It takes a village to raise a child. ~ African proverb Last week the Birmingham City Schools GATE students at Phillips Academy attended Kiwanis Zoo School. Zoo School is a program that allows 7th graders to spend a week immersed in the Birmingham Zoo, learning about concepts such as resource allocation, ecosystems, and adaptations through the lens of Africa. While learning about all of the beautiful creatures in the zoo, there is a focus on the Trails of Africa exhibits and the teaching garden. The week To begin the week, we did a walk around the Alabama wilds, where students could learn about the animals in their own back yard. In this picture we are all trying to catch a glimpse of the river otter. The program has a great balance of exploring the zoo and doing more intensive instruction in classrooms. We lucked out with two beautiful weather days in January! We got to meet a number of zoo keepers and the animals they care for. Students were able to meet Ajani, one of four African elephants. They learned how the animals are cared for and got to feed him by throwing apples around for him to pick up. Students learned about adaptations of the African elephant and the unique characteristics of the herd at the Birmingham Zoo. On Thursday we spent the day learning about the importance of water to the animals of the Zoo and in the afternoon visited the teaching garden. Here, the Zoo educators helped students understand how challenging it can be to transport water, and various solutions people have created to make their lives easier. Students were able to test out some of these solutions for themselves and see what it is like to live without the ease and convenience of modern plumbing and water filtration. Throughout the morning, students sipped on Dasani water bottles that would later become part of this garden wall. Students were asked to write their hopes and dreams on a small piece of paper, place it in the bottle and then fill the bottle with sand. This created bricks that fit together easily into the wall. To see all of the bottles with students' aspirations in each one of them was inspirational, and it takes a number of dedicated educators and partnerships to put these programs on for students. It really does take a village to raise a child, and we are thankful for all that our community does to help us raise the students in Birmingham City Schools to be all they can be. Special thanks to Veronica Rhodes-Simmons, our teachers Amy and Kate, the many organizations that sponsor Zoo School, and the Junior League volunteers that assisted in the classroom. Learn more about Birmingham Kiwanis Zoo School and the sponsors Here
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Birmingham City Schools has a partnership with Alabama 4-H, a learning-by-doing youth development program. Many of the GATE teachers utilize the 4-H program instructors, who visit the schools once a month and run 'meetings' to teach students about leadership and allow them to own their learning experiences through hands on problem-solving activities.
I had the honor of visiting Adrienne Acklin's 3rd through 5th grade students at Robinson Elementary where they were solving a CSI style mystery. They were provided with evidence and had to use critical thinking skills to find out who committed the crime. 4-H provides academic competitions, such as the 'Peanut Essay' which two BCS students placed in. There are summer programs and opportunities for student leadership. I was unfamiliar with the 4-H program before visiting Mrs. Acklin's class, but see that it is a great fit for the project-based Gifted and Talented education program. In order to learn more about 4-H in Alabama and the programs they offer, Click here. All the world's a stage, especially Timothy Hogan's gifted education classes at EPIC and Princeton elementary, who performed A Midsummer Night's Dream, Hamlet, and Macbeth for parents in the weeks before Christmas break.
I had the pleasure of observing some of the beginnings of the Shakespeare unit. I have to admit- Shakespeare always bored me so I was unsure how these classics were going to resonate with elementary students. Did I mention his students are in 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade? Mr. Hogan began by introducing the characters in Macbeth, and talking to the kids about the genre of the play, a tragedy. What makes it a tragedy? He asked, well.. everybody dies. They were hooked. Or shocked maybe that a teacher would trust them with such high level material! They were introduced to each character by "playing" the character, with the name on a sign that they wore, which you will see in the plays. In another visit later in the year, students were editing their lines and reading, and could tell me all about their characters and the role they play in the story. Fast forward to December, where students clearly have mastered and memorized their lines, which remain true to Shakespeares' original, but are adapted for a child's attention span, and adults for that matter. Once the plays began, there was very little direction from Mr. Hogan, so the preparation that went into these productions must have been very time intensive. The wonderful thing about Shakespeare (as I'm learning as an adult) is that his words permeate our language, so we know much more Shakespeare than we think we do. At the end of the Hamlet production, Horatio kneels over Hamlet and delivers the famous line, and one of my favorites "Good night sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!". But I didn't know it was Hamlet until that day- so, as usual the kids taught me something. I believe this is just the beginning of Mr. Hogan's Shakespeare program. Please enjoy the videos that are a result of the students' exceptional work. |
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