Making the Most of the New Year

    We are making the most of these first few weeks of school. All of my classes completed hexagons about themselves, and used them to literally find connections between classmates. I modeled this practice by making my own, it was nice to put my hexagon in the mix and have students find commonalities with me. We will use the hexagon concept throughout this year with historical topics, it was important to practice this with topics they know well.

My Language Support Historians learned about this Preamble this Constitution Day. One expert group learned the six goals of the Preamble in modern language, a second group learned about the goals in original language (with additional support). Reformed groups compared learning and matched original language with modern language. These students did an excellent job with very challenging material. 

Our teachers have made a point of taking students outside for mask breaks. My 8th Grade colleagues made an informal schedule to make sure we are consistently bringing our students out. It is definitely time well spent and worth the investment in their wellbeing. The majority of the time I use these breaks to get to know students better (like "car talks" parents have with their children while driving). I used today's break as a "working" break, with success. I asked students if they could let their brains process the introduction to this year's National History Day theme activity we'd just completed, and was pleasantly surprised to hear informal conversations about possible topic ideas (for at least part of the time)!

These few weeks have had their ups and downs, we are all working through the longer classes and being back in school all day, every day. It is so good to have students present in person, in school.