At the end of each school year, before summer, I like to look back and highlight special moments throughout the year. This year there were many! What I find so amazing as I continue this practice is that many things that I've highlighted in previous years continue to be wonderful memories, and we're able to build on them and add more! Our classes were able to accomplish a lot! We worked very hard and had fun doing it. Here are some highlights from this school year in no particular order.
Kiva Investments
This year for our final project in 7th grade Social Studies students learned about micro-loans as a way to support communities in developing countries, to decrease global poverty. Students selected businesses to invest in then made posters with information about why we should invest in the business and information about the country. Each class voted for one business to invest $100 in. The best thing about this is that the investment is a loan and next year my new 7th grade classes will be able to continue supporting future businesses!
Obama Victor
Few people are more loved than Mr. Dumbroski.. Few people are more hated in 6th grade Spanish than Victor, the egotistical bully from Senor Wooly. But what if I told you... they were the same person? Here I present the video evidence that transcends the space-time-Spanish-English continuum for you to decide yourself.
Black History Month Performance
This year's middle school Black History Month performance was one of the best I've seen in my decades of teaching. The re-enactments and dances were of the highest quality and the audience really enjoyed the show. It is amazing to see our students come together and shine. Definitely a highlight of the year!
Dress Up Days
We had a blast this year dressing up. The Spanish department likes to represent during Hispanic Heritage month, the everyone got a kick out of the teachers dressing like students, and a few of us were able to sport the Duolingo cruise outfits from our previous trip.
Community Tour
As part of our partnership in 2024 with Community Day School, 7th grade students were able to take a walking tour of the Jewish synagogues around East Liberty. The tour guide and Mr. Steinberg pointed out Hebrew on a building. In 7th grade English and Language Arts classes students had read that week “The Case of the Disappearing Words” by Alice Andre-Clark. This article was about languages that had “died” or “disappeared,” meaning that very few people spoke the language.
The article mentioned Hebrew, and told the story of how Ben-Yehuda had devised a plan to revive Hebrew. Mr. Steinberg was able to retell the story to all the students and we could see an example of how languages are able to stay alive through being taught to others.
This was a powerful, naturally occurring example of how this partnership brings together academics and real life, neighborhood knowledge and diversity awareness.
Food
This year we tried new food like Tajin-covered gummy fruit snacks and Jamaican hot chocolate! I'm very appreciative of community members who provided these snacks for our students!
Lego World
We continued the collaboration with Mrs. Festa and STEAM classes to create a map of the world using Legos! The students worked together in creative ways to make elevate this project!
Downtime fun
We are a work-hard play-hard class! Besides the fun games utilizing our learning we had a great time this year drawing and crafting during celebrations and down time. I also started attending knitting and crochet club.
I'm so grateful for another year of laughing and learning in Obama's middle school. I hope everyone has a great summer and we continue to grow next year!
