The second grade math group culminated a unit on money by creating their own pretend store. Each student drew 6 items on little pieces of paper, and labeled them with their prices. The prices had to be less than $10. Students were encouraged to choose prices that they could comfortably and automatically compute change for.…
In the second grade class, we recently started a writing unit on biographies. Students chose an African American figure that they wanted to learn more about. I gave students texts about the person they chose, so that research could begin. There are many good biographies written on a second grade level, but they are not…
Ten minutes before dismissal today, I was down in my office in the basement when suddenly I heard footsteps clattering into my office. Renata poked her head in: “You are cordially invited to a musical mask march, upstairs, right now!” Who could resist such an invitation, especially at the end of a long day? Upstairs our…
Students in Middle School are learning about their connection to the world. Events take place around them, or to them, and understanding that they have control over these forces is new. In my 5-6th grade class, we try to leverage this desire to connect whenever we can. We use it in Social Studies for students…
Every since we came back to school in January, my class has been thinking about writing stories. We started with a diagram Michael came up with, showing a story’s beginning, middle, and end as the food going into a duck, the food being digested, and the food coming out the other end. Everyone loved the…
My K-1 class dove into learning about germs in the past couple of weeks in order to become “experts” and present their learning at Chicago Friends School community health day. Community health day is where each class teaches the others about some aspects of how to stay healthy. We began with an activity where, unbeknownst…