Back to School Resources
How do we get to know our students?
Explore the notion of how we get to know our students with Child Life Specialist Deborah Vilas, MS, CCLS, LMSW, (Bank Street School of Education) and child psychologist Nancy Close, PhD, (Yale Child Study Center). Addressing expectations, learning about family cultures and traditions, and communicating with caregivers can be valuable introductions to learning how best to welcome children and their families into your classroom and create a fulfilling classroom experience for students and teachers alike.
Bringing Seedlings Workshop Concepts Back to the Classroom
For Jen Wilson’s kindergarteners, a tree became the subject of observation and meaningful learning—all within their set curriculum—throughout the school year. A multi-year Seedlings alum, Jen says, “Often, it’s simpler than we first think to bring these meaningful connections and engaging activities within our existing curriculum.”
Classroom Spaces
Kindness Art Activity: Fostering Kindness and Creativity in the Classroom
The classroom is the perfect place for this memorable and moving book. Jacqueline Woodson’s Each Kindness has teachable life lessons that might include bullying, judgmental attitudes, the power of kindness–specifically –including others, peer pressure, and the differences in our socioeconomic situations.
Creating Spaces for Ideas to Blossom in the Classroom
Ideas take time to develop, but everyone, including young people, has ideas–they just need the knowledge, space and encouragement to share them and put them into action. Schools can be essential settings for children to learn how to have ideas and grow them.
Using Natural Materials Enhances Learning in the Classroom
The way a classroom is set up- its colors, displays, materials- plays an oversized role in the lives of young children as they spend time exploring and making discoveries about themselves and the objects around them. The following are some ways that natural materials maximize learning with young children.
Using Books to Welcome Students to the Classroom
Picture books, in particular, guide, inspire and give me the courage to begin conversations with young children about important topics such as acceptance, loss, race, friendship and bravery.
A Lump Of Clay: A Language Bridge For Pre-Schoolers
Clay is an open-ended medium that allows children to show their thinking.
Recognizing and Coping with Stressors and Trauma in the Classroom
In My Classroom
Math, Literacy and Science Skills Soar with Henley the Eagle as their Class Mascot
Henley the (stuffed) eagle is the class pet Myree Conway’s first grade classroom. Henley not only helps to engage students in STEAM skills development and learning first-grade curriculum, but he is also a big part of their social-emotional
development.
Hands-on Classroom: Empowering Teachers and Students to Take the Wheel for Authentic Learning
Seedlings visited J. S. Martinez STEM Magnet School to talk with STEM resource teacher Alyssa Granata-Basso and observe one of her STEM challenge classes in action. We talked with her about maintaining her passion for teaching, the importance of hands-on student-driven learning, and how she continues to grow.
Watch Students Explore Gravity Concepts And Problem Solve through STEM
J.S. Martinez Magnet School’s STEM Resource Teacher Alyssa Granata-Basso welcomed Seedlings Educators Collaborative to observe students don their engineering hats in a hands-on problem-solving lesson exploring gravity. In teams, students designed, built, tested, and re-engineered a traveling vehicle to protect Alyssa’s friend “Eggbert” from the impact of landing.
Reclaiming Kindergarten by Going Back to the Basics
As schools and districts place increasing emphasis on scores from high-stakes testing, teachers receive less autonomy in developing experiences and curriculum that engage students in meaningful learning. Over the course of one year, teachers revamped their kindergarten program, putting children’s development and interests in their rightful place as the centerpiece of curriculum by bringing play back into the classroom.
Jen Wilson’s Kindergartners Discover STEAM and Meaningful Connections in the Great Outdoors
Jen Wilson, kindergarten teacher at Cook Hill School in Wallingford, and the school librarian, Anna O’Brien, were awarded a grant from the Wallingford Education Foundation to develop a program they are calling KinderTinker. Jen and Anna are bringing the learning outside for extended free play and exploration, as well as structured STEAM-based activities that tie into the kindergarten science units.
What should we expect from a 5th grader?
There are academic, behavioral and social-emotional benchmarks we expect of our general education students, no matter the year, but fifth grade, in particular, brings about new expectations as students move from lower elementary to more focused academic work, classroom transitions, and the need for organization and multitasking, among other important skills.