Westcoast Teaching

"If you can dream it, you can do it. Always remember that this whole thing was started by a mouse." - Walt Disney During our vacation to Disneyland last summer I was riding through Alice in Wonderland and thinking about how much I loved seeing stories brought to life. As I enjoyed watching the created scenes and listening to the familiar songs I had an idea. Why not see if my students could create their own smaller version of a Disney ride with a novel we read as a class? Surely it could be done. If Disney could do it, why not us? Good news! We built a ride, shared it with about 280 guests and it was AMAZING! Not only did the young ones learn a ton about communication, creative and critical thinking, and personal and social responsibility, but they also loved every moment of it! If you are interested in seeing how we pulled this off, the rest of this post is for you.  The Launch There is a bit of prep that went into this. Since we were going to be &qu

"Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant?"  - Henry David Thoreau Recently, I re-read a book called Unselfie - Why Empathetic Kids Succeed in Our All-About-Me World  by Michele Borba . As a teacher, it is my personal mission to prepare students to be successful in life. I use the academic curriculum as a vehicle to teach students even greater lessons of how to be compassionate, empathetic, and reflective members of our class community. My students are challenged in their academic learning and in their character development.  What do kids need to be happy and successful? According to Michele Borba, the answer is empathy. The quotation below gives a quick overview of how empathy prepares a child to be happy and successful in life.  "For starters, the ability to empathize affects our kids' future health, wealth, authentic happiness, relationship satisfaction, and ability to bounce back fr