New ideas on 1st day
Floyd County teachers bring summer motivation into the classroom for the first day of school Thursday.
After reading “The Wild Card: 7 Steps to an Educator’s Creative Breakthrough” over the summer, several Pepperell Elementary teachers put the book’s lessons into action for the start of the school year Thursday, decorating their classrooms and even donning some new apparel.
Special education teacher Rhonda VanWinkle was one of the teachers who chose the book for her summer reading. And as the students in her self-contained class came into the classroom Thursday morning, they found a superhero in her place.
VanWinkle dubbed her classroom the superhero class as she wore a Superwoman costume, complete with the red cape and trademark “S” across her chest.
Throughout the year, students who reach the purple level due to their good behavior will be able to choose from one of 10 superhero costumes VanWinkle purchased on Amazon for her class. On Thursday, she taught them the values of being helpful and showing courage in their academic and life pursuits.
Principal Teri Pendley said the book, written by Wade and Hope King, who teach at the Ron Clark Academy in Atlanta, centers on motivating kids for learning through teachers being the difference-makers in their lives. Though teachers cannot control the circumstances from which students come to them from, she said, they can be the catalyst in making positive changes in their lives.
See more Back to School photos in Sunday’s edition for Floyd County’s first day Thursday as well as Rome City Schools’ first day today.
Down the hall from VanWinkle, teacher Emma Horne was getting her new set of third-graders accustomed to the flexible seating of her classroom. This is the fourth year she has incorporated the concept, to not assign seating to students in her classroom, which is decorated in a coral-reef theme this year.
Horne, who now teaches in the same classroom in which she sat as a young student, said she has never liked to learn while sitting at a desk, and students should have the freedom to find a space in the classroom that best suits them. The students are usually taken by surprise when she sits on the floor to teach them. To start the year, students use standup chairs for seating as Horne teaches them the practice of flexible seating.
Pendley said the flexibleseating concept has caught on at the school since teacher Crissy Arrington brought it into her classroom.
Also, when students returned to school Thursday, they found a restructured media center, which is undergoing alterations to fit into the mold of a 21stcentury space. Media Specialist Janie Shiflett said the changes come after the AASL — American Association of School Librarians — put new standards in place which focus more on making media centers into space for STEM activities and creative opportunities.
The school is waiting on the delivery of 10 rolling bookshelves, which will allow the layout of the media center to be rearranged depending on the activity taking place. A room has been dedicated as a makerspace, for students to use in video production and to learn coding, and a 3-D printer was added to the center last year and is set for greater use.
The idea behind the media center is to be an open format space for the adults to get out of the way and let the students create, Pendley said.
Over at Glenwood Primary, second-grade teacher Pebbles Wheeler was reading “Little Red Riding Hood” to her new students as they sat on the carpet. Earlier in the day, students made drawings to express themselves about the return to school.
With the rain falling throughout the school day Thursday, kindergartners had their recess inside. Various types of toy building materials were strewn across tables as students constructed objects, built structures and formed shapes.
Assistant Principal Sarah Holsomback said the activity gets the kids thinking along the lines of STEM curriculum.