Blog Entry #4

     Ms. Mitari keeps her students engaged through many activities  in order to teach her students in a way where they are able to retain information to the best of each students ability. I can see how activities within the classroom are important as it allows students to remain active and engaged when it comes to learning new materials or concepts. There are three examples of activities that I will talk about that goes over how Ms. Mitari kept her students engaged. 

    For an English assignment, the class did an investigative analysis on the death of King Tut. Throughout the week we learned about King Tut's death. Ms. Mitari used a textbook, an essay, and informational videos that discussed the details surrounding King Tut's death. At the end of the week she posed the question to the students on whether or not King Tut died by murder or by natural causes. This gave the students an opportunity to write an argumentative essay, where they had to pick a side on if King Tut was murdered or died naturally. 

    On that same day, Ms. Mitari gave the students an opportunity to have an in-class debate, where students chose sides of the classroom based on how they believe King Tut died. While the majority of the class had decided that King Tut died of natural causes, it was fun to see the students have a discourse between the students who disagreed with them. With what the students gathered from this debate and the information provided, Ms. Mitari had the students begin their argumentative essays. I enjoyed reading these essays as the students wrote them throughout the next week, as Ms. Mitari allowed me to give feedback and revisions for the students essays. 

    For a math activity, Ms. Mitari used a kid-friendly website game that was similar to the game Among Us. For this math assignment, the students were learning how to add and subtract decimals. The game that Ms. Mitari used had students answer questions pertaining to adding and subtracting decimals and if they had gotten the answer correct then they would get points and move onto the next question. These points allowed the students to do activities within the game, activities similar to Among Us and the points also allowed the students to launch investigations to find the impostors. 

    Most students are very familiar with the game Among Us, so engagement with this math activity was very high! The students would get excited when discussing who might be the impostor and at times Ms Mitari had to remind the students to keep the volume level down. Five people were randomly selected to be impostors and I myself actually ended up being an impostor! But because I was unfamiliar with how the game worked, I launched an investigation as soon as I got a correct answer and apparently this is suspicious when doing it early in the game, so the students immediately voted for me as an impostor. Sadly, I was one of the first to be ejected from the space ship! Altogether this was a very fun activity for me and the students and I was able to see that all students were engaged when playing this game. 

    For a science activity, Ms. Mitari had the students create an igloo for a "penguin" that was made out of a penguin ice mold. The purpose of this activity was to show how different materials have different rates of absorbing heat. Ms. Mitari placed the students into groups of three were they had to discuss ideas on how they would build there igloo and what materials they would use. The materials were provided by Ms. Mitari which some of the materials were felt, aluminum foil, plastic, bubble wrap, etc. Ms. Mitari gave a challenge to the students on which group would have their penguin last the longest. 

    It was great to see the students rough drafts of their igloos and how they utilized the materials that they were given. I believe letting the students be in groups really helped these students with their engagement on this activity. I helped the students by giving them some ideas on how to construct their igloo, and giving hints on what material would work best for their project. At the end of this activity students were able to understand how different materials absorb heat be examining how their ice penguin interacted with their igloo.