Mrs. Slaviero's Blog

  My Language Support Historians and I began our National History Day journey today. My first group was getting started when we went virtual, and this project was too daunting a task to do with all of us at home. My students have come so far this year, and this is a great way to challenge them to continue their growth. We did book tastings and each student selected a topic. I've streamlined the NHD project into two parts: a presentation to their class (to practice speaking skills) and a paper bag album (to not overwhelm with many choices, and to focus on the key points of the project, in a novel way). I'm also creating a model album, with a topic none of my students are studying: Rosie the Riveter. A model project will make expectations clear. Paper bag albums were something I made for an elective class years ago, the kids loved them because they are easy to complete and keep when finished. This will also be a good way for students to practice the art of writing (not typing) in...

A classroom that's too quiet can actually be distracting. Our usual classroom environment is one of group work and discussion. There are often times, though, where independent concentration (in short bursts) occurs, and no noise isn't necessarily conducive to learning. It can be challenging to focus if people do not have something to hear while they're concentrating. I've played relaxing background music for years and found that all of us prefer some background noise while we are in class. My go-to music is usually instrumental classical, although I've been mixing it up to include instrumental modern music. Another instrumental soundtrack on heavy rotation during class is the instrumental Hamilton soundtrack. (Words in music can distract, and modern songs that students know might make them concentrate on the song, instead of their classroom activities.) This year I've really focused on adding more historical options and it's been successful. We have listened...

We are diving in to math, science, and engineering this week.  The 7th Grade Ancient Civilization teachers introduced me to coding with Sphero . They have successfully used the program with their students. this year After learning about chariots in class the students made chariots and raced them after coding little  spherical robots that are used as the horse. The kids had a lot of fun, and I tried it with my Language Support-Historians shortly after. I was more than a little nervous, but it really was a great experience.  One of these 7th Grade teachers is also a US History teacher and discovered an activity that would bring coding into US History, too. After we studied the impact of the geography on the settlers, we decided to enhance this learning and try Sphero with our 8th Graders for the first time. Student Historians are building a 4 wheel, 2 axle Conestoga wagon and coding the 8 parts of the Trail. Creating a project of this magnitude from 1 small class to 4 large...

This morning I learned I renewed my National Board certification.  Achieving initial certification is rigorous--a detailed portfolio, videos featuring whole-group and small-group instruction with written analysis and reflection on both, and six exams in a professional exam setting, the same setting used by medical and law students, among others. For all of the challenges, I am so happy to have undertaken this endeavor. My students have benefitted from my progress and accomplishment. The renewal process was still daunting, made even more so because of the struggles of the pandemic. In retrospect, I was wise to start renewal as soon as I could, this allowed me to defer renewal during the start of the pandemic to the 2020-21 school year. I needed to focus on my immediate student needs before I could focus on this work. My renewal portfolio had to be created during the shift from in-person to dynamic virtual and hybrid learning, though. This was daunting, to be sure. I knew I could mee...

My Language Support Historians have been very busy in class these past few weeks. The start of the school year (especially this year) is all about assimilating to a new country, state, city, and school. We are building community and are now ready to roll! Last week and this week was spent diving into the five themes of geography and focusing on different regions of the United States. Groups selected two states from a particular region to study through the 5 themes lens.  I  introduced students to Noodle Tools, helped them create a project, showed them how to link their project to my teacher inbox, search our Media databases and e-books, select sources, cite those sources in Noodle Tools, and use those sources for research! It is affirming for all of us to see the momentum build as we dive deeply into 21st Century learning! The next step in our project is to practice speaking skills. I am learning how to even better support and scaffold work for these students and I created a c...

This photo depicts some of our best learning so far this year. The student in the foreground of this photo is clearly deep in thought, analyzing her group's progress. The boy across from her is checking his list, preparing to talk to his group about his progress. Students are focused on learning together, practicing social norms while building confidence and learning history deeply. What is this jack-of-all-trades activity they are participating in? The Ultimate US History Tournament: American Revolution Edition. I created a March Madness-style bracket activity to culminate our years' learning a few years ago, and it was a success. I decided to utilize it again for the American Revolution this year and it's been going well. Students need to generate their own lists of the most important people, places, events, and ideas first (one list per year of the war). Students at tables of 5 compare their lists, searching for commonalities (a good way to reinforce community among stud...

    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...