This post, part of this year’s Walk This Way series which shares The Walking Classroom experiences of teachers and students across the United States, provides a glimpse into Petrecia Shales’ class.
The thing I like best about The Walking Classroom is that it is easy to add curriculum to it. It is just as easy to build curriculum around it, especially using biography podcasts!
Moving to Fourth Grade
After using the Program 5 Walking Classroom podcasts for several years with my ESL classroom, it has been fun for me to create lesson plans for podcasts for my fourth graders in my new position at a Title 1 school this year.
A February Challenge!
Creating engaging Black History Month activities was an important part of my February challenge. With a number of podcasts to use, I chose four of them. I used the biography podcasts on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (4-#64, Complete-#123), Rosa Parks (4-#65, Complete-#124), Langston Hughes (4-#16, Complete-#34), and Maya Angelou (4-#17, Complete-#67).
In addition, I printed out some poetry by Langston Hughes and Maya Angelou to get a head start on preparing to read Love That Dog later in March/April. By author Sharon Creech, Love That Dog is written as a series of free-verse poems.
Build on Biographies
As the podcasts I chose are biographical, I am also using them as a springboard for an upcoming biography project. For that project, my students will choose a person from their own culture to research. They will then create a google slide presentation, and present it to the class, and possibly to parents and younger students as well.
With National Poetry Month around the corner in April, other activities are generated from these biography podcasts. My students will also create their own versions of the poems “Mother to Son” by Langston Hughes and “Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou.
So Many Podcasts, So Little Time!
The Walking Classroom podcasts give me such great ideas from which to build teaching and learning opportunities. The biggest problem is that there are so many great podcasts, there is not enough time in the year for all of them! That’s when I start to get excited about planning for next year!
Trecia Shales
Fourth Grade Teacher
Washington Elementary
Leave a Reply