Odd Squad LIVE!

(can be printed)

Key Learning Areas:

Numbers and Number Operations – Counting, number relations and operations; Geometry and Spatial Sense – Two and three dimensional shapes and their attributes, spatial and mapping skills; Measurement – Length, capacity, weigh, time, money and temperature; Data – Collecting, organizing, presenting and analyzing data; Algebraic Thinking – patterns, working with expressions and equations, and deductive reasoning

Pre-performance Discussion of Odd Squad LIVE!

Odd Squad is an Emmy Award winning series about a spy organization run by kids that investigates anything strange, weird and especially odd. Each episode follows kid agents as they track down villains, stop odd creatures and help people with odd conditions like The Jinx or The Sing-Alongs. Odd Squad is a little Men In Black for kids, mixed with Airplane and elements of Get Smart. Also embedded in each episode is a math lesson aimed at kids 4 to 8, leading to the expression: Odd is the problem, math is the solution.

Odd Squad LIVE! is based on the PBS Kids series, Odd Squad, created by Tim McKeon and Adam Peltzman with original music by Paul Buckley. It is produced by The Fred Rogers Company and Sinking Ship Entertainment. Major funding for Odd Squad is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting & the U.S. Department of Education.

Discussion Tools

Taken from “Visible Thinking,” Project Zero Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Think/Puzzle/Explore: A Thinking Routine that Sets the Stage for Deeper Inquiry

This routine activates prior knowledge, generates ideas and curiosity and sets the stage for deeper inquiry. It helps students take stock of what they already know and then pushes students to identify puzzling questions or areas of interest to pursue. Teachers can get a good sense of where students are on a conceptual level. By returning to the thinking routine after seeing the performance, they can identify development and progress. The third question is useful in helping students lay the groundwork for independent inquiry.

The class can engage in the routine together to create a group list of ideas. Between each phase of the routine that is with each question adequate time needs to be given for individuals to think and identify their ideas. You may even want to have students write down their individual ideas before sharing them as a class. In some cases, you may want to have students carry out the routine individually on paper or in their heads before the group discussion.

Keep a visible record of the student ideas. If you are working in a group, ask students to share some of their thoughts and collect a broad list of ideas about the topic on chart paper. Or students can write their individual responses on post-it notes and later add them to a class list of ideas.

Note that it is common for students to have misconceptions at this point—include them on the list so all ideas are available for consideration after further study. Students may at first list seemingly simplistic ideas and questions. Include these on the whole class list but push students to think about things that are truly puzzling or interesting to them.

1. What do you think you know about this topic?

2. What questions or puzzles do you have?

3. What does the topic make you want to explore?

Post-performance Discussion of Odd Squad Live!

These thinking routines to aide classroom discussion are from “Artful Thinking,” Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Helpful terms to use when doing the routines are 1) observe which means to describe how something appears, 2) elaborate which means to expand on something in detail, and 3) interpret which means to explain what something means.

I SEE/I THINK/I WONDER Thinking Routine

This routine is for talking about why aspects of Odd Squad LIVE! look the way they do. Ask students to make an observation about an aspect of the performance and follow up with what they think might be going on or what they think this observation might mean. Encourage students to back up their interpretation with reasons. Ask the students to think more deeply about what makes them wonder.

What did you see?

What did you think about that?

What did it make you wonder?

Student responses to the routine can be written down and recorded so that a class chart of observations, interpretations and wonderings are listed for all to see and return to during the course of study.

ELABORATION GAME Thinking Routine

This is a thinking routine to encourage your students to develop careful observations and descriptions.

As a group, observe and describe several different sections of the performance.

One person identifies a specific section of the performance and describes what he or she sees. Another person elaborates on the first person’s observations by adding more detail about the section. A third person elaborates further by adding yet more detail, and a fourth person adds yet more. Observers: Only describe what you see. Hold off giving your ideas about the performance until the last step of the routine.

After four people have described a section in detail, someone else identifies a new section of the performance and the process starts over. Four more people take turns making increasingly detailed observations. Then the process starts over again, and so on, until everyone in the group has had a turn or all sections of the performance has been described.

After the performance has been fully described, as a group, discuss some of your ideas about it. For example, what do you think is going on? (And what did you observe that makes you say that?).