James Baldwin Elementary School News

 It’s a fast start at the new James Baldwin Elementary on 1st Avenue NE.  The mega-sized school, capable of handling 600 students, has 250 Kindergarten through 5th grade students.  The building, if you haven’t seen it, has two stories with slightly smaller classrooms but has more tutorial/small group rooms. 

The landscaping outside is amazing with rain gardens, sunken-log seating for outdoor teaching and a planned Spring garden area.  Can’t wait for that.  The school has a suitable playground  with climbing equipment to come and an indoor play court.  Also, being constructed now, are athletic fields for soccer.  Seattle Public Schools will rent this area out.I started teaching third grade science on September 25.  Each unit of study (3 and per year) lasts about 10 weeks.  First up is magnets.  This is not your grandfather’s class.  You may be familiar with inquiry method of teaching science.  It’s no more spoon feeding students facts while the teacher goes on a recitation for 30 minutes.  The new way is to nibble at the edges of the topic and ask students questions.  A unit will have an over-arching question.  In this unit “Why does the train in the video you watched rise?”  This becomes the focal point for magnets.  The students will do many tests with them.  Midway though the first lesson we took a break and danced to a high-tech video rapper.

Randy Harkness

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