Help me give my students composition notebooks so that we can start our journals right away. I need UNIFIX cubes so that we can better visualize our math concepts. Students need whiteboard markers for word work.
My students are full of promise and potential. Each of them have such unique experiences and outlooks on life. Talking with them teaches me so much about their lives, learning about their family and community histories and their individual lives teaches me so much about the world.
A lot of students in my classroom belong to families whose parents have immigrated to this country from a variety of places, for example, El Salvador, Laos, Yemen.
Hearing their stories reminds me why I love this work and how much I enjoy connecting with people whose stories are different than mine. I feel lucky to be a part of such a diverse community as their teacher.
The students at our school are brilliant, tenacious young people and I can't wait to see how brightly they will shine this year.
My Project
UNIFIX cubes will help students grasp the concept of repeated addition and will better prepare them to translate that understanding into the concept of multiplication and division. Learning multiplication facts is part of our math learning in 3rd grade and having effective, concrete tools for them to use throughout this venture will make a huge difference.
Whiteboard markers are essential to our classroom.
Whether we are doing one on one practice on their mini whiteboards or review work in pairs, whiteboard markers are a big part of giving my students time and opportunity to practice the skills they have been learning. Having enough whiteboard markers for all of them so that we can do whole class practice activities will allow them to put themselves out there and try new things more readily rather than relying on a partner. If each student is able to provide an answer to any given review question on their whiteboards, it makes for a more engaging, meaningful learning experience and it makes it easier for me to assess their understanding of a certain topic as a whole class.
Also, we will start using Zearn Math this year, and the program requires that students have some kind of whiteboard and whiteboard marker set up so that when they work through problems on their own, they can do so with less frustration about making mistakes. Whiteboards are great tools for us in our classroom because they allow students to try things out and easily restart or rewrite if what they're trying doesn't quite work out. Plus, they are more environmentally friendly. I plan to cut up the felt and use those as our mini whiteboard erasers.
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