Summer School So Far-The Blitz-Reading, Writing, Reflecting, Basketball, Making Video and Science

When I signed up to teach summer school, I liked the idea of it. You can make up your own curriculum and invite students. Sounds fun and not so difficult. Actually, it sounded great! I could make up my own curriculum and chose the students who I knew would love it. The problem I had though was I had to do invite during a time of high testing. I was hyper focused on prepping my students for the test and getting reading for the end of the year paper work extravaganza.

I invited students, but a little later than others who were more experienced with summer schools past. They were recruiting the students that I wanted to attend. I invited all the ones that I wanted, but some were going to other classes. In the end, I did get most of the ones that I asked.

I called it The Blitz. I thought the name apropos because we would do many exciting things in one day. I wanted to take advantage of ludic reading and writing. I also wanted to bring in my love of basketball, creating digital products and showcasing them on my students's blogs. If time would allow, we would also get in some hands on Science.

I am two days in and I really love this type of summer school. We decorated our multifunction notebooks. We have been reading and sharing our love of books. We write about what we want and share our writing too. In addition to that, we take about 45 minutes out of our morning to play basketball. My students get to shoot around and then we play horse. They love playing horse. I also am going to sprinkle in some skill lessons of dribbling, passing, jump shots, foul shots, layups, and a figure eight. I also have some other drills and games that they enjoyed in my after school basketball classes.  Then we have lunch. (They don't much care for the summer school lunches.) We come back for some poetry after lunch. (This idea comes from the Abydos Literacy Institute). We read a poem and analyze it. Then my students are working on making a video using Camtasia. They will take the footage that they gathered during the day with their cameras and produce a video to be uploaded on their blogs. They made their first Camtasia video today. I can't wait for them to showcase it tomorrow in their Edublog.  It will be so exciting for them. Finally, I leave a little extra time for them to play group games.  Then, poof! It is time to go!  Wow!  On some days, if there is time, we will work on magnets, circuits, creating crystals and chemical reactions.  They can take footage of that too!  We will see where we go!  I love this kind of summer school! So do my students!