Humanities Campus Visits - Snapshots from Bransford

Now that our launch of the newly written GCISD K-5 Humanities Curriculum is underway, I'm having a great time visiting classrooms looking for evidence of some of the great features teachers are implementing.  During a series of half-day visits to campuses, I'm trying to visit every Humanities classroom and snap a few pictures of things that colleagues around the district might enjoy seeing.

My first visit took place this week at Bransford Elementary.  I saw some outstanding examples of teachers following the new curriculum, working on Cornerstone Tasks, transitioning to a reading/writing workshop model, and spreading a love of literacy. A few highlights of my visit were:

• Seeing teachers make brave transitions into a workshop model of instruction - I got to see mini-lessons, examples of Units of Study usage, mid-workshop interruptions by teachers, small groups working on writing skills, anchor charts galore, and students using sticky notes to capture thinking and apply learning from their day's lesson. 
• Watching students learning about historical figures using their iPads and Blendspace resources on a variety of people
• Listening to students in a read-aloud discussion using vocabulary and schema that made it evident that social studies instruction has been a rich part of their classroom experience
• Noticing the variety of creative furniture configurations in each grade - tables with no legs, picnic benches, comfy reading corners, rocking chairs, bean bag chairs, wall-mounted desks - there really was a unique learning space for every type of learner in many classrooms

There were so many good practices to celebrate! I tried to snap pictures of things I thought other teachers might like to see.  I've saved them in a Google Folder that is accessible to other GCISD teachers who click on this link. Enjoy!