As soon as Archer Street School Principal Paula Lein distributed the May Book of the Month, "Giraffes Can't Dance," giraffes began popping up everywhere in the school. Each giraffe on display measures a little over 8 feet tall, and all were created and decorated by Project Challenge teacher Deborah LaCorte. The giraffes' unique designs are reflective of individual classroom lessons.
Second-grade students shared their creativity and enthusiasm for the Book of the Month by creating their own themed giraffes, which they displayed outside of their classroom to celebrate the culmination of their most recent enrichment push-in lesson on giraffes. Lessons included focus on choral reading, rhyme, math, patterns and facts.
During weekly push-in lessons, second-grade students are introduced to challenging vocabulary in order to help them develop language skills through reading, writing and speaking. Weekly lessons are created as extensions of curricula, modules or topics of student interest.