Humanities Campus Visits - Snapshots from Silver Lake Elementary

In my recent visit to Silver Lake Elementary, I saw a wide variety of activities that were definitely consistent with their focus of Experience Design. This campus offers students a wide array of opportunities from their outstanding Pre-K program, to a two-way dual language program, to the benefit of a school focused on ensuring that students experience many great learning opportunities first hand. I must say that it was humbling to see so many young children who were clearly fluent in both English and Spanish working on their Humanities tasks very effectively in two languages. 

While visiting Humanities classrooms yesterday, I saw several great examples of cornerstone tasks either currently under construction or recently completed. I loved seeing evidence of these and talking with students who clearly had an interest in history and what they were learning in social studies. I was pleasantly surprised that I was even able to read some of the Spanish versions of the cornerstone task work that was on the walls. :) I enjoyed seeing reader's theater presentations, and it was also neat to see how Ms. Flanagan was having students create their own reader's theaters based on a piece of fiction they were planning to read over the Thanksgiving break. I walked into rooms with soothing music playing while students were reading and writing, and I saw students who were clearly motivated to write and write and write. I loved getting to see the special day unfold in 4th grade with the various aspects of Heritage Day and taste some of the yummy butter being churned in Mrs. Thompson's room. I believe I even overheard a teacher say that they'd recently walked to a museum in downtown Grapevine in order to further their learning. I saw examples of student voice being utilized to guide learning experiences - in rooms of teachers new to SLES and experienced teachers! It was neat to see evidence of this on the walls and talk with students about how their teacher was using the information to make changes in the classroom. I saw several great anchor charts, a word wall where each student had their own hanging word wall cards on a metal ring, and some very appealing classroom libraries/reading corners.

As I've said in previous blog posts, my classroom visits this fall have been one of the highlights of my tenure in this position. Teachers are doing amazing work, and students are learning in ways that surpass even our highest expectations.

Photos of today's visit may be found at this link.