Background
The elementary school where I teach, Kathleen H. Wilbur Elementary School in Bear Delaware, is comprised of many different kinds of students with a variety of beliefs and experiences. Our school has approximately 1200 students from Kindergarten through 5th grade and pulls from a wide geographic area in the Colonial School District. There are nine 1st grade classrooms grouped together in three clusters of three rooms. This year I will have up to 25 students from Hispanic, African, Caribbean, Asian and Middle Eastern cultures as well as students whose families are from the United States. My classes, historically, have been around 50% African American, 30% White and 20% other ethnicities and are usually a close split between boys and girls. Socio-economically, my class will also be diverse with all economic classes represented from students living in “McMansions” to students who are homeless. My school is a Title 1 school and qualifies for free lunch for all students.
Most of my students’ life experiences are very basic. They rarely get out of their neighborhood and most do not play outside except at recess. We live about one hour from the ocean yet many of my students have never seen it, yet alone gone swimming in it. The sum total travel experience of many students is the shopping trip to Walmart and the weekly attendance at their family’s house of worship. Most experiences are virtual through TV, movies, and video games. Many students will be familiar with the word “evolution” through popular culture mediums such as Pokémon and other video games, movies, and television shows such as X-Men and Spiderman where characters are said to evolve. Some students will have background knowledge of dinosaurs through the Jurassic Park movies but others will have only a vague idea of what dinosaurs were and when they lived.
Our grade level teaches Math and Language Arts four days a week. Science, in rotation with Social Studies, is taught one day a week for the whole day rather than daily in 50 minute blocks. This allows for deeper conversation and experimentation with the concepts we discuss. Language Arts and Math concepts are integrated into the instruction on those days, where appropriate.
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