Balance Beam

I often talk about the balance we must find in education, the balance between reading and writing, between student accountability and student support, between basic skills and critical thinking skills, between right brain and left brain.  It often feels like we are walking a tight rope, trying to find ways to reach the perfect balance, to keep it all from falling apart.  And we are, BUT we are also great acrobats!!!!

Check out how we keep our balance...

We have a little fun with our geometry puns!  If you can't read them here, stop into Megan Scott's room for a little funny math.

We balance our expectations and let students know what they are so they have a purpose for learning too!

We connect our basic math to relevant information.  After all, don't all students want to understand fractions so they can divide that Halloween candy evenly?

We hold kids accountable for doing the essential work of class.  These students have been pulled out to complete their work - sometimes, getting it done is not good enough.  We require kids to get it done correctly!

When teaching RAP, we put things in kid-friendly language, but we still hold them accountable for demonstrating skills. 

We balance the skills of writing with the higher level skills of evaluation when kids score different RAP examples.  In this lesson, students scored writing by using the four corners of the room.  One corner was a 1, one was a 2, etc. where students had great discussions about high quality writing.

We have kids practice their listening and notetaking skills while documenting book talks...after all, there may be some good books that they want to read in the future.

We have fun on 'er day with a student as the teachER.