Sat school. I thought the Sat school contributed something to her, which she felt valuable. Which made to come back and took part in all the activities.

Out of curiosity about my children,  I asked her “How everything is going?”.  She smiled and replied back saying ” We are rocking there”. She continued, ” Valarkavi, Kameshwari and I going to Gandhi school, where the teachers initially little hesitated to give admission ( I’m not sure of what was her interpretation) as we are from unregistered school. Later, they have been saying that the students from IsaiAmbalam are doing very well in all the subjects. Totally they have three sessions in 8th grade. Kameshwari got into section A, Valarkavi – section B, I’m in section C. We all three are really doing well there.”

I felt this was the answer to the question which I have been asking myself for the last few weeks. Which was why am I here.