In response to the 4/25/14 post, “Make the Last Month Count,” a LYS Teacher asks:
SC,
Sounds neat. What about 5th grade teachers though?
SC Response Here are a couple of options for 5th grade teachers.
1. The fifth grade teachers can drop down a grade and begin to teach the 4th grade students that will be in their classrooms next year.
2. The fifth grade teachers can begin to teach the first three weeks of content for 6th grade courses. For some schools this may be difficult, but in a district that has a vertically aligned common scope and sequence (like your district) this is a much easier task.
3. The fifth grade teachers can implement interdisciplinary capstone projects. What better way to prepare the fifth grade students for the increased expectations of middle school than to have them mange the logistics of completing and turning in a multi-component product of learning.
4. The fifth grade teachers can begin summer school a month early. Regroup the students and for the students that are at-risk of needing to attend summer school begin the Summer School instruction / program early. Assign your best teacher(s) to this group and focus heavily on hands-on, interactive instruction in ELAR, math and science. Jump start the academic progress on these students while you still have staff, resources, and time left in the school year.
The bottom line is to use the ENTIRE school year to teach content. The schools that do this will outperform similar schools that only teach content for 8/9’s of the school year.
Think. Work. Achieve. Your turn…
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