My classroom this year is a fourth and fifth grade room full of high-ability students. Located in Muncie, Indiana, our students come from varying socioeconomic and personal backgrounds with nearly sixty percent on reduced price or free lunch. Our school is diverse, as it includes gifted enriched learning, special education and ABA rooms, preschool, and general education programs. Students from outside of our district can travel to our school to be involved in these special education and gifted programs throughout the year. This year, my split classroom requires me to find texts that can be used the next two, as I may loop with students.
My students are thinkers, builders, artists, and my daily source of laughter.
I have several students with twice-exceptionalities (both gifted and have disabilities). Diversity in our classroom covers these abilities, as well as students from varying cultures.
EWA provides gifted art and band classes, as well as enrichment success periods at the end of the day. There are various clubs and organizations for students to take part in and a phenomenal staff who support each other.
My Project
Help me turn test time into play time! For this project, I am taking inspiration from Michael Matera's book Explore Like a Pirate and gamifying social studies tests and mathematics! Typically my American and Indiana history tests are written with multiple choice. By allowing students to have a word bank of history people and places on exams, they will be required to build a scene then write a paragraph that describes how what they've built connects multiple terms. LEGO pieces will help us add STEM into every bit of our content & make tests more interactive!
Modeling through building is one of the most intentional ways to connect big ideas in elementary.
Students will use these LEGO pieces during our reading block to model scenes and themes from books like "The Odyssey" and "Johnny Tremain." In addition, they will be able to use these LEGOs across the curriculum as we use them to develop mathematical understanding of ratios. Using LEGO in the classroom will gamify the learning experience and help students learn core concepts in a hands-on way. I am hoping that by having these materials I can help my students build their way to more memorable educational experiences!
DonorsChoose is the most trusted classroom funding site for teachers.
As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mrs. Finn and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
