Charlotte helps to teach about measuring

Charlotte is odd for a chinchilla. She spends a good part of the day during our school day up. She gets let out of her cage when I get to school. Charlotte evades capture until just before lunch. Most of that time she uses to find a nice place to curl up and take a chinchilla nap.

The other morning though she was causing more problems that normal and got sent to jail early. She was not happy! She was awake and watching over my lesson on measurement. Charlotte sat hunched down in front of her hut pouting. Chinchilla are excellent at pouting!

I referred back to her as we discussed how to estimate. We decided that she was about 3 inches tall while she was hunched down.

Immediately she sat up to a half crouch. We figured that she did not like our estimate and wanted to be taller! So we now estimated her height at about 4 inches.

Nope! Not good enough for Charlotte! She stretched up tall as she could and put her little nose in the air. Chuckling at her we said she was probably around 8 in tall now.

Still that was not good enough for her! Charlotte jumped up to the next level of her cage. We informed her that was cheating and we would not estimate how tall she was anymore!

It did lead to a good discussion about how the position of what you are measuring can change how tall they are.

Teachable Moments

I love a good teachable moment!

"Ms LeRoy, how long until lunch?" they wonder.

"Well I am glad you asked!" Then I start in on a lesson on time. Don't I teach time to my kids? Well of course I do, but using a real question that the students are asking I am to meet the two main criteria for learning: sense and meaning. Two criteria that according to David A. Sousa are required for long term storage of information.

Meaning
Students need a reason to learn, actually we all do. We call that reason, meaning. To remember the information, it has to have meaning to the student.  Reasons can come from internally or externally. Internal reason include: wanting to do improve their skills, curiosity, or wanting a challenge. External reasons for wanting to learn include: pleasing teacher or parents, passing a test, or wanting to take the easy way out. Research tends to support that internal reasons are more effective, so take advantage of them.

Wanting to know how much longer it is until you eat is an internal reason to learn.Check!

Sense:
It also has to make sense to the student. If it does not make sense, if they can not understand the information then they are not going to remember it.

Being able to look at the clock and experience the passage of time help kids to make sense of the information. Check!

I look for teachable moments whenever I can. It might be to review a concept we have learned or will be an activity I can refer back to when it is time for a lesson on that concept.