Featured Teacher

Rebecca Hardy

Madison Station Elementary School

4th Grade Teacher

(Pictured left to right: Rebecca Hardy, Miller Richmond, Marian Richmond, and Ashley Rea)

From an e-mail to Dr. Griffin: 

Hi!

I hope all is well with you.  It has been a great year!  So much has been going on.  We have settled into the groove of Guided Reading. The class of 27 has especially enjoyed Independent Reading and meeting with their Literature Circles.  It has been a great experience, and my class loves every minute of it!

 Also, my fourth grade class is working with Ashley Albritton Rea (DSUGrad) on an original opera, "The Magical Journey of Three Friends."  I was trained by the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art to implement this program in the schools.  The children applied for jobs such as Production Manager, Stage Manager, Set Designer, Makeup Artist, Costume Designer, Electrician, Composer, and Carpenter.  There were a total of five facilitators, and 76 children involved.  We have worked on the opera since August as we weave through the curriculum. There are so many life lessons also included in the experience. 

 Our Mississippi Play is coming up in April.  We present the play as a culminating unit of our fourth grade social studies curriculum. Our hands-on math and science experiments continue as we learn about weather and geometry.  We created and discussed geometric shapes with pretzels and marshmallows.

The state writing test is quickly approaching as well.  The students have written so much this year!  Razzle Dazzle Writing is a great book by Melissa Forney.  Through this, I have taught the class to include narrative grabbers, similes, strong verbs, and juicy color words in their writing.

On top of all of this, I am running in the New Orleans Mardi Gras Marathon and the Carl Touchstone 50K (31 mile) trail run in Laurel.  It helps me keep my sanity!

 Rebecca