Challenge+Bank

= Have you been hearing about challenges? = = Wonder what they are? = ====This summer about 25 elementary teachers and administrators from our district participated in a 'Critical Skills' workshop. The critical skills classroom is very similar to an IB classroom, and what we found was a fantastic way to introduce inquiry to our classrooms! A challenge is a structure that will allow you to turn an activity you might have done before, or create a new experience for your classroom, into an inquiry learning experience. The first link below is to the Challenge Bank on the Antioch/New England website. This is a great resource for getting the feel of challenges. The next link is the professor's checklist on how to write a challenge. I included the notes I took to explain her checklist. Finally,there are some challenges that have been written in the district.==== ====__**Do you have a challenge you have written? PLEASE email it to me or one of the lab teachers in your building and they can post it below. This is a great resource if we all contribute!**__ (N. Webster)====

Here is the link to the Challenge Bank from the Critical Skills course. []

This is the annotated checklist for creating a challenge. Here is a challenge I am going to use the first day of school. It has to be ready to present to the school for the second day. Wish me luck!! (nancy dobe) Thanks to Erin and Cheri whose challenges I looked at, and "stole from". Why start from scratch when you don't have to? If anyone has suggestions to improve this challenge, pleas let me know. It is actually my first official attempt. I have not taken Critical Skills, so I was kind of winging it.

Music Challenge for establishing prior knowledge.

This challenged the students to create group performance skill posters they could refer to while practicing for a performance.

This challenge was written by Suzanne Morgan for a 2nd grade inquiry unit under How The World Works theme.

Erin Fitzgerald created this challenge for a 5th grade class.

I have several different challenges, many for 3rd grade units and classroom work. Cheri Perelli

This is a challenge for the fourth grade. It focuses on creating a school store. Written by Shalisse Godfrey