I love this story about 10-year-old kids in a New York classroom who begin to discover 80-year old treasures beneath the classroom’s floor boards – old coins, scraps of paper. The teacher goes with it, encouraging their explorations and incorporating the adventure into the curriculum. Bravo for good teaching!
Great story!
Unfortunately, that wouldn’t happen around here, because kids wouldn’t be allowed enough free time, not to mention they are constantly remodeling the schools.
This is so cool and the kind of lessons that should be encouraged. Unfortunately I agree with ek that it’s likely not doable around here.
I love it when teachers and administrators let this sort of serendipity happen. When my youngest was in fourth grade his teacher asked for parent volunteers once a week to lead various projects. Mine was a class newspaper. One day one of the kids asked me what was behind a door near the front entrance. From the outside you could tell that the room it led to must be very small. I said I had no idea, but I bet we could ask the principal. So we all went down to her office and she told us that she would lead us on a tour the next week of all sorts of hidden parts of the school. We discovered that the basement had been a nuclear shelter, that under the playground was a huge room with a sloping floor for storing coal, that there was a old organ in a loft space above the auditorium, and that funny little room had really never been used for much beyond storage even though it had a cute little stained glass window.
I just had to mention this name.
Lizardo Lozada,
That is one great teacher.
I’ve been cleaning out my yard and while I mostly run into roofing nails and broken glass pieces, I’ve found some interesting bits of old metal that I love. Whatever you call the thing that surrounds a keyhole? A few of those. And other shapes that are just interesting fragments. I’m thinking of taking them to a woman who makes art pieces from bottle caps and other discards.
Door plate.
Be careful with the glass.
But that would take precious time away from testing…
But that would take precious time away from teaching to the test…
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escutcheon_(furniture)
Post #6 - it’s called an escutcheon.