For the past couple of weeks our third graders have been working on saving New York City. They have been tasked with creating a blueprint for Manhattan that will stop the decay and destruction that has been causing plant and animal life to die at alarming rates. This blueprint encompasses plans for future housing, transportation, food sources, education, religion, government, health, community life, and the natural environment. Continue reading Third Graders Save New York City: Is it Real or Not Real?→
My Physics 10 (a trimester-long class exploring E&M topics for 10th graders who haven’t yet studied mechanics) was wrapping up some extensions to an electrophorus activity. They were already pros at explaining and predicting electrostatic phenomena, but this activity gave them yet another way to test out their thinking, practice their charge diagrams, and add depth and subtlety to their understanding. (I adapted instructions and ideas from this activity that I found in a quick search and that I had left for students last trimester when I needed to miss a day of their class.) Continue reading What if we didn’t finish all of the questions?→
Young mathematicians need to be able to “Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others”, according to the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. This philosophy aligns with LREI’s progressive educational goals of placing an emphasis on student voice, and creating a classroom culture of engaging student-to-student discussions. Students take on the role of leaders who believe that they can actively defend their own mathematical ideas, and help shape the ideas of their colleagues in a supportive, nurturing environment. Continue reading Student-to-Student Mathematical Discussion in the Classroom→
One of the best things about working in a school like LREI is having control over my own curriculum. I am free to change and tweak things as I go. Last year I decided to make a change in my 2nd grade curriculum. In the past I had done a Caldecott study with my students. We would learn what the award is about, and read some winning titles and honor titles from years past. We discussed the art and criteria at length and the culminating event was the 2nd graders voting on their “Caldecott of Caldecotts”. This was a fun and interactive study, and while there was great enthusiasm and nothing wrong with it, I felt I needed to shift the study. Continue reading Changing Up The Curriculum→
This is a guest post from Monica Snellings (@InquiringMonica). The original posts can be found here and here.
Mark Silberberg, middle school principal at LREI (and a big supporter of Inquiring Minds), integrated our lesson, My Future Self, into a class on values. The student’s schedule for this class is only once a week so getting 5th graders to retain their focus and stick with this provocative thought experiment took some ingenuity on his part. Continue reading Considering Their Future Selves→
It’s November in NYC, I have been feeling disempowered, confused, and angry with so much about our country and it feels so large and overwhelming. So I brought it back to something tangible. It’s called WHAT CAN I DO? Continue reading What can I do?→
The eighth grade social justice project “Choosing to Participate” is a cornerstone of the eighth grade humanities curriculum. Through this project students study those who have stood up for justice by becoming/being active citizens themselves. Continue reading A Collaboration for Social Innovation→
Every music director has made the following exclamation either out loud or silently while lying awake at night: “Our ensemble needs to experience playing music together after all notes and rhythms have been mastered.” Why? This is when the magic of playing music together happens. We want our students to experience how the joy and art of collective music-making is taken to a heightened state when our minds no longer need to be concerned with “what note is that?” or “how does that rhythm go?” What’s more, when students can play their music effortlessly we can put our energy towards exploring and practicing the many nuances necessary for bringing the music to life. Too often directors and students spend their valuable class time going over things that should be tackled before or after a rehearsal. Continue reading Progressive Approach to Practicing: HS Wind Ensemble’s Peer Evaluations→
With our eighth graders off in DC (#lreidc) exploring memorials and monuments and making connections to their humanities inquiry and the seventh graders in Williamsburg (#lreiwb) doing research for their Colonial Museum exhibits, our fifth and sixth graders have gotten to stretch their wings a bit in our middle school spaces. Our fifth grade civilization simulation is just getting under way and sixth graders are using insights gained from the religions they created to begin to explore the impact of religion on life in Europe and the Middle East during the Middle Ages. Our fifth and sixth grade student reps have also been hard at work planning for the activities that they will run at this weekend’s Halloween Fair.
In Fifth Grade Adolescent Issues, we have started a project that asks students to envision their future selves that we’re doing with our friends at Inquiring Minds (@InquiringMonica and @InquiringDK). We started this process by exploring some general thoughts and ideas about the future. We will then will take a trip back into the past as students research people that they admire to tease out qualities and characteristics that they would like to cultivate in themselves. Students will then use these insights to design a possible future for themselves. Continue reading My Future Self→
Once upon a time, in my tenth year as a music specialist, I was teaching a class of 3rd and 4th graders. We were about to record a 10 minute piece based on what we learned about form, instrumentation, dynamics, and playing together as a group.
Because the piece would be created on the spot, I thought it was important to review the“frameworks for improvisation” I had developed. They were already being used with success by colleagues at other schools. I was eager to try it out on my students.
There was a particularly imaginative and impulsive child who was quite vocal during our preparation. After class he stayed behind to tell me, “Sheri, I really understand why we needed to go over the rules but sometimes I just need the noise.” Continue reading Framework for Improvisation→
The Library Department is about to host a NYSAIS conference with the EdTech department around the importance of collaboration between librarians and technology teachers. As the field of school librarianship continues to grow and change, librarians are discovering that a successful partnership with technology faculty is not just a good idea but vital to creating young digital citizens who know how to evaluate information, protect privacy, and form healthy online communities. It should be easy, but sometimes we are our own worst enemies when it comes to sharing curriculum and classrooms. We are often too quick to say, “But I can’t give up time to collaborate, or I’ll never get through my curriculum!” or “Our schedules just don’t match, it’s hopeless to try and plan something,” or “But I love teaching this topic, I don’t know if I want to share it with anyone!” These all too human responses remind me of a blog post I wrote for Library Lost & Found about giving it all away. Even though it can sometimes feel counter intuitive, the only way to improve, advance and grow is to share, share, share. When we give it all away, we quickly discover that we get it all back–with interest!
Am I able to check in with which each of my students with enough regularity that I know what their needs are? And more importantly, are my students able to reflect upon and articulate their needs themselves? Up until recently I’ve relied upon assessing their work at certain points in a project or class time check-ins whenever possible to keep each of my students’ needs on my radar. For the student who is more of a quiet learner and less comfortable interacting and expressing themselves it is often a bit of a puzzle for me to determine their needs. Continue reading Do We Know What Our Students’ Needs Are?→
At our first divisional faculty meeting, we used some provocative insights from Warren Berger‘s A More Beautiful Question to examine some of our familiar routines and practices through the lens of our important summer learning experiences. We wondered together about how might these powerful experiences reframe how we look at the familiar so as to make it seem new again and open for inquiry. Continue reading When the familiar becomes this sort of alien world→
