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Board Spotlight: Westchester Elementary
Board Spotlight: Westchester Elementary
At the school board meetings each month, a different school's accomplishments are highlighted and celebrated. These have been anything from a recorder performance by 3rd grade, sharing about their celebrations of learning, or high school students sharing their trip to Japan. As we highlight #OurKids' accomplishments, we will share these with you here.
School Spotlight at the September 10 Board Meeting: Westchester Elementary
Westchester Elementary's presentation focused on their third-grade expedition “Shelter in America: Then and Now” where students from the 2018-2019 3rd grade class studied shelters and homelessness today compared to Early American explorers and British Colonial Americans. While students were learning about homelessness and colonization in our country, they worked through an organization in Metro Atlanta - Mad Housers - to build their own 'home' for a homeless person in transition. The students' house was added to a 'neighborhood' called the Perkerson House Shelter Camp. Every student at Westchester was able to see the house as it was being built and look inside to see the 3rd graders' artwork.
In addition to this real-life application of what students were learning, this expedition used Arts-Infused Learning which happens when teachers and visiting artists work together to plan classroom lessons using the arts to engage the students in learning about academic subjects. At Westchester, students worked with a movement artist, Erika Shannon, to learn about math, fractions, contracting, and expansion. Arts Infusion engages different types of learners, promotes creative thinking, builds connections across and between academic subjects, and develops problem-solving skills. This Art-Infused Learning expedition was made possible by DEF's Zara Yee Hawthorne Memorial Fund and Zara's Arts Infusion Grant Program. To donate to this fund, please visit https://decatureducationfoundation.org/zara/. If you are interested in finding out how your school can apply for this program, please contact Nia Schooler at nia@decatureducationfoundation.org.
The presentation and video can be found here: