And We're Off...

Mr. Bill's Crew is in full swing for 2012-13.  Here are a few glimpses of what we've been doing the first few days as we get back into school mode.

Getting To Know Each Other

One of the activities our crew did on the first day to get acquainted and develop teamwork was the "Dot Game" (done with stars here).  Students did not know what color dot they had on their forehead (there were five different colors). They had to group themselves together by color without using their voice.  We then repeated the activity with animal stickers and students couldn't use color as a hint.  

Thinking Through Behavior Expectations

Students note their thinking about what appropriate behaviors/attitudes look like and sound like.  

Exploring Our Room

We also explored the classroom from top to bottom, making note of what we observed and what we had questions about.

Starting Our Days

Each day starts with Morning Meeting.  We circle up, greet each other in some unique way, have a student share on a relevant topic, do an activity, and read a message.  On Mondays, our meeting is different--we drum, an important personal growth and unity-building ritual at Renaissance.    

Starting Our First Expedition

As we got back into the concept of expeditionary learning, we discussed our learning from expeditions in previous years, we set up our notebooks for collecting thinking and data, and we engaged in a problem-solving activity that requited careful observation of details and cooperative skills:

We then launched our first expedition of the year: "Let's Get Down to Earth." We began with a silent gallery walk in which students recorded what they noticed and wondered about photos and documents showing natural disasters involving the Earth's crust.  This led into the introduction of the first case study: "Hunka' Hunka' Burnin' Earth."