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Wednesday, June 15, 2022

8 Picture Books to Help You Celebrate Pride Month

  June is Pride Month! This is a great time to start helping our students and children have more tolerance towards people. Tolerance is something that we need to be teaching all the time, but I like to put an emphasis on it in the month of June. Picture books are a great way to help our students understand concepts like Pride and tolerance. Today I am going to share my list of favorite picture books for Pride Month. 



    One of my favorite books is “A Family is a Family is a Family” by Sara O’Leary. This is a great book celebrating all different kinds of families, from two Moms, two Dads, adopted families, etc. I love that it takes place in a classroom and that the students share what is special about their families. 



    The next book on my list is “Red a Crayon’s Story” by Michael Hall. In this story a blue crayon gets marked incorrectly as a red crayon. All the other crayons are trying to make the blue crayon color red items but they keep coming out blue. The other crayons try to fix him, until they all learn to embrace his true blue color. I love that this story is written for younger students to understand. 



     This is a great book that teaches about pronouns as well as the ABC’s. It is presented in rhyme, which is always fun. This is a perfect book for younger children. This book also helps students understand about gender and gender fluidity. 



     The next book on the list is “They, She, He, Me Free to Be!” by Maya Christina Gonzalez and Matthew Sg. This book is a follow up to “They, She, He, Easy as ABC,” but it is for a little bit older students. This book helps to open up conversations about pronouns and the pronouns that people choose to use. 



     The next book on the list is “This Day in June” by Gayle E. Pitman. This is a great book written in rhyme with tons of bright colors. This story is about going to the Pride Parade and who is invited to the parade, which is everyone. 



     The next book on the list is “Pride: The story of Harvey Milk and the Rainbow Flag” by Rob Sanders. This book tells the story of Harvey Milk and how the rainbow flag was created, and also shares the role of the flag today. This is a great biography to share with your class. 



     The next book on the list is “Be You!” By Peter H. Reynolds. This story shares ways children are each uniquely different. It creates a celebration of being you and your individualized self.  This book helps children know that it is ok to be different and to be yourself. 



     The last book on the list is “It Feels Good to be Yourself” by Theresa Thorn. This is a great book to introduce gender identity. It helps children understand themselves as well as others. This story is great for younger children, using child friendly vocabulary and bright art that children will love. 


     Pride Month is a wonderful time to introduce great stories to children about gender and being yourself. I love finding opportunities to show my students new books that help them understand difficult concepts. Do you have favorite books for Pride Month that you love to share with your children or students? Share them in the comments. I can’t wait to add new ones to the list!


Wednesday, June 8, 2022

My Top 4 Tips to Run a Student Led Open House

Open House is a time to show off your students and the work that they are accomplishing. The best way to do this is by having your students lead the Open House. Students love taking the responsibility for the event! They really enjoy touring their parents around the classroom, and they are always so proud to show off all the amazing work they have been doing. Here are a few things to put into place to make the event a success:


 


    The first thing that I always do for our student-led open house is to create a sheet of student directions. This can be a checkoff sheet for students to go through, or a graphic for students to use. The student directions help the students take ownership of the event. I love having my students help come up with the steps they should take. This is another way that students take ownership and helps them remember the order to do things. 



    The next thing that is important to do for a student-led open house is to have stations set up for your students. Stations are a great way to help students know the order to do things at the event, and they enjoy helping create the list of stations. The stations can be placed around the classroom at different tables. You can have students show their work and projects that they are doing, or you can even have the students do an activity with their parents and family while they are at the Open House. 



    Open House is a time to display all your student's work. One content area that is exciting to show are math activities. I love to show crafts that display concepts in math that students are learning. Crafts are a great way to have students share their learning, and Math crafts are also a great activity to have students do with their families at the open house. 



    The last type of work that I love to display in the classroom for open house is language arts work. This is another content area that goes well with crafts. I love to have my students complete a writing activity and then do a craft that goes along with the writing. This is great to display in the classroom and students love to show off the writing that they have done to their parents. Crafts that display grammar skills are another great way to display students' work. 


    Open house is a fun school event that lets others see all the great work your students are doing! Doing a student-led open house is a great way for your students to share their work. It is also a great way for your students to take great responsibility in their learning. Your students will love to take their families around the classroom and show them everything they have learned.


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