At my elementary school we have something called clusters. Every Thursday students switch classes for one hour and are able to go to another classroom that has a specific concept. Some of the different concepts are top chef, tiger tales, bird watchers, scrapbooking, etc. At the beginning of each semester students pick their top three choices and are placed in a certain group. My teacher, Mrs. Brown, has tiger tales which discuses different cultures and learning how to accept everyone.
Last Thursday night we had a cluster fair. This is when the students as well as parents come up to the school (6:00 pm) and the students can show their parents what they did in their cluster. They can also go around the school and see what the other clusters were doing. Each cluster had a table which we decorated the day of the cluster fair. Our table had pottery, t-shirt, and paintings that my students had done throughout the semester. I think clusters are a really great idea and the students seemed to really enjoy it. I hope that other schools will catch on with this idea and have clusters in more elementary schools.
I love this idea. I guess these groups cut across grade levels, so that there is a mix of ages in each group? I bet that kids really enjoy and benefit from this. I hope this idea spreads, too!
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