Listen. Connect. Empower.

My colleagues and I wanted to share our Boy Who Harnessed the Wind project with the community (see my previous posts ).  I worked with Ingrid Mayyasi and Alice Johnson and Dedham TV to create a video about our experiences: To wrap up our project I shared this video with my students and had them take a self-assessment.  I wanted students to dig a little deeper and reflect on their work. I gave what I thought was ample time to complete this but not all groups got to finish All 1st grade students and many 2nd grade students were assigned a drawing.  Other classes got to choose (time constraints) Expectations are posted on the SmartBoard for every class so everyone knows what is expected of them even if I am occupied with a student or a group The final question had students finishing the sentence "Mrs. Garland should know that..." We worked hard We should do this again My team loved it so much It was fun and I'm looking forward to doing it...

Building Windmills Our library class time has been dedicated to thinking about how we can make our community better. (See my previous posts ).  However, I was not done with  The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind  yet.  I was inspired by my colleague  Alice Johnson  to carry these ideas into our Makerspaces. I planned to have students participate in the "Windmill Challenge" and build their own windmills with everyday materials. I knew that I needed some dedicated time (and recess would not do it).  I also knew that extra hands would be needed.  I invited students to join me after school for an hour and enlisted in Alice's help to recruit High School students to help us.  11 elementary school students and 3 high school student "coaches" together created windmills.  We had a great afternoon of building and cooperative learning. Starting supplies Students started with supplies and a video about how to create a pinwheel So...

Following our read of The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind , students brainstormed challenges in our community and identified one that they would like to work on (see my post here ).  They identified a solution and then were ready to create a project to show their work. First we brainstormed what kind of projects these might be, thinking about what skills we had that we could employ.  Grades 2-5 used this list: PicCollage Chatterpix Build - Legos  Draw a picture or poster Google Slides Write a letter  Write a voicemail message A letter to our Principal proposing a Guard for our playground 1st graders were given a drawing assignment to show the "before" and "after" of their proposed solution.  They drew their thinking.   Challenge: We have bullies at our school. Challenge: People litter. Challenge: Some people don't get to come to our country because of the Preside...

We read The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind and identified what a community was during our last library block.  Now it was time to identify challenges in our own community and create a plan for changes. We began with a brainstorm of challenges in our community.  For some classes this was too big of a question and they did better with "challenges in our school."  I collected ideas on a padlet . Screenshot of our brainstorming Ideas fell into several categories and highlights included: Challenges in our school  Our playground is vandalized by older students Students don't follow the rules Students don't treat each other respectfully Bullying Challenges in our town Litter (this came up over and over) Some people don't have jobs or money Car accidents/bad drivers/poor road conditions Rail Trail - is this good for our town or not? Challenges in my personal life (concerns that directly effect students or cause them to worry) Money Ca...

Our community is reading The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind  by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer as a One Book, One Community read. I was especially excited this year because the different formats enable my elementary school students to participate this year. We had been challenging ourselves to " Read Without Walls " so I introduced this book as a true story about someone who "thought without walls" and challenged himself to solve problems in his community.  We began by identifying different kinds of "communities" we might belong to: Ultimately we defined community as "A group of people that all participate, work together, do the same thing, and believe the same thing." We read the book together, pausing periodically to listen for the challenges in William's community. Challenges we identified included: No lights No rain No water No food No money No school With a working knowledge of what a "community" i...