001That item is before us. >> Embedded in that wonderful report by our student representative, she mentioned the Whittier School celebration today. And before I ask you to invite the Whittier School up, uh over 450 parents joined the performance today that was absolutely outstanding. Um, you can't ask for a more engaged community and we certainly have it here. Friday morning, 700 parents, 700 parents came to see their students at the Parllin and we have more of those um holiday concerts planned for the rest of this week. So, if uh parents out there don't get a chance to see uh their own child perform, I know many of the schools are recording it and sending it out through Class Dojo. So, I am really thrilled uh to have the Whitty School students here with us this evening
002for the second in my series of school spotlights. As I mentioned to you last month, each month of this this this year and coming into next year, I'd like to have one of our schools come forward and make a presentation to the school committee and to our community about something either unique or something maybe even cutting edge in some cases, hearing some of the schools who've uh decided to come uh and give me some of their ideas. Um so tonight um our sixth grade students at the Whittier School are coming up to talk about when reading meets science which now is going to show us how we can build lessons academic lessons around two subject areas on one topic. So with that I'd ask uh the chair and the school committee to invite our principal
003Mike McLucas, his assistant principles Cara Fidalgo and Dr. Brendan Kent and the sixth grade teaching team to come forward with their students for this month's September school spotlight. Excuse me, for December school spotlight. >> Make that in the form of a motion. >> Second. >> Motion has been made and by Miss Cristiano, seconded by Mr. Barrows to invite Principal McLucas and his team before us. All those in favor? I. >> All those opposed? The eyes have it. Welcome everyone. Good evening members of the school committee. We're very honored to be before you this evening and our focus is on teaching and learning and um we have our instructional priority for the district which is student centered learning experiences in literacy and I think when we take a crosscurricular unit in grade six it's a great
004little example of how our teachers collaborate and they take two subjects they put them together and we give kids experience experiences with readingformational texts, building vocabulary, comprehension, citing evidence, running experiments, developing conclusions, and then writing essays. Packaging all that together is high rigor. We're using high quality instructional materials in the Ever Public Schools, and it's reflective in the excellence in our students. And I want to give a big shout out to my assistant principles, Carara Fidalgo and Dr. Brendan Kent for all their support administratively as well as our grade six teachers. We have Miss Cassidy Butt for ELA. We have Miss Rachel Hughes for science, Miss Christa Davis for EL, and Miss Carmela Terry for special ed. I'd also like to note that our science coach, Mr. Joseph Lento, is also here in attendance today,
005as well as our SEAL teacher, Dr. Jillian Els. Thank you for your support. Along with all of the families from the Whittier School, thank you so very much for all that you do. I think without further ado, I'd like to bring our students forward. >> Absolutely. Thank you. Welcome. Welcome everyone. >> Hello, my name is Kayen. Our sixth grade team worked on a lesson that connected our ELA unit on yellow fever with the science investigation. In ELA, we learned about three theories for what caused fever. Yellow fever bacteria contaminated materials and mosquitoes. During the bacteria theory lessons, our teachers helped us explore this scientifically. Hi, I'm Christina. Our teachers wanted to show us how the subject connect instead of learning ELA and science separately. We got to see how the how they support each other.
006When we studied the bacteria theory in ELA, we did a real science investigation to check if bacteria actually be the cause. Hi, my name is Solana. In Eile, we read about the yellow fever outbreak in Philadelphia in 1796. We studied the symptoms people had had and learned about how people back then do not really know what caused the disease. >> Hi, I'm Amed. We learned that people in 1793 believed yellow fever could be caused by three things. bacteria, contaminated materials, or mosquito bites. We looked at evidence for all three ideas. Hello, my name is Kadoya. When we reached the part about bacteria possibly being the cause of yellow fever, Miss Hughes and Miss B created a science experiment so we could test how bacteria really grows in the real world. When we finish with this,
007you can see we'll return to >> welcome everyone. >> Hi, my name is Sandre. In science, we got to observe real bacteria samples in petri dishes. We looked at the colonies closely to see how they grow and how they spread. In science class the week before, we went around the school and swapped different things around the school to watch bacteria grow on them over time. Hi, my name is Adam. We recorded observations of each bacteria sample. Then we swab different places around the school such as the floor, carpet, doors, and door handles. Then we wrote claims about what we thought the evidence showed. >> Hello, my name is My name is Caleb. After observing bacteria, we connected what we saw to what we were reading in LA. After this experiment, we talked about how it
008made sense to scientists to scientists at the time that bacteria could be a cause of yellow fever. It was really gross. My name is Santiago. We worked in small groups and took turns observing the petri dishes, writing down data, and discussing what we noticed. It helped us think like both scientists and investigators gathering evidence. Hello, my name is Janet. We learned that bacteria can spread, but not the same way yellow fever did in the book. This helped us question the bacteria theory and think about what other causes made more sense. It's okay. >> Welcome. Thank you. >> Hi, my name is Anthony. This lesson show us why it's important to connect what we learn in different subjects. It made the ELA story feel more real because we actually test one of the theories ourselves. If
009it was not for the science lesson we did, I would not even know what a bacteria looks like in real life to see if it makes sense for being the cause of yellow fever. >> Hi, I'm Nico. Our project also connects to something our district is focusing on this year. Our teachers want to make sure all students get the reading support they need to succeed. In this activity, we practice important reading skills like understanding the text, using evidence, and explaining our ideas. Because we used both science, data, and details from the book, our teachers can see what we understood and what we still needed help with. This helped all of us improve our reading, vocabulary, and comprehension while doing something hands-on and fun. Overall, this cross overall, this crosscurricular lesson helped us build a deeper
010understanding of yellow fever, evidence, and how scientific thinking connects to reading. We hope our project shows how powerful it can be when subjects work together. TOGETHER, thank you very much everyone. The principles to come back. As you can see, our students are well-versed, poised, and ready. And I think that they are a fine representation of the students that we have across this district. And if I'm not mistaken, maybe one or two of them were playing the violin this morning. Others were singing. We have a lot of talent at all of our schools. And today is definitely wittier waves. Mr. Mclucas and SOUND THANK YOU to Thank you to the teachers doing so much for us. Thank you.