I can chronicle an entire school year through pictures. A class camera will help to add important pictures to our class photo gallery. My students thumb through the pictures of different events and reminisce about the year. Each child receives a photo collage at the end of the year as a keepsake.
I teach at a Title 1 school with a population of about 840 students.
My class is diverse which is reflective of my school. I have ELD students, students who are in resource part of the day, grade level learners, and kids who are very high academically. So, I must meet the needs of a broad range of abilities each day. I have taught second grade at the same school for twenty two years. My second graders are sweet, unassuming kids who are eager to learn. They are trying to become independent workers and responsible for their own learning. Our curriculum is rigorous and fast paced. I try to do a lot of art to balance the academics and have found that I can do a lot of teaching through art. My kids love to fill the classroom with bright artwork that reflects the curriculum. Some of my students love math and some love to read. Some love all academic areas and some are just trying to build the confidence in themselves to be the best student they can be. They make me proud to be a teacher.
My Project
A class camera will allow the past to always be remembered. I take many pictures of my class during the year. We recently did a math activity where we counted the number of seeds that was in the head of a large sunflower. We broke into groups and worked cooperatively to count. Each group reported the number of seeds and then I added up the numbers. There were 1,921 seeds in the sunflower. I took pictures of all of the counting and they are hanging up in our class photo gallery. My kids look at those pictures every day and chat about that activity. The pictures help to solidify their memories. The photo collages I put up start at the beginning of the year and hang up through the entire year. A new class camera will help me to continue to make a pictorial time line of the activities we do in class. Keeping the camera at school will also give me the ability to catch any activity when it happens. Each of my students receives at least one of the picture collages at the end of the year.
You have heard that a picture is worth a thousand words.
I have done a class photo gallery for many years and the result is always the same. The pictures of the activities my class is involved in helps to solidify them as classmates. The photos are a way for me to show how much I care about them. Second graders do not always remember how hard I worked to get them to learn how to trade in math. But, they often remember activities like the day we counted sunflower seeds. Pictures help to remember.
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