Although we had to do it from a distance, the students still got to celebrate. Thanks to our parent volunteers and a middle school sibling, we got to complete a scavenger hunt, make a holiday craft, and share gifts via Secret Santa. Thanks to all those involved in making the day feel special.
Author: Aaron Grossman
I am a 5th grade teacher at Roy Gomm Elementary in Reno, Nevada. I started working with elementary students as part of the Montana Reads program and AmeriCorps. In 2001, after graduating from the University of Montana and moving to Reno, Nevada, I student taught at Rita Cannan Elementary before receiving a 6th grade position at Veterans Elementary. I moved out of the classroom to be a Literacy Coordinator, then an Instructional Coach, and finally a School Improvement Program Coordinator. In 2011, I began working on the Nevada Academic Content Standards in the district’s Curriculum & Instruction Department. I returned to the classroom for the 2015-2016 school year to teach 4th grade at Huffaker Elementary.
Before returning to the classroom, I helped develop the Core Task Project that has been featured by National Public Radio, the Gates Foundation, American Radio Works, Eduwonk, the Fordham Institute, Vox, and the Center for American Progress. In 2014, I received the Leader to Learn From Award for my teacher-centered initiative and work to bring college, career, and civics ready outcomes into Northern Nevada classrooms (here).
In 2015, I was appointed by Governor Sandoval serve on the Statewide RPDP Council. The same year, Nevada’s State Superintendent of Public Instruction Steve Canavero placed me on the state’s State Improvement Team. This year I will be part of the National Council on Teacher Quality’s Teacher Advisory Group. I am Google Certified Educator and a Nevada Teacher Ambassador.
I believe strongly that teaching content is teaching reading and I make sure my students have ample opportunities to work with social studies, history, science and art outcomes. I do what I can to blend the learning for my students and this blog is part of that effort. You can contact me at coretaskproject@gmail.com
Highlights from November 2020
We certainly found a groove with distance learning, with the images below supplying the evidence. We continue to explore what is possible in this format, and I am so appreciative of the students and families for their willingness to be part of this effort.
Halloween, and a Week of Learning
Thank you the parents and siblings who helped put together a pretty terrific Distance Learning Halloween experience. The Halloween celebration came at the end of a unit of learning that had some students moving from multi-digit multiplication to multi-digit division and other students learning to multiply fractions. We continued to write multi-paragraph papers and we added Pixton as a tool to plan and enhanced our ability to communicate.
October Learning
The move to Distance Learning has become more comfortable for the students and we are covering content at a greater pace. We are working with multiplication and division, experimenting with different types of conjunctions and completed our unit on folktales and fairytales. We filmed a video (here) that will be part of Nevada’s Literacy Conference and before starting our fall break, did a directed draw.
Working Online
A few weeks into the Distance Learning experience and we are definitely getting into the swing of things. In math, we have made it through multi-digit addition and subtraction, worked with rounding, and are now into unit conversions. A few students are working on multi-digit division and finding factors of multi-digit numbers. In science we are studying the function of living things, in social studies we are studying Nevada history and in ELA we are learning about the structure of narratives.
The Socially Distanced Classroom
I’ve managed to get the desks six feet apart to get things ready for a socially distanced classroom. Another reminder of how different this school year will be.
Last Week of School 2019-2020
It is absolutely amazing what the students accomplished during distance learning and it culminated with a Toastmasters experience Thursday night. During the week the students practiced their speeches but also had time for work on biodiversity and adaptations, a virtual field day, and a baby picture quiz. (Thanks parents for sharing the photos.) The Toastmasters event was especially impressive and through Zoom, over 50 people were able to attend.
Ten weeks of distance learning was challenging but the students were great with it; and I am thankful that I got to experience it with this specific group of children and families.
Week 8 Distance Learning
The refrain of the classroom continues to be: learning, despite the distance. It is amazing what the kids continue to get done. We annotated for text evidence, divided with remainders, converted with different metric units, and we finished our animal reports. (We even did a peer edit via the Breakout Rooms in Zoom.) We also got to be part of a Greg Tang experience and participated in the live Mystery Science event.
Week 7 Distance Learning
One of the things the kids have taught me is that learning is still possible despite the distance. We have pushed ahead in math with students applying what they know about multi-digit addition and subtraction to metric conversations. For example 10 kg – 3 kg 268 m. Other students have secured multiplying using the standard algorithm and are now practicing dividing with remainders. We are working on animal reports, revisiting work on forces, and answering text-dependent questions. Moreover, lots of people have come to visit to witness what the kids can do including Trustees Katy Simon-Holland and Andrew Caudill.
We played Pictionary, did PE with Ms. Knuth and ended, as has become our new habit, with a directed draw.
Week 5 Distance Learning
The kids continue to impress as a routine is taking root in our digital classroom. We are working with more fourth grade standards, especially in math with some student tackling multi-digit rounding and others being introduced to the partial products algorithm. We reintroduced our Benchmark reading program and used Microsoft Forms to share answers. We did some work with prefixes and abstract nouns and ended the week with a directed draw of Flamemallow.
Room 360 