This project is part of the Black History Month celebration because it supports a Black teacher or a school where the majority of the students are Black.
My Students
I have the honor of serving as the science teacher for 100 diverse 4th graders from Nashville. They are a brilliant, resilient, thoughtful, joyful bunch that keep me laughing every single day.
These kids LOVE science.
I mean...they really love it, and they let me know through their words and actions every day. I remember loving science when I was that young, too, and I want to ensure that that love never fades away...even when they're in their high school chemistry class, bewildered and flustered (or maybe that was just me).
My Project
This past school year, my school began implementing the new Tennessee science standards. They are based off of the NGSS framework, which is all about allowing students to deepen their understanding of scientific ideas through authentic, exploratory, hands-on learning. It was a great year, but a pretty big adjustment for me as I re-worked the 4th grade curriculum in order to meet my students' needs.
I often supplement my lessons with non-fiction text so that my students can practice their reading and comprehension skills, while expanding their knowledge of our current unit of study.
Reading a non-fiction, scientific text is much different than reading a novel, but it is a skill that is imperative for students to practice as they matriculate through school. Therefore, I try to provide my students with as many opportunities to practice that skill as possible in my classroom.
While in this past year websites such as Newsela and ReadWorks proved to be extremely helpful in providing non-fiction texts on science topics, I realized that I don't have many books in my physical classroom library that are aligned to the new 4th grade standards. These books are all aligned to NGSS standards, which means they are aligned to the Tennessee standards as well. Please help give my students even more chances to engage with age-appropriate, non-fiction, science texts in my classroom!
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 Ms. Thompson and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
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