The KZE explorers had a busy week.
In Math, students had a chance to explore/play with many different kinds of buttons. They needed to describe the buttons with words such as “red,” “little,” “2 holes,” “smooth,” etc. They were asked to sort buttons into groups according to these terms. 
This is a foundational math skill that helps students to identify common attributes and begin to see different ways to match and sort objects. In essence, it is a methodology for making sense of key mathematical understanding.
Similarly, during the introduction to our year long unit of “How the World Works”, students were given a picture of people riding bicycles and another picture of a single bicycle wheel. They used a visible thinking strategy titled “I See, I think, I wonder…” to describe what they observed.
Here are the highlight of our conversation:
- “I see a wheel, it is a bicycle wheel”
- “it is round, it is a circle”
- “what did you notice about the circle?”
- “it goes around and around and around”
- “it is a cycle”
- “what is a cycle?”
- “a cycle can be a circle”
- “a cycle can be a rectangle, or a triangle. as long as it doesn’t end”
- “it is repeating”
- “can you think of anything that can be called a cycle?”
- “the weather”
- “recess”
- “writing”
- “the earth rotating”
- “the class schedule”, “the day of the week”, “and the month of the year”
Through the conversation, students made a leap from our picture to a basic understanding of the concept of a cycle. We were able to make connections to their daily experiences and, like in math, formed a core concept that will serve our ongoing theme of how things work.