Interactive Read Aloud
(This workshop is suitable for all elementary levels and needs minimal English language proficiency for student participants.)
The presenter will read aloud from an English language picture book and prompt students to notice story elements, form connections with the text and ask/answer questions about the story.
This workshop encourages students to practice grade-level English language competencies and skills as well as supporting their understanding of story structure and authors’ craft. This workshop can function as a stand-alone lesson, or can incorporate themes and content from classroom lessons and activities.
All the Ways to Be Smart
(Lower barneskole)
When schools work to preserve and develop children’s identity, they can sometimes struggle in limiting a child’s notion of success merely to academic success. Children bring a wealth of skills, interests, and abilities with them to school that do not always feel valued. This workshop uses children’s literature and illustrated texts to open conversations about a variety of pro-social character traits.
Using conversation and structured dialogues in English and Norwegian, students will collaborate on shared writing and art projects that identify and celebrate the individual skills and strengths that contribute to strong communities. This workshop helps students navigate specific vocabulary to describe themselves and their classmates, build positive self-images, and create artwork and simple written pieces to present their conversations publicly.
“Sometimes I Feel Like…”
(Lower barneskole)
Finding positive self-attributes through observations of nature allows children to see what they value most about themselves mirrored in their environments.
Drawing examples from children’s literature, students will use poetry as a means to experiment with language, develop richer vocabulary and to produce collaborative written pieces that highlight their connections to nature.
This workshop can easily be modified to emphasize oral language skills and dialogue, and can be taught across a variety of grade levels or in collaboration between children of various age groups. This workshop works particularly well as an addition to any outdoor activity or lesson.
This workshop emphasizes the joy of creating, engagement and the urge to explore along with respect for nature and environmental awareness.
Building America: The Cultural Map of the United States
(Upper barneskole)
The United States is a nation with tremendous social diversity. With hundreds of spoken languages, nearly a thousand Native American tribes, and immigrant groups for every country in the world, the US is home to a wealth of robust cultural communities and the potential for cultural conflicts.
This workshop uses multi-media tools to investigate the map of the United States and traces its growth across the North American continent. Together we will explore significant moments in the history of immigration to America, including the forced migration of African people (1619-1908), Westward expansion (1803-1898), the immigration of European groups in the late-1800’s and early 1900’s, including of over a million Norwegians who immigrated to the Upper Midwest, and the immigration of refugees from around the world in the 1900’s.
Through this workshop, students will practice conversation skills to describe art, food, religion, language and cultural heritage.
The Great Migration
(Upper barneskole)
Between 1910 and 1970, over six million African Americans moved from rural Southern states to the North, the Midwest, and the West. These courageous people moved their families to large industrial cities and created for themselves vibrant and influential cultural communities. Through art, story and song, this workshop will acquaint students with this period of American history and equip them to better understand and discuss the difficulties and motivations that influenced this dramatic social change.
This workshop deepens understanding of, and adds complexity to, one of the United States’s largest demographic group and fills in common gaps in the understanding of US history.
Students will participate in conversations about the causes of migration and draw cross-cultural comparisons to better understand their world.
This workshop can easily be modified for work with a younger audience.
The Mississippi River
(Upper barneskole)
America is a nation of rivers, and no river has more prominence than the mighty Mississippi. Revered by native Americans as ‘the great river’ and ‘the giver of life,’ the Mississippi connects the immense interior of North America and its countless indigenous, European and African communities. This workshop explores the physical and cultural geography of the Interior of the United States and follows the course of the Mississippi to discover the vast social and ecological diversity along its length.
Through images, maps, and first-person accounts, this workshop will support students developing historical and linguistic skills to better understand and explain the natural world.
This workshop can easily be modified for work with a younger audience.
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Ryan’s Workshops for barneskole Teachers and Teachers-in-Training