Community Evidence
Collaborating with Culture
Rationale:
The community around The Chicago Academy is very diverse, signs up and down Belmont, Austin, and Addison all read in a variety of languages, including Polish and Spanish. Being so we have an excellent learning opportunity within the bounds of our own classroom. Several parents volunteered to come in and answer questions generated by students about their experience immigrating into the United State of America following a Social Studies and Reading unit on immigration. This opened up the students ideas about their own experiernces, as we have many immigrants with in our own classroom, as well as their own community members experience. Students had the chance to better understand one another and relate to the families of the classroom. We were able to draw on this experience as we moved forward in the class. Just recently the students wrote a brief reflective essay about their own identity as fourth graders moving into fifth. Many of the brain storming topics we developed stemmed from their own personal celebration of cultures. It was wonderful to see their own growth of their understanding of themselves and the world around us.
Family Learning Night
Rationale:
Family Learning Night gives students, parents, family, and friends the opportunity to come into school and see what we are learning as well as pick up a free and unique new educational game generated by each classroom teacher. There are four different Family Learning Nights throughout the year, each one having a different theme to focus on. Most recently we celebrated different countries in the world, our classroom celebrated China. We made abacuses that we actively used in mat class as well as traditional Chinese kites that adorned the bulletin board outside room 212.
The students pictured to the left are sharing an information wheel they made about the life cycle of the the crayfish we had in our classroom with Assistant Principal Mrs. Laura Smith & Principal Dr. Wei. The first Family Learning Night was centered around "showing what we know" as we were learning about the life cycle of a crayfish and actively housing twenty of the little critters in the room it was a perfect time for the students to share what we were doing in the classroom. This learning environment allows all staff and educators to share our understandings with one another.
Community Walk Part 2
Social Services & Their Impact on Diverse Students
Rationale:
The students and families at The Chicago Academy use a multitude of Social Services in the area. As an educator I wanted to make sure I was aware of what my students could be offered as part of CPS. This exploration lead to me gain a plethora of knowledge that I could share both with my students and their parents, as well as fellow coworkers. Making myself knowledgeable about resources, especially ESL and immigration assistance due to the high population of Polish and Hispanic students, has truly helped me to become more grounded in Portage Park and gives me a framework to work with at my next location in CPS. This was helpful especially around Report Card Pick Up and Parent Conference time because the resources I found could actually be used for the parents and gaurdians of my students.
