Despite our short weeks of school, we have been having a ton of fun while learning in our 5/6 ETC class! Our primary focus so far has been on building our capacity to work as a team. Class discussions were centered around the importance of being able to collaborate and communicate effectively as part of a team- something that does not come easily to many 10 and 11 year old students- let alone adults!

The class participated in two Lego challenges- one of which was to build a duck and the second was to solve a logic puzzle. Through these challenges the class was able to reflect and come up with some pretty deep thoughts surrounding group work:

” We all had the same problem to solve but each of us came up with our own solutions. I think this means that there are often many ways to tackle the same problem”

” The first challenge was more comfortable. The second challenge forced us to decide who would be responsible for different jobs within our group. The problem solving wasn’t just about figuring out the logic puzzle, it was problem solving about how we would work together”

Our next step was to create a class rubric that we would utilize while working as teams. The kids generated the categories and expectations first as individuals, then as small groups. They drove the learning and the actual creation of the rubric. We will revisit the rubric next week as we tackle more mini- challenges. They agreed that being part of the process helped them understand the expectations more deeply and also made them realize that they all know what they want from each other as a teammate- but that they weren’t always living and breathing their own expectations.

You can read more about these last few ETC classes on your own child’s blog! Students were asked to reflect on these experiences. We know they would love to read your comments!

-Gev. Kimmel, McAdams & Noorlander