The theme for this year’s Back to
School was to share how we develop our Language and Math in class. The students
lead the session completely and became the teachers for lesson. The session
began with a glimpse of
how the development of skills was interspersed with
various activities related to reading, writing, presenting etc and would
repetitively occur during the day at various times. This was followed by the
sharing of the system of reading and tracking in class. Lexile tests, Reading assessments through tasks and written
responses, the expected reading levels
of the class, number of books to be
carried home, process of guided reading-novel study, online reading websites
for reading along with parents, due importance on reading both at home and
school etc were some topics covered by the students through their talks and
samples of work.
A demonstration lesson on
‘Biography Writing’ took the parents through a process wherein reading,
writing, spelling and grammar
blended in well to create a perfect written
piece. The students engaged the parents in reading and writing of biographies
through differentiated tasks, laying due emphasis on grammar and spellings.
The math lesson headed by the
students looked at the tuning in to a fractions unit. The parents were divided
into four groups and were given an opportunity to explore fractions using a variety
of manipulatives, based on differentiated situations. The students lead the
parents into various hands-on activities related to fractions using cakes, a
ball and bucket game, Jodo Gyan fraction kit etc. These activities were
followed by revision sheets to be filled in. The parents were truly engaged and
excited to have gone through a typical lesson and could get further clarity on
how and where they could help the kids at home.
