SPOKANE, Wash. — KREM 2 is launching a new series on Up With KREM called “In The Classroom” where once a month during the school year, KREM’s Channing Curtis will head to different schools in the Inland Northwest to highlight what makes their students so excellent!
For September, we’re featuring the students at staff at Audubon Elementary in Spokane.
With more than 450 students, Audubon has tons of activities and resources for students, regardless of their interests.
English Language Learners
Like the English Language Learners class, taught by Amy Donovan. “I think part of the job that I love so much is that when I walk into a classroom, I feel like when my students see me, they're kind of like, oh, there's that person that kind of is looking out for me,” said Donovan.
She helps her 36 students, from all over the world, learn to find a better connection with their peers by becoming more confident speaking English.
Audubon Elementary
“Our highest population of multilinguals are from the Marshall Islands,” said Donovan. “Then you have a number of students from Afghanistan, from Africa, different countries in Africa. We have some Spanish speaking families. So yeah, all across the world!”
The students learn by drawing pictures, sharing stories about their family and their traditions, while also teaching each other about themselves.
“We do lots of visuals, lots of pictures, lots of pointing to things, lots of gesturing,” said Donovan.
The ELL students have their own curriculum while in class but still manage to keep up with their other classwork as well. Through the program, students often come into Donovan’s class but she often goes into their classrooms as well, to offer support in what can be a difficult learning situation to someone who is multilingual.
“The students that I work with just are pretty amazing,” said Donovan. “And they just, they teach me so much.”
Community Garden Club
Audubon Elementary also has a new Community Garden and Club where they’re growing pumpkins. Lead by 4th grade teacher Erin Norman and thanks to a donation of pumpkin seeds from one of the staff members, the students have dozens of pumpkins ready to be picked!
“Our hope is now that we have it up and running, is to involve our PTO and the community and to be able to come in and work on it,” said Norman.
The students planted the pumpkins in the spring and are now reaping the rewards.
“So on the last day of school, we had several kids come out and helped me put them into the soil,” said Norman. “And I came in over the summer to help water them.”
Right now, the students are also launching a garden club, to take care of the garden year round.
“We will have an after school club to help us all year long, help us stay up on the weeds and making sure plants are doing well and staying watered,” said Norman. “And then once classrooms take over their bins, they'll be more in charge of their bin, the garden club will still come out and help with weeds and things.”
In the spring, each class will get their own bin and will decide what they grow.
“I heard some of our teachers want to do like a salsa garden so they can grow things,” said Norman. “And then our kitchen is going to take the produce and turn it to whatever the classroom is growing.”
Cardio Drum Class
We're heading back inside to the Audubon Cardio Drum Class, taught by Angela Bina. The class allows kids to learn music while working up a sweat.
"It came about as an idea of something fun to do the physical education teacher and I would often try to find a way to teach together," said Bina. "And I came across this idea."
The idea has been a big hit with many of her students, "It's just, you know, having fun with the kids doing musical things, which is, you know, creating all sorts of firings in their brains and synapses," said Bina. "And they're doing math or doing science and reading physical education all at once. And they don't even realize it, because they're just having fun. Which is the whole point."
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