The following is a summary of the activities of the Hoboken Curriculum Committee for August 14, 2008. Today was the last official meeting day of the group and we celebrated with some words by Superintendent Raslowsky to start off the day, followed by an in-house lunch and some last day housekeeping activities. Members of the Committee will work individually to finish up some loose ends over the next 3 weeks but the Committee as a whole will not reconvene until the start of the fall semester in September (schedule still pending).ARTS AND MUSIC: This summer, the arts committee completed the curriculum mapping for grades K-10. Also, we designed unit planners for the MYP. We are currently still working in this area. We divided in teams of two according to our disciplines, and divided the Arts Curriculum into the content area divisions of: Art, Music, and Theater/Dance. For the elementary years, we designed themes for each grade level. The purpose of this was to unify the three disciplines of the arts curriculum. When designing these themes, a cross-curricular approach was implemented as well. Elementary teachers from various grade levels were consulted for their ideas on the elementary curriculum. Combining the cross-curricular and interdisciplinary approaches, we concurred on five themes for grades K-5. In progressive order, the themes are entitled: Myself, My Home, My Community, How We Discover, How We Connect, and How We Apply. For the MYP, each team designed themes derived from the New Jersey State Standards and the Middle Years Program Standards. We consulted various text books in our disciplines for unit planning and formulated ideas from our units and lessons plans currently implemented in our classes. As an Arts Committee, we will continue writing the MYP unit plans in the fall.
SCIENCE: Accomplishments: Completed Units and Design Drafts for all Grade 4 Units; Completed all Units and Grade 1 Design Draft; Completed Grade 3 Unit Plan and Design Draft 3-4; Restructured mapping for grades 1-5 to change the sequence; Started to restructured units to fit the new mapping for grades 1-5; Complete Science Fair Format for district; Complete Curriculum overview for Science 1-12; Revise the curriculum mapping and units for grades 1-5 on the computer
HEALTH AND PHYSICAL EDUCATION: Today our group completed necessary PE & Health units for grades 8-10. Over the five week session we have been able to write curriculum for grades 1-10 in both subject areas. In the fall, we will continue to write the curriculum for grades 11 & 12.
HOLOCAUST/GENOCIDE: Holocaust/Genocide:Today we had Helen Simpkins collaborate with us on materials and information to keep in mind when writing curriculum. She was very informative and full of knowledge. Although feeling overwhelmed, we are excited to develop this in the fall.
LANGUAGE ARTS: we put completed and revised copies of Drafting by Design and MYP Unit Planners for grades 1 through 11 into the Language Arts Binder.
