April/May Instructional Vision Challenge by Kristen Smidy

2025-05-12 17:24:41 UTC

I have my students complete a "pot" for my indoor garden wall. On each pot they write their individual goals so they are aware of why they are in the room and what they are working on. They can also cross out goals that they have accomplished and take their pots home when they "graduate" therapy.

2025-05-14 17:14:01 UTC

At the start of each unit, we address essential questions in an activity that engages students utilizing poster paper and sticky notes. Students rotate to each poster "station" with small groups. Then, students share their thoughts on the essential questions on sticky notes & collaborate with peers to share their ideas and make them public. The essential questions are designed to drive the unit with critical thinking & real-world connections in mind. Throughout the unit, students add evidence (quotes) from the text/novel to the poster on sticky notes. At the end of the unit, we revisit the poster and students reflect and share their thoughts again, assessing if their opinions have changed or grown over the course of the unit based on what they've learned. Ultimately, this process helps ensure students know what they are learning and why/how it connects to their lives/the real world.

smcnamara32 — 2025-05-28 18:11:22 UTC

Rather than approach climate change by asking students to listen to what people have to say about it, we looked at primary source data from the NOAA. My 7th grade students compiled the above information themselves. All 50 states are represented, and these numbers represent trends of average temperatures over the past 100 or so years in the months of June and December. We concluded that this data undeniably shows a warming trend in the USA.

2025-05-30 14:15:54 UTC

My first grade students have been working on silent e and the different jobs it plays to be able to decode and encode words with this particular phonics pattern. For example, super e makes a vowel long, gives c and g their soft pronunciations /s/ & /j/, and prevents words from ending in u or v. At the start of each reading group we review the skill(s) worked on from the previous day. Each time we learn a new job of silent e, the previous rules are reviewed prior to learning the new rule. We began by applying this new skill as a whole group and then individually. Learning the different jobs of silent e can be challenging since students need to know when to change that vowel from a short to a long sound when reading words.