Creating a Classroom Community?

This morning on the Today Show, we saw a very disturbing piece on a classroom in Florida. From within this class, a six year old girl with a peanut allergy is at the center of a controversy over student rights. Some parents of the children in this class are up in arms because they feel their children's rights are being stepped on in order to accommodate a little girl with a deadly peanut allergy. Students are being asked to wash their hands several times a day and wash their mouths after lunch. Is this really such a huge imposition to ensure a little girls safety? Also, the children are not allowed to bring snacks and food into the classroom that have nuts in them or were produced in a plant where nuts are handled. Again, are there not at least 100 different snack options for children that do not involve nuts?

Parents complaints are that their child's education time is being used to wash hands and faces. Isn't this something we should be doing multiple times a day to prevent illness anyway? One parent added the time spent on this task to be 30 minutes a day, 2 1/2 hours a week and 80 hours per school year. While this may seem like a lot, it truly is not anything different than any other classroom in America. If teachers did not take time to ask children to wash their hands after restroom breaks, lunch and recess, the children would be missing a whole lot more school because they have caught a virus. While we think this is an extremely petty issue for parents to take up by picketing, we think the worst injustice is the message they are sending to their own children.

By refusing to send their kids to school, by picketing outside of the school, and essentially ostracizing this poor little girl, these parents are teaching their children intolerance. Because someone is more fragile, or needs more help, or can't be sure they can stay alive without the help an cooperation of her classmates, that someone should not be allowed to be in your classroom. Is this the message we want to send to our children?

We hope in our classroom, we can create a sense of community among the students. We want to instill the idea that we need to help each other, look out for each other, and care about each other. Not only does this help to create an environment that is conducive to learning, but it also helps to mold compassionate human beings.

Just food for thought.

Trade Fair

Our E325 class held a Trade Fair in class a few weeks ago. Students were asked to bring in an item or items they thought would be good to trade with fellow classmates for some of their wares. Students brought everything from home created baked goods to purchased candy and arts and crafts. Our class found that this was an activity that created authentic learning and could be used in an upper elementary classroom. The activity was engaging and creative and could be used to teach about many aspects of economics including supply and demand. This activity would also be effective for teaching students about what trade was like and how it worked in the Colonial Period.

Before partaking in this kind of activity, a teacher should be prepared and do some research not only on the time period being taught, but on the students themselves. The teacher needs to be certain that every student will have at least one item to trade on the day of the event. There should be rules about what can and cannot be brought to trade. A spending limit should also be in place so that the items brought in are similar in value. It may be a good idea for the teacher to have a few backup items stashed away to help out students who may not have an item to trade. Also, for such an event, the teacher may need to call on parents to provide some manpower abnd supervision, as it can be a little chaotic with 25-30 students bartering with each other and shopping the stands. Lastly, teachers should plan an ample amount of time for this activity. Students may trade 3-4 times before they settle on the item they will be taking home that day. I would suggest at last an hour for the average sized class.

Time for Kids

During my field experience in a fourth grade classroom last week, the teacher used Time for Kids Magazine as a social studies lesson. The students were very excited about the lesson and seemed to be engaged and interested in the topics and issues being discussed. Time for Kids is designed to encourage reading and writing and is easily integrated with other content areas such as social studies and science. The magazine comes out weekly and comes in four different reading levels (Grades k-1, Grade 2, Grades 3-4, and Grades 5-6). You can subscribe to the magazine online and the cost is roughly $4 per student for the entire year. You can visit the website for more information at: http://www.timeforkids.com/TFK/

Artifacts

Using a project that involves artifacts is a very effective way to make connections for students between history, culture, and people. Our E325 class participated in a project that involved each student bringing in five artifacts from home that would represent their beliefs, values and family. We were asked to consider, if scientists unearthed these artifacts 100 years from now, would they explain who you were and what you believed in. Here is a picture of the artifacts collected from the 17 students in our class:

After a brief discussion, we found that using artifacts help create meaning for students by:

• generating questions


• asking and answering questions


• collaboration


• higher level thinking


• inquiry and investigation


• understanding student interests.

This is a great example of how you can make social studies relevant to your students by involving them personally and connecting it to your content.