Global Math Week & Exploding Dots

Being the Global Math Week where millions are working on Exploding Dots,we introduced the Upper Elementary kids to the exploding dots and then we had explosions in the classroom. Kapow!



They quickly picked up the various machines and had fun exploding dots. They were pleasantly surprised to see the 10-->1 machine gave the same code as the number. The brain machines are churning now..

Some kids logged on for the Exploding Dots Islands and quickly worked their way through them.  

Others used vertical spaces to write and work out. Some in teams, and some individually.

Another 5th grader experimented with 1>1 dot and found its an infinite loop - Hence the "infinity" symbol in her notebook.

Another creative soul, a 5th grader, wrote an adventure story with the exploding dot experience as a background "Help Crack the Code...the Lab counts on you!"

Waiting for more insights from the Lower Elementary group and the 6th graders. This is another innovative way to learn Maths in a exciting, thinking way.  Begone ol' boring technique ridden mysterious math. Welcome to FUN!
 #gmw2018 #explodingdots

Ecology Class with A Difference - Class 7

Today we learned all about watersheds and a specific watershed.

Well let’s ask ourselves a question. What is a watershed? A watershed is a landform/landscape that helps collect water. There are parts of a watershed, a ridge, where the water separates  usually it is the top of a high slope and on the top the water goes in different directions. Furrows are lower areas were the water goes through. And last but not the least, the stream. It is the runoff of the water. Now of course our endpoint. It is where the water is collected by the watershed and it ends there, nothing happens with it. There are components in a watershed but not all of them have the same ones.

We did a nice exercise where we crumpled paper and marked what we thought were ridges and furrows. Then we sprinkled water to see if our guess was right.

Next, we studied Chennai.  In our Chennai city we have  4 big watershed but that doesn’t mean we only have 4 watershed, we have many micro watersheds. But we really have 4 big ones. And 3 of them are named after the river that passes through it. The 4 watersheds are Cooum, Adyar, Kosatheliyar, and one that is where our school is, Pallikaranai. And what makes them seperated? The ridges, it’s like their border. Then we talked about the components of the Adyar watershed which are Eris, wetlands, farmlands, forests, lakes, and storm water drainages. We took chits and then opened it to look what place was it written on there and that place would be on the map. 

And we finally found out that the Adyar watershed wasn’t a healthy watershed. And an Eri was turned into a ground for motorbikes! I don’t think that is healthy.

Finally we took a walk around the Adyar Poonga to see different watershed and parts of them. As it had been raining, we easily saw furrows and ridges with water running through. That was cool! Ofcourse we saw other stuff - a large and a small snail, mushrooms - stuff that reminds us that we are really blessed to be having such a class in such a wonderful setting.

Science Investigation - Growing your own plants

Grade 3 started conducted investigations on plants as a part of the Small Science curriculum.

The children had to first go find seeds in their kitchen.  We informed the parents through Whatsapp about this task, telling them to show the children the various seeds, but not to give away which would sprout and which wouldn't.

Children brought various kinds of seeds - moong, tuar, chana, methi, sago, coriander, mustard, apple seeds, lemon seeds, sundals, wheat, rice (processed), chia seeds etc.  We "planted" these in paper cups with damp cotton wool.  It was important to write down each child's name and the name of the plant on each cup for identification purpose. There was an interesting discussion on the names of each seed in Tamil, English or Hindi.

As a class, we also took three large trays and planted a "farm" - 3 different kinds of seeds - mustard, moong and chana. So children could see how a large number of plants grow.

The children drew the seeds for the 1st day in their workbooks.  Most children are resistant about drawing - they feel their artistic skills will be judged. So it was important to reiterate that the drawing had to be accurate, rather than beautiful.

As many children didn't know the names of various pulses and grains, Teacher Murshida bought various kinds of these and made little ziploc bags with identifying labels.  This really helped the children. 

The children observed their plants over the next few days. There was not much on the 1st day. But on Day 2, kids could see small shoots emerging.  We "sacrificed" some seeds - I opened up the seed to show them the shoot inside. They were really excited!! On Day 3 hey also observed how some plants had grown big, some were just sprouting, some were not sprouting at all and some had developed fungus. I made them smell the cups too - they hated the rotting smell. 

On Saturday, we had no school for children, but did have a Moms' Meeting. Kids instructed their moms to water their plants, and to take pictures using cell phones for the kids to observe the changes. 

On Monday we examined each cup and discussed the futher changes. Some plants had grown beautifully long, but thin.  Some were completely rotten. Some were the same. 

I asked them to guess why. "We gave too much water." "I forgot to water." We discussed how the rice they brought wouldn't sprout because it had already been processed. The date seed would take a long time to sprout.  The apple seed had actually sprouted but then it died.  

The moong had developed beautiful roots and root hair. As they've been working on the Parts of the Root in their Elementary Montessori curriculum, they could identify the root, root cap, root hair etc.

We wrote down our observations.  The children had insightful comments - about whether the plant had sprouted or not, what was its colour, how large was the stem, how many leaves it had etc.

The workbook question which asks children to compare and contrast (2 similarities and 2 differences) is often a googly for kids. The concept of what is "similar" is sometimes hard for them to understand - whereas they can quickly note the differences.

So this time I put the large "farm" trays in front of them for this question. We observed and found 2 similarities between the moong and methi in one classroom, and moong and chana in the other.  The direct observation and group discussion really helped children understand the activity.   The children noted that the horse gram took longer to sprout, the moong sprouts were longer and had many leaves.

This is a wonderful curriculum - which teaches children important science skills - experimentation, investigation and observation.  They also learn that science is not fixed in stone, but evolving. That there can be "wrong" guesses - and that's perfectly okay! Its a mindset that Small Science develops, which will help children in the long run.