We are a diverse student body located in a small, rural town. Many of our students qualify for free or reduced rate lunch and come from economically challenged households. Our school has a large ELL population from Somalia and Mexico as well as other countries.
My Social Studies classroom hosts unique groups of kids each hour of the day who are excited to learn about history!
With so many students at different stages in their learning I strive to create an engaging and productive class. Social Studies allows for a wide variety of teaching opportunities. We use primary sources to develop knowledge, skills, and analytical abilities that engage us in asking questions, thinking critically, making intelligent inferences, and developing reasoned explanations. Primary sources help us interpret events and issues in the past and present so we make connections to the present and use this information to predict what might happen in the future!
We are building valuable skills and having fun doing it!
My Project
Our middle school is focusing on creating a positive culture within our student body. We have established expectations to help students become outstanding members of the community. We want our students to take ownership of their learning and the culture of their school. This year we are trying something new at our school: allowing our students to purchase incentives with their "golden" points in addition to class-wide and school-wide incentives and experiences. Students can earn points by being respectful, responsible and safe in all school settings.
Our middle school team is committed to teaching students how to be respectful, responsible and safe through positive behaviors.
We are requesting gummy bears, Snickers bars, gum, fitness trackers, basketballs and footballs for incentives. By supporting our PBIS rewards store we hope students will learn personal responsibility while achieving personal goals.
We began our new program in September and have seen students choose to be kind and make positive choices. Students have been excited to shop at the school store and are learning valuable lessons on financial literacy and basic economic principles like supply and demand. We are needing to restock our school store and have asked our eighth grade class leaders to help us pick out items.
All the items on our list were chosen by students to generate excitement about the school store and our PBIS rewards program. Students chose basketballs, a football, fitness trackers and various snacks like gum and candy bars for the school store. These restock items will help us continue offering our school store for students who have earned points for demonstrating their commitment to positive attitudes and behavior that we expect in our school. Students will be able to trade in their positive points for these items! These rewards will go home with the students for excelling in positive behaviors!
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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 Ms. Cox and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
