December 14, 2020

Students listening to Mr. Ibson Present

Good Afternoon,  I hope you all had a wonderful weekend.  Jonah Ibson is a teacher at Harwood Union and I have taught both of his kids at the Waitsfield School. He recently started a class on Native American Literature, and kicked things off by learning about the oral tradition. His students selected, studied, reimagined, and transformed traditional stories from a range of Indigenous Nations into illustrated children's books. They will now be sharing their stories with our class over Zoom, and we can't wait to see their reactions. Readings will be recorded, shared, and posted so that everyone in class will have a chance to listen to all of the rich and vibrant, reimagined tales, from the Navajo, Iroquois, Abenaki, and more. The high school kids will be reading to two or three kids at a time, that is why we will record them for everyone else to view. If you see that your child is receiving a zoom invite, from a high school kid, in their email; you will know why. I think this will be a great project for both the high schoolers and my students. Today Jonah red aloud his stories to our class so that his students could see what a model presentation looks and sound like.  You can view the video here (the passcode is @cX2%0er).

Jeanne presenting to the class

Today we started our visits to Connecticut.  Last week we visited New Jersey. My friend, Jeanne Delcolle joined our class (via Zoom) and taught us about her home state.  The children learned about the agricultural south of New Jersey as well as the metro north.  Jeanne also took them on a tour of the boardwalk in Ocean City.  She even had the famous Johnson's Popcorn send the kids their own bin of caramel corn.  Students also learned about the populated north and the agricultural south. Jeanne even explained why New Jersey is the brunt of so many jokes.  Jeanne is a colleague and she and I have done some work globally and ran a teacher mentorship program out of DC over the past four years.

NOTES:

*I have been using a site called recess room to work on specific math skills (with a focus on fluency).  Your children Love this site.  Check it out!  Right now they could do the addition or subtraction Snowball Fight, Shot Clock, or Time Teller games (to hours and half hours for most).  The site can be located by clicking here.  

That is all for now.  I hope you have a great week.

Peace,

Tommy