Eighth Grade Spanish Creates Podcasts, Games
Eighth grade Spanish students recently worked on free choice projects to create different items to share with the class. Some projects included a card game with Spanish instructions to sharpen translation skills. Two podcasts were also recorded. One podcast was called La Hora del Té (Tea Time), in which students talked about their favorite topics, classes, sports, news, music, movies, and TV shows. The other podcast was titled Clasificaciones de Carne (Meat Ranking). The hosts showed steaks and meats to rank them on taste, juiciness, and appearance. During these sessions, students practice their Spanish speaking skills. They didn’t have a script; all the conversations were natural and fluent. An educational video about basketball was also created, along with a card game for the community to learn about basketball movements and rules. Students applied the learned grammar, oral, listening, and writing skills, as well as the use of technology.
– Ana Maria Restrepo, middle school Spanish teacher
Second Graders Add Gif-O-Graf Fun In Math
Second graders got to see math come to life thanks to a project in collaboration with the innovation team. In math class, students were challenged with writing and illustrating their own multiplication and division problems. Some examples include the number of buttons on gingerbread men and eggs per chicken. Next, we got to use the Gif-O-Graf machine to turn our problems into stop-motion animation. This machine takes many photographs and turns them into a video. The project culminated in students getting to meet the creators of the machine. Watch out, Pixar!
– The Second Grade Team in partnership with the Innovation Team (Annie Fuerst and Brit Conroy)
Sixth Grade Explore Book Genres
Did you know that we start sixth grade English class with eight minutes of choice reading? Why, you ask? First, sixth grade is a time of increased demand on a student’s executive functioning skill set. Being accountable for always having a choice book with them helps students to build personal responsibility for their learning. Second, this in-class routine and the corresponding expectations for reading outside of class create a habit of reading with consistency. The goal is also to build a positive association between reading and pleasure. Lastly, students have the opportunity to try different types of books to discover what they enjoy reading.
To help with that learning process, sixth grade English takes place in the library once a month, where librarians Ms. Sprung and Ms. Saidenberg introduce a new book genre. We discuss what distinguishes each genre and what sub-genres might exist within it. We present them with both contemporary and classic titles within the genre and make recommendations. Students have to pick up and open at least three books of the genre before checking one out. Students then have four weeks to finish reading the book independently and report back their findings on how they enjoyed this particular genre.
This month’s genre is . . . science fiction!
– Rebecca MacKillop, sixth grade English teacher
Magic Abounds in Fifth Grade English Class
This week, teachers were excited to introduce fifth graders to The Marvellers, a fantasy novel following the adventures of Ella Durand while she attends the Arcanum Institute, a magical school in the sky. Students began by receiving a scroll from Headmarvellers Skinner, Fuerst, and Sprung with the text of the letter offering Ella entrance into the Arcanum. They studied it carefully to look for magical elements that might appear later in the text.
Students also began learning about wikis and how we might develop one as a group to serve as a knowledge base to keep track of the many characters and magical elements in the novel. Students tried their hand at some wiki markup language and will soon be working together to collaborate on curating and organizing content with our class wikis.
– Vaniecia Skinner, fifth grade teacher, Annie Fuerst, director of innovation, and Amy Sprung, librarian
