Imagination Sparkles

I have had many students over my years of teaching and I have had some with similar names.  Some of my students have had unique or less common first or last names, regardless they are those students' names and my first job is to pronounce it correctly.   If I am going to foster a relationship with a student, my goal from my first encounter with the student is I must get their name right.  Being a culturally responsive educator is one who values all aspects of that student and there is a lot in a name.  Over the years I have witnessed educators casually make mistakes with student names, the intention was not to hurt the child, but it can.  I am by no means an expert orator or a master of various languages to better pronounce words.  My students hear my mistakes but they also see my desire to ensure I say their name correctly because what I ask for is their feedback.  I don't want to take a mispronunciation and run with it for the year because a student wasn't asked for

I recently read an article about science engagement and the way students learn  I am passionate about Science and Social Studies education.  Whether this instruction be at a pre-k to a high school level, students experience in the K-12 Science classroom matter.  Per the infographic below by the Amgen Foundation Teachers are a top influence if students choose a biology career.  Furthermore, students are asking for more engagement in their science classrooms.   I work to provide a student focused and engaged science classroom through the use of the Engineering Design Process, Questions-Claims-Evidence, and problems that lend nicely to project/problem based learning.  To do any of these things you definitely need a strong  classroom community and  collaborative grouping can help students build their knowledge and science vocabulary with one another.  What do you do? Infographic via Amgen Foundation via Education Week article, I saved this about a year ago and I for

I am back to blogging, at least for the summer.  When I opened up my account it was amazing how many draft posts I have started, clearly I want to keep up but am just running out of time.  For those of you that read blogs regularly what post frequency do you prefer, every day, week, a few times a month?   So before I get back to a routine, I feel like I should review what I have been up to and why I was so distracted from blogging this past school year.  Here are some of the key highlights: - Still teaching 5th grade with an amazing team, being a PLC is just natural for us, we are always talking/planning/analyzing - 27 students this year, small for what I have been used to in previous years, we built such a great community I miss them this summer - I was able to add in more of the science and social studies lessons that I have connected to the ELA standards and plan to continue to do that this next year - Served on my district's Science and Math Curriculum Committees -