teachable moments

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Home : 2004 : September : 29

teachable moments
By teachfla

Eighteen days! Wow. I am so sorry to hear about you being out of school for so long. I can only IMAGINE how frustrated you feel. We were only out for 5 days total (Frances and Jeanne combined.) I hope everyone is okay. Have
you been able to see your room? What type of damage did you sustain?
I turned these hurricanes into teachable moments for my kids in several ways. I started the first day back with a sharing circle where everyone who wanted to shared about what had happened to them. This lasted about a half hour. Then I read a cool book on weather I have called "Hurricanes Have Eyes But Can't See."

We turned these experiences into our first expository practice piece of the year (I teach third grade.)
We have journaled a lot about our personal experiences, but since we haven't suffered nearly as much as you all have that doesn't quite seem appropriate for your crew. Why not make a booklet about your experiences? You can do one page for each of the five senses about how it's like to live without power/in a shelter/etc. Do another page that's a Venn Diagram of the differences between living with/without power. Depending on where you are, you could take disposable cameras (or digital cameras) and document the destruction. Your kids could write a book to share with other students around the state/country about surviving a hurricane.
You could e-mail teachers around the state and have their classes share what happened to their communities based on the different hurricanes that have hit. I know our destruction has been quite different from yours. I'd be willing to be one link. You could chart these responses on a map that would tie into your study of Florida.
Overall, though, I have to say my kids were a lot less upset and scared than I thought they would be. They were facinated by the power of hurricanes and eager to learn more about what happened to them and their community. Let me know if there's any way we can help.