Happenings

These last few weeks of 6th grade are going to be exciting!  We've started our Global Collaboration Course through Level Up Village (LUV) based on themes related to Lois Lowry's The Giver with The Anderson School in Gweru, Zimbabwe.  I wrote and piloted the course this time last year, so this is my second go-round! In addition to getting to know one another and discussing the themes of the book, students explore their own personal idea of Utopia as well as research real-world issues that we have in the United States, the effects of those issues, and possible solutions.  Meanwhile, our global partners are doing the same thing! Here's the course description from Level Up Village's website : "Students read and discuss Lois Lowry’s The Giver alongside students in a global partner classroom. Together through video letter exchange, they discuss the impact of societal rules and cultural norms on individual free will, while determining whether Lowry is presenting rea...

 Being named a Greenwich Public Schools Distinguished Teacher for 2017 is an amazing honor!  I am so thankful to my two students, Catherine and Patrick, for nominating me. You can learn about all six of this year's Distinguished Teachers in this Greenwich Time article and in this CT Post article .  Learn about The Distinguished Teacher Award or watch the video of the 2017 ceremony on the Greenwich Public Schools website .   My student nominator starts speaking around the 41 minute mark, and my speech is right after!!  My principal and two student nominators My colleague who also nominated me

  Congratulations to my wonderful team of 6th graders who placed FIRST in the Nation in this year's Gold division of the Wordmaster Challenge! What is The Wordmaster Challenge ? The Wordmasters Challenge is a national analogy solving competition that consists of three meets during the school year.  Students study the words and their relationships to prepare for the meets. What are the benefits? Improving vocabulary skills using analogies... Develops verbal reasoning abilities Addresses higher-order thinking skills Emphasizes logic and reading comprehension As a team, my 6th graders have had AMAZING success!! Here's how we have been doing: Wordmasters End of Year Rankings 9th in the nation: 2009 5th in the nation: 2013 2nd in the nation: 2016, 2015, 2014, 2012, 2008, 2007 1st in the nation: 2017, 2011, 2010, 2006, 2005 How do we prepare for the challenge?   I get asked that all of the time! I have started to put together som...

How Do You Prepare for The Wordmaster Challenge? by Bridget Suvansri Here are some suggestions for getting ready many of which we do in class together. 1.  Make a study tool!  Look up the various meanings, parts of speech, and word forms of each word.  Students like to make flash cards, word webs, or a digital compilation of what they find.  I tell them to make a study tool that works for them! 2.  Use the words in sentences.  Try to drop them in conversations, and try to notice them when you are listening, reading, etc.   3.  Make note of the typical or usual references of the words and the things the words are usually associated with. 4. Connect the words to each other by finding relationships between the words (keeping the part of speech in mind).  Connect words that are synonyms, antonyms, related words, and any ways the words many be connected.  We make categories and give the various categories general titles to h...

When Spring time comes in middle school, sometimes I find myself challenged to come up with novel ways to keep 6th graders engaged, especially during those last days of school.  This year, I came across Spine Book poetry online, and I decided to add it to my poetry writing workshop. Check out this google slide presentation of some of the cool and unexpected spines that became poetry! Spine Book Poetry Student Submissions 2016

How wonderful it is to see Sara Holbrook and Michael Salinger every year!  They travel the world using poetry to reach kids and content areas, and it's magical when they make their way to Eastern!  Michael and Sara are both published poets, and they have written many books for teachers. After an amazing kick-off assembly, I love how they enter a classroom, have a brief chat with the teacher about what's been going on in their class, and within minutes, the lesson has started and all of the students are engaged!  By the end of the 43 minute period, all students have a draft of a poem!  While it's not easy to schedule 15 English classes with each of them in only three days, I manage to figure it out so that each and every one of our 285 sixth graders gets to have a workshop with each of them.  My only wish is that we could have each of them for a second class period to work on revisions and presentations! I've learned so much from watching Michael a...

Video Pen-pals Global Collaboration via Level Up Village has made an impact on my students!  It all started in the fall of 2015 on the side lines of my son's soccer game.  When I first heard about Level Up Village, I was intrigued and wanted to try it with my class!  But, at the time, LUV's offerings were related to science and technology, and since I am an English teacher, the courses didn't fit. So, the solution was to create my own course that related to literature I was using in my classroom already!  So, that's what I did! Read " Creating Meaningful Global Connections "--the article I wrote about my first experience with Global Collaboration (and why English teachers should try it)on Edutopia.org. The experience was so positive and contagious that Greenwich Time ran an article about it!  And, much to my surprise, when googling my name, I found that someone blogged about my article and their own experience with global collaboration.  I ...