Fictional Stories in Science
Using Fictional Stories as a Pathway to Science Content
Bulletin Boards
When I first started as an ELL Co-Teacher at my elementary school, I didn’t have a bulletin board. It made sense, of course, since those were reserved for the classroom teachers. But, there was this one right outside my office, right between two hallways and near the workroom that wasn’t really claimed by anyone…so one day I asked and I got it! 🙂 Since then I have taken my bulletin board seriously as a communication space. Here some of the ones I have featured so far on my blog: (Note: click on the hyperlink to learn more about each board)
Interactive Boards
Curiosity & Learning Boards
College Board: I haven’t previously featured this board on this site, since it isn’t connected to fictional stories in science, but it has been a great addition to our school. The board is on display in the lunchroom hallway, so it gets a lot of traffic. Many teachers have even brought down their students, to spend more time at the board, for a lesson.
YET Board: I haven’t featured this board on this site previously, but it has also been a great addition to our school. We are currently doing a book study on having a growth mindset, using the book: “The Growth Mindset Coach: A Teacher’s Month-by-Month Handbook for Empowering Students to Achieve”. It is a book study provided to both the teachers and the parents (I know, isn’t that great!). 🙂 One of the key pieces of language being modeled and adopted into our classrooms, staff meetings, the teacher’s lounge, everywhere, is “YET”, an example being: I don’t know how to use that tech platform, yet. So I created this bulletin board off an idea I saw on Pinterest. At first the visuals were mostly examples from now and history, but since then I have added pictures of our students moving on the continuum from “yet” to expert.
GRIT Board: Similar to the “YET” board above, “grit” has been another piece of language that has been added to our staff and student conversations.
Student Work Display Boards
Welcome Back: This was my August and September board displaying last spring’s PBL (Project Based Learning) project at exhibition night, which was our first year as a PBL school. Teachers were excited to expand our use of PBL, so I created a board to connect last year’s learning to this year’s possibilities.
Seasonal Tree of Kindness: This bulletin board was created by teachers and parents during our 1st grade PBL exhibition night this past fall, which focused on kindness. First graders created acts of kindness statements and wrote them on fall leaves. Then, the night of the exhibition I ran an activity table, where parents and students looked through the acts of kindness, took one as a personal challenge, and then wrote a 2018 kindness goal on a snowflake, to place on that same tree, to help us winterize our tree. Once the night was over, I moved the collaborative art piece to the hallway. So, this board was, in part, interactive. 🙂
Fictional Stories in Science 