Teachers Matter

Lots of connections through the use of creative strategies and activities.  Here are a few that caught my eye.
Matter, matter everywhere and it was neat to see the progression of the learning from Kinder to Fifth grade.  Note...

Mrs. Proffer's current Process and Product display highlighting several creative ways to teach three states of matter, ie solid, liquid, and gas. We discussed her unit for some time and I was fascinated by the Pinterest activity she found online.  Using balloons in various bags on student bodies to simulate attributes of these states.  Cool.  This simulation, coupled with the strategy Art Talk, the use of music, and student created models using cereal solidified the learning in a variety of ways, and most importantly, per the teacher, students seemed to "get it".  She followed the learning processes with a paper/pencil assessment and from what I saw, yep, they did indeed "get it".

It was interesting to see how the concept of
matter, ie applying heat to solids for example, was carried over to 3rd grade and Mrs. Absher's P and P display.  Great conversation around this lesson.  She had a truly awesome student created art display, used the strategy of donkey to reinforce vocabulary, and ensured students recorded their observations, as well as reflected on their learning.
 

And finally, I caught a bit of Mrs. Matetich's  5th grade lesson on classifying matter. As last reported, Thomas Edison was going to "visit" the class, but instead Mr. Steve, from the BBC show Deadly 60, was on hand.  Mr. Steve explained to the class that his next assignment would be working around electric eels for an upcoming show and he really wanted to know more about matter and its ability to either conduct or insulate electric energy...something important for him to know I'd imagine.  He was at HP in order to get a bit of help.  How cool is that?  Seriously, a fun way to kick the off the lesson and the hand-on exploration to follow.  Thanks Mr. Steve and Mrs. Matetich too!

Expository Pillar from Empowering Writers

Role play, or rather the use of story, seemed to be in high use this week  everywhere.  Brief hooks to reel those students into the lesson.  Mr. Gay's second grade math class was working on all things word problems before moving on to fact families, with active student participation at the board and at their desks with their own fact family castles - facts not part of the family went to the dungeon!  He was in character as King Gay, even as his lovely assistant Princess Read, moved about the room helping students with clarification.  In fact, it was not a day later that Princess Read had morphed into Sherlock Holmes for a well implemented third grade language arts lesson on expository text features.  She was in full character as students searched for evidence in the book Knights and Castles by The Osbornes, which was an informational book tied to 3rd grade's upcoming Medieval Faire unit of study.  Hats off to all these teachers for jumping in and giving kids that extra something to want to learn more.  Kudos!

Ok, what else did I see around campus this week?  Almost too much to mention, but I saw...

Wonderful student created Pop Art in Mr. Gay's classroom.

Mrs. Dean's World of Books board in the 5th grade hallway.  All about genres...

A repeat appearance by Pepperoni Perone from Pollyanna Theatre as fifth grade students begin to craft their own Greek Mythology plays.

And a question of the day in Mrs. Dean's classroom that just made me smile.









And of course, the annual Parade of Pumpkins is on full display this week, leading up to all thing
HOOT at the end of the month.  Lots of really well crafted pumpkins, with bidding well under way from Day One!

Lee, Ian, and their over the top pumpkin creation!

Lots of good stuff around and yep, it really hits home that good teachers matter.  Not only those beginning ones fresh from stronger every year university teacher prep programs, but our reflective, well practiced veterans too.  Both have chosen teaching as a profession for the long haul (takes time to hone your craft in any profession) and that says something and means something in the classroom.  Thanks to those who have chosen to be teachers.  The work you do does matter.