I'm going to try as often as possible to highlight some of the great lessons Ms. Johnson, Mr. Critchfield and I see as we walk through our classrooms at Henley. Here's the first one of the year:
When our staff worked together in preschool week I challenged everyone to think of ways to engage and excite our kids on the first day of school. I saw many teachers rising to this challenge as I visited classes that day, and wanted to point out a great lesson from Mary Beth Kooken and Kathy Verell’s seventh grade science class. Mary Beth and Kathy had their students building their critical thinking and communication skills with their opening day activity. Each student had a picture of an animal hung around their neck and positioned behind their back so that they could not see what it was. Their task was to develop questions that would help them identify what their animal was without ever seeing the picture. This is a really hard task (especially when you have an animal like a bearded dragon to try to identify) but one that the students really got excited about. I saw kids starting to develop deeper level questions that would help them to identify their animal and kids who were highly engaged with their activity. I know that all of those students walked out of class that day excited for what this year will bring. What a great start for our kids—way to go, Mary Beth and Kathy!
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