In Humanities, students at SLA-MS have been exploring the questions: How do we learn? How do we learn from ourselves? How do we learn from others? As a whole school, we read “Ghost” by Jason Reynolds and worked on determining theme and understanding why determining theme helps us to be stronger readers.

As we read, students selected into a group focused on one specific theme from our text. For their spring benchmark project, students worked in a group to create a 30-minute advisory style lesson plan. Students planned these lesson, which focus on teaching the theme, not the book, for small groups of students at Powel Elementary. Topics have included: decision making, risk, bravery, trust, family, self-control, perseverance, and self-improvement – among others! Students studied the structures of lesson plans and learned about multiple intelligences in order to create thoughtfully designed lessons.

After preparing and rehearsing, we’ve spent this week traveling to Powel to teach our lessons to groups of 2nd and 3rd graders. SLA-MS student have been very excited to visit our neighbor school, see old, familiar faces, and work as teachers. It’s been wonderful to see our students step into this leadership role in kind and thoughtful ways.

We want to give a big thank you to Teacher Chris, Teacher Gill, and all of Powel Elementary for partnering with us on this project!