Be FAB, Abstractions & Algorithms

As we ease into the new school year my fifth graders were busy sharing their ideas about what a positive and collaborative learning environment looks like. They are the experts after all. They get it! They have been doing this for years now. 

They started with a brainstorming activity before using a Google form to share their most important ideas. Since the sixth graders wrote their FAB Constitution last year they had the option to discuss, debate and add amendments after a quick review of our preamble and articles. It was unanimous in all 4 sixth grade classrooms to move forward with the work they had already completed. Our FAB Constitution is based on student voice and a clever acronym to remember to be FAB!

An example brainstorm is below. These are responses shared by groups in one of our classes. You can also see a signed copy of the FAB Constitution from one of my fifth grade classes. 

FAB Notes	FAB Constitution

After learning how to find their seats using the Flippy Do, students continued to explore abstraction as they chose two representations to write a secret word or their name before organizing it onto construction paper for our binary walls. Students used an uppercase alphabet decoder to create their words. If words were completed correctly they were randomly placed around the room for view. If not, students had the option to make corrections and resubmit their work. They always do. 

These "secret" coded words will be used in an upcoming challenge. Eve where students have the option to find a specific word for a chance at an extra raffle ticket. There first optional challenge was to decipher two bytes which I had painted on my toes. :)

In sixth grade we have continued our unplugged journey creating and writing code for human robots thanks to an idea shared with me by Michael Penta. Each class created binary keys to communicate the description of a specific lego brick. They identified color, height (thickness), as well as the width and length based on the number of pegs across and down. Of course we had to orient the bricks first to make sure we were describing the same thing. All bricks at the start and for description purposes must be placed in portrait view to the left of the base brick before we do anything.

After much practice with identifying bricks we moved on to building a common language to describe how the robot needed to behave before observing, practicing, writing, and executing code.

Binary Brick	Practice Code
Finished Example: