Artifact 1: Lesson Plan on Making Text Connections
Creating lessons that are developmentally-appropriate includes taking students' backgrounds into consideration. Choosing texts that promote conversation among students is one way of helping students to grow as learners.
The above lesson plan used the text Tar Beach (Ringgold, 1991), which helped students to easily make text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world connections (see book cover below).
Artifact 2: Mathematics Rounding Activity
Even in a technology-driven world, young students still enjoy hands-on activities. Creating activities that are relevant to the real world makes them meaningful and helps students understand the world around them.
Above: Students cut car and house ads from newspaper and sales flyers to practice rounding large numbers.