6 Videos in 1 Month!

Before the CRCT break last week, Annie and I wrote down the students' ideas for videos, sorted those ideas into groups and let the students choose a first and second choice of which video they want to participate in making. Last Friday during a CRCT break, Annie and the students arranged everyone into 6 video groups. The entire ICS 5th grade is participating - fantastic!

Even better, the other 5th grade teacher, Ms. Hamilton and Annie figured out they could let the students split into different groups than they are normally in during the afternoons. So now, 5A and 5B distinctions are gone and students are working with classmates they may not have been in class with this year. In my opinion, this shows how great the teachers are and how excited they are to have the 5th graders working together in this way.

The video project groups are:

1. Interviews with 6th Grade
2. Friends
3. A Day in the life of Recess
4. Advice for 4th Grade
5. Memoirs
6. Digital Tour of ICS

Our initial brainstorming, planning & scheduling sessions took place yesterday & today, and I learned some important lessons:

First lesson, it takes a long time to get the students settled down and focused!! I'm so used to working with adults, I often forget that the students are new to many of these ideas & new to working within these groups. Explaining one concept can take longer than I anticipate, especially when the normal kid silliness, teasing and side conversations are also occurring.

Because of that, I learned my second lesson, which is that I need some good one liners to get the students' attention. I know that simply shushing them doesn't work; plus, they're old enough where I can say something (hopefully) quickly and semi-quietly that should get them to stop the monkey business. Annie is really good at it. I should have been taking notes. We'll see! Tomorrow the actual video taping begins...