707's Community Building Activity

Even though I'm sad to know this will be our last month with the College Champions program, I am so pleased with the progress I have observed from my students and extremely impressed with their participation and effort throughout this month's activity.  On the first lesson for Community, the students worked as a group to brainstorm a list of activities we could do in our community and they came up with A LOT of ideas.  All of their ideas were great but would have required an earlier start date or materials that are not available at this time.

After revising our plan, I explained to students that we would have to take it down a notch but still fulfill the requirement of working within our community participating in a meaningful activity.  As the students listed a new set of ideas, the words "Baldi" and "PSSA" came up a lot.  We decided as a group, that the students of Baldi needed some encouragement for the upcoming PSSA.  Therefore 707 created raps, chants, poems, and songs to be shared over the loud speaker during morning announcements for each day of testing.

Each table created their own chant, song, poem, or rap and presented their ideas to the entire class.  Compared to the start of College Champions, I noticed students becoming more comfortable speaking in front of the class.  Each table presented their chant to the class, the rest of the class provided feedback, and then each group revised their chant based on the suggestions.  We practiced the chants every Wednesday and began them yesterday with the start of testing.

Our first group, Alieu, Brittany, Jose, and Maab, met me in the office upon their arrival.  I brought my bongo to school because the students created a beat to go along with the chant.  Usually one of the students would giggle or be off beat during practice but during announcements they did a phenomenal job! (see video)  We could've been louder (according to the rest of 707), so today's group made sure to speak loudly and clearly into the microphone.  I'm excited to see how the other groups do throughout the next two weeks.

Even though this seems like such a small community project, the kids have exuded a sense of pride that I haven't seen before. This project has built a sense of community within our classroom which was my main goal when applying for this program.  I look forward to incorporating more lessons on community throughout the rest of the school year!

Room 108 Community Summary

The students in room 108 had an exciting time exploring their various communities. Through Lainey’s video, class discussions and a learning walk, they were able to understand the concept of belonging to several communities at once. After viewing Lainey’s video we discussed the various roles they play as a part of each community. The students brainstormed ways to help at home, at school, and in their neighborhood.

Our community activities focused on the first floor of our school and our classroom. We took a learning walk around our first floor community and discussed the rooms, offices and the classrooms as we walked by. The focus was on the people who make up the community and the roles they play. Students used their clipboards and took notes as they stopped at each office. When we arrived at the Guidance Counselor’s Office she took the time to talk to us about her role in our school community. Once we arrived back at the classroom, the students created a map of the first floor community.

As part of our lesson, we discussed ways to improve our school environment. Lainey’s video addressed each member’s impact on the community. Students reflected on whether or not their actions helped or hurt our classroom and school community. Students discussed ways to have a positive impact on our school and classroom community and created mini posters to show the steps they could take to improve our learning environment. 

Cramer Room 108 Perseverance Activities and Summary

 

While the theme of perseverance is ongoing in our classroom, for the month of February and part of March we focused on perseverance as a necessary element in completion of our science project on gravity and the center of mass. We later discussed perseverance in the context of two stories, one a Youtube video on Nick Vujicic and the other on Brave Irene as told by Al Gore (storylineonline,net). Later students revisited the status of their goals and assessed whether or not they had persevered and achieved or made improvements. 

The month of February started off with a science project on gravity and the center of mass. We watched Lainey’s video and discussed the fact that perseverance means that you don’t give up even when faced with obstacles. Each student indicated that they would persevere when faced with a difficult task. I explained how they would complete the project independently once it was modeled for them.

I introduced the gravity project and modeled the activity for the students. As part of this activity, we discussed gravity and the affect on balance when the center of mass is moved.  I demonstrated this concept whole class and later in small groups.  Just before the students started the project they were given a frog cut out with a hole in the head, a pedestal, a foam base, and paperclips (raftstore.net model EK000012). Students were told that the frog would appear to defy gravity (fly with legs in the air) once enough paperclips were positioned correctly. We discussed the perseverance required to position the paperclips to achieve the desired results.

Once the activity was modeled for the students they worked (4 at a time) to arrange the frog on the pedestal and position the paperclips. While some students achieved success more quickly than others, I began to hear “I can’t do it” and “I need help”. I again demonstrated how to add the paperclips and the students continued the project. Once each child had completed the project, we discussed the challenges students encountered and whether or not they persevered to complete the project. Some students admitted that they had not completed the project on their own because they felt it was too difficult while others stated that although it was difficult at first they kept trying until the frogs legs were off the desk. The students that completed the project independently were quite pleased with themselves.

Continuing with the theme of perseverance we watched the YouTube video on Nick Vujicic and the reading of Brave Irene by Al Gore. We discussed the obstacles Nick Vujicic and Irene faced. We then discussed the fact that Nick is a real, living human being while Irene was a fictional character. We also discussed the fact that none of us face the physical challenges encountered by Nick. We considered how it would be easy for him to give up, but instead he found reasons to keep going. We also discussed how Irene kept going by thinking about all of her mother’s hard work…she did not want to let her down. This activity helped the students to recognize the importance of finding reasons to keep going instead of looking for excuses to give up.

Lastly, the students revisited the goals they set at the beginning of the year and reflected on their progress. I recorded some of the students as they discussed how they achieved these goals or made progress towards them. During this time it was necessary to clarify what was meant by achievement of the goal. Some students confused goal achievement with goal progress so we discussed the difference.

Overall the lessons went well. Some students are still struggling with overcoming obstacles to complete assignments. I continue to encourage them to finish even if others finish before them. Often they are discouraged because they did not finish in the time allotted, but they are all pleased with themselves when they experience the feeling of accomplishment that comes from perseverance.

More photos and videos to follow. 

Here is Cramer's room 212 community project

My students' always look forward to Lainey's videos that she posts and the new topic that we are going to discuss for the month. To start the topic about community, we talked about the different types of community that kids/adults can belong too such as schools, neighborhood, the after school programs, the boys and girls club, etc. For school, we talked about how they are helping the community during lunch time because they do compost and recycling on their own to help the environment with waste. Also we talked about how they are a classroom community where they work together as a team to think and share ideas, complete projects/games, and work together to achieve goals. Then we talked about the neighborhood and how they can improve their neighborhood to make a change and the students came up with ideas such as planting a garden, cleaning up the park, or donate clothes to a shelter. For our community project the students designed bird houses to help feed birds in their neighborhood. We used reusable materials to create the bird houses so they understood the concept of reduce, reuse, and recycle. The students enjoyed decorating the bird houses with stickers to hang up in a tree. It was a successful project for the students to understand that a small difference  is a great way to help the neighborhood. It will brighten up the world little by little with this small gesture to nature. Overall, the students enjoyed the project and they are looking forward to meeting Lainey soon!