My teaching partner and I have a lively group of 4th graders! We have 59 students in our classrooms, (I have 29 students and she has 30. We are capped at 33, so there is room for a couple more kiddios between the two of us this year.) but we team teach to provide differentiated instruction. We are a Title I school with approximately 25% of students on an IEP (Individual Education Program) and receiving some type of Special Education services.
These kids are willing and eager to learn.
I believe they just need some extra tools to help them succeed. My goal is to provide literacy and math tools to teach our students comprehension skills, vocabulary skills, math, and critical thinking skills.
My Project
Our school is only a few years old and we do not have a lot of classroom resources for our students. I am trying to build a 4th grade literacy library with novels that can be read and discussed as an entire class. The content of these novels is important to provide critical thinking and robust discussions among the students.
I chose Molly's Pilgrim for my 4th graders because of the many lessons about family and heritage and learning to embrace others who are different from ourselves that are woven into the story.
Because the setting of the story takes place around Thanksgiving, I plan to use it in the fall.
I will wrap the story reading up prior to Thanksgiving Break with an over the break assignment intended to bring families closer together. The students will each be given an old fashion clothes pin to take home over break. They will be asked to talk with family about where their family came from and create a pilgrim doll to bring back after the break.
This book will create an environment of acceptance of other students and their diversities. It will also promote family time that I hope will lead to discussion of relatives at home.
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