Stepping Out of the Book!

So, I have spent the school year living with Raquel - possibly the coolest teacher ever.  She is funny and brilliant and inspiring... This year Raquel is teaching 1st grade at the school I am at and, even though I do not have the chance to be in her classroom, I have gotten the chance to witness her ideas in action as I work with the other 1st grade class and see the various projects that the students get to take home every couple of weeks.   

You see, the 1st graders don’t have books for their subjects.  Instead, the teachers create worksheets, arts and crafts, and the like that are turned into lapbooks.  These lapbooks include all the information that the students would find in their books (if they had them) but present the information in a much more engaging and hands-on manner.  

After seeing how great the lapbooks always seem to look and the pride the 1st grade students take in the work that they completed, I decided to take some initiative and see if it might be possible to try a similar idea with the 2nd graders.  Therefore, after returning from Semana Santa, I talked with the teacher I work with, I borrowed the Teacher’s edition of the 2nd grade Natural Science book and began looking through the unit that we were beginning - all about "How my body moves".  I went through the various pages, looking at the sections of our body, the bones in our body, the way our muscles work, our joints, and how we care for and protect our body.

It took a couple hours to find all the things I wanted in order to include all the information and present it in a fun way but, in the end, I am happy with how it turned out!  While I may not always be able to take the time to prepare lapbooks for every subject and every unit, I hope that the students will benefit from the break from the book.  I know that I have!

-Stephanie
(Ex 33:14)