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My
primary area of responsibility is the Special
Education Department here at Middle School 180Q.
Our Special Education Department makes learning
FUN!!!
Take, for example, Ms. Hall's Social Studies
classes. Imagine what it would be like to be an
Iroquois Indian, from the northeastern part of the
U.S. making your own tools to work with, cook with
and even survive with. Here at 180, we do just
that. While integrating our math skills, we
construct Iroquois villages and artifacts just like
the Native Americans did.
AAhhhhh...the
stars, the moon, the atmosphere. Ms. Auletta and
her students put all this information together and
predict the weather. Forcasting in Science is one
of their specialties, and they have been correct
95% of the time.
In
Math, we love to play games so much that we
construct our own. Sometimes Ms. Serrao and her
students play Fraction Frenzy, Do or
Decimal or Probable Probability. But
whatever game they invent, it's a fun way of
learning math. Do you array??? Ms. Hall's students
do! They model square numbers with square arrays.
Math is soooo much fun!
"To
be or not to be." Can you guess who wrote that? In
Ms. George's Language Arts, her students learn
about all the writers, poets and authors by
integrating history. Imagine you are William
Shakespeare, back in his time. Did he use words
such as, "cool". "feening" and "starving"? Of
course not. They write as though we were back in
his time with the help of bubble
maps.
QUIET
ON THE SET! LIGHTS...CAMERA...ACTION !!! What's the
best way to learn story settings, characters, main
ideas, inferences and conclusions? Mr. Grannis'
Resource Room classes act them out! They have
already completed numerous major novels by reading
each chapter and then acting them out. They develop
a cast, setting crew, lighting crew and everything
else that is needed to put on a production. What a
cool way to read!
In
Ms. Williams' classes the students are writing
autobiographies. They do this by using their skills
of comparing and contrasting, sequencing of events,
grouping similar ideas, using descriptive language
and learning synonyms for some common words. But,
there is a catch here. When presenting their final
assignments, they become the person that they have
written about. They must dress like their character
and speak as he/she would. This is a fun ongoing
project. Many of the final projects are so good
that you may think you are listening to the real
person!
All
of these creative learning situations are just the
tip of the iceberg in our Special Education
Department at Middle School 180Q. Come visit, check
us out...and see what all the
EXCITEMENT
is
about.
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