Cooperative Groups

Do you use cooperative groups? This is my first year using them and I love them! They have made a positive impact on our classroom culture and achievement. My class is 75% ELL, by using Kagan all of my students are engaged in the lesson. They are exposed to language in a natural way and their confidence grows.

Here is a wonderful explanation on how to implement cooperative learning from The Behavior Advisor.

What kind of classroom do you have? Do you use cooperative learning? Share your success!

Bridget

Pilgrims of today

Thanksgiving has come and gone but this year I have left my bulletin board up a little bit longer than I normally do. I have a very diverse class and when I gave them the task of creating themselves as Pilgrims..... they did!



My class really is a perfect example of Pilgrims of today! Many of my students have recently moved here from another country or have family members that live in another part of the world. Each student was given  a person cut out and construction paper to create their "Pilgrim"

I love how they incorporated their culture into their Pilgrim.


I hope your Thanksgiving was filled with family and love and you took a moment to remember that not all Pilgrims came over on the Mayflower.... :-)

Bridget

Explain Everything

If you have never tried the Ipad app, I highly recommend it! Here is a brief video overview to show how this app works.

My class recently completed a project trapping a gingerbread man. The students created traps and they then used Explain Everything to explain how their traps worked. The app was very user friendly and the students were able to navigate and create their very own videos.

I can't wait to try this app in science for our Rock and Water Cycle!

What apps have you tried and loved??

We Trapped Him!

We had so much fun designing, building, and writing about our Gingerbread Man Traps! The students were so engaged and couldn't wait to work on them. Not a bad way to spend the last week before vacation!

Here is a look at some of our Writing!

We trapped that treat!

Check out the entire project! Gingerbread STEM


Happy New Year!
Bridget