The Walking Classroom is an awesome program that allows students to get exercise while they learn. Last year was challenging to say the least, but we made it work!
The students love to get away from their desks and to have some freedom like walking, whether it be inside or outside, and The Walking Classroom allows students that! The kids especially love to hear the social studies podcasts and they are always begging for their favorite history topics. Some of their favorites are the ones about past presidents and Native Americans. They love to hear about how the Native Americans lived and hunted and used all of the pieces of the animals that they hunted.
After the lesson, students get to do a talk and turn when we come back inside. They share the highlights of what they heard. Often, they then want to listen to the same podcast again to see what they have missed!
On “free days”, they get to pick their own podcast to listen to and then they get to share why they picked that one and what they learned from it. I have to say that their most favorites of all are the ones that are about weather. Hurricanes (4-#28, STEM-#13, Complete-#150), Tornadoes (4-#31, STEM-#14, Complete-#149), and Volcanoes (4-#76, STEM-#19, Complete-#138), are their top ones. They frequently come in and actually have more questions, so they want to keep on researching those topics!
Charlene Lamm
Teacher
Bailey Elementary
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