Transitioning to a new school has been way harder than I thought it would be. The most difficult part being the confusion and learning curve that comes with any new adventure. I've now been working here almost two months and despite an amazing staff, who is always ready to help me, there are still so many things I just don't know. As a result, the OCD perfectionist side of me is going a little crazy.
I'm used to being so organized and so ahead of every step. Yet for some reason, no matter how hard I attack that "to do" list, its never getting any shorter. I guess that's typical for any teacher though. However, I hope I can knock some of those bigger items off soon. I'll keep you all posted.
Anyways... I wanted to give you just a sneak peek into my plan for the year. As someone who loves organization, was trained to backwards plan, and luckily has a partner teacher who loves to do so as well, I already have a rough idea of how I'm going to attempt this whole modified expedition at a blended learning school.
This year we're going to create a blended expedition or blended style project titled "Who are we?" As a class we're going to think about that question throughout our learning.
We're going to explore...
who we are as Catholics...
who we are as Americans...
and who we are as members of our families and our community.
We're going to look at our heritage, our history, our influence on both society and the environment, as well as the role we play as students at our school.
It's going to be a study where, we look at how we use what we know and what we learn to understand who we are. I'm hoping its awesome.
To kick off the study and overall expedition... we began looking at who our students think they are now.
We looked at famous self portraits by different artists, including Frida Kala's "Self Portrait with Monkey" and Van Gogh's self portraits. We discussed symmetry and how artists often draw through the use of symmetry. They learned how to draw themselves as cartoons and created their own self portrait.
We then discussed how one can also share who they are through more than just pictures, but the use of words. We described ourself in detail through the writing, "I am" poems. Its amazing what insight they provide into the minds of who these kids think they are. I posted two, although I changed their names and just kept their words.
Our next step is to work on learning about where specifically in the world we live and how it relates to the rest of the world geographically. Then we're going to create timelines of our lives and discuss becoming members of the church through baptism. I'll post more soon.
Until then check back later this week for a post on our field trip to an apple farm! I can't wait to pick apples and make applesauce with the kids. It's going to be great! :)
No comments:
Post a Comment