Mrs. Slaviero's Blog

National History Day is still going strong for a small team of students in my school and district! I'm so proud to say that four students in my school, two students in one of our sister middle schools, and one former student of mine that's now a High School Junior have qualified for the National History Day (virtual) finals competition! These students are showing great perseverance working on edits and additional research, all while navigating online learning and, in the case of my High School student, studying for Advance Placement exams! We have been meeting regularly to continue to provide guidance as these historians hone their work before submitting their documentary, website, and performance script. The students are studying fascinating topics (the Japanese Internment Camps during WWII, Rosie the Riveter, and the heroic Ida Lewis) and the open-ended nature of NHD work allows these young ladies to really stretch their thinking and move their research forward. 

I am team teaching about volcanoes, hurricanes, and earthquakes this quarter with my Language Support team. I am planning for next week's study of the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 and needed an activity. I have never taught this topic before but as I was researching I remembered there was a US Mint in San Francisco (I visited it when I was 9 years old)!  The US Mint is an incredible resource for educators and I have utilized their materials earlier this year when my LS students needed lessons on learning American money and how to make change. What a cool "full circle" moment to go back to the US Mint for this lesson! I located a video about the Mint's role in helping to rebuild the San Francisco economy, but needed a student activity to go with the video. My students will create a Thank You note for the San Francisco Mint of 1906! Writing Thank You notes is an activity I thought of years ago for my US History students while studying the American Re

Teaching Language Support-History has been so rewarding this year. This class has brought me back to being a first year teacher--the highs, lows, uncertainty, and the rewards of working with students learning English, Social Studies content, and American school at the same time. It's also been, as I've previously stated, a perfect mix of my two content area strengths: History and foreign language instruction, even though the foreign language is English, not German. (I do have a German student, though! It's been nice to practice my German when I have clarified concepts with her.) I've had one more professional bucket list want that I can finally check off of my list--I am part of a teaching team this year. Our Language Support students are together for English, Science, and Social Studies classes every day. The three of us teachers, along with our amazing Parapro, have gained so much momentum this year creating cross-curricular units for our students. The online l