Oct. 1, 2021

Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird. It's a plane. It’s a superhero sighting! Long Elementary School is conducting a superhero-themed week in all of the specialist classes - art, music, physical education, and the library.

The specialist teachers combined their superpowers in their Professional Learning Community’s monthly meeting where they discuss lesson planning and testing. Much like Marvel’s Avengers, the teachers each bring their own specialty or superpower to the team.

“We decided that we should do something collaborative across the curriculum,” art teacher Jordan Stevens said. “I always do graphic novels and comic books with fourth graders. So, we decided that would be a good theme for all the specialists. We each developed different projects under the theme of superheroes.”

Music teacher Noelle Kellermann developed a superhero-themed project for each grade level. For one project, students made sound effects to go along with a comic strip. Physical education teachers Natalie Luna and Allie Libby have students channeling their inner-superhero powers by flying through an obstacle course and creating movement to sound effects in a comic book. Library media specialist Sara Levine gave a short history lesson about comic books and graphic novels, then let students read examples of each.

"I want to show them how comic books and graphic novels relate to the great literature they are already enjoying," Levine said. "They use the same reading strategies as well.  Graphic novels and comic books are not better or worse than chapter books, they are just different and they're all fun!"
The specialists, which is not officially their superhero team name, want the themed weeks to continue. Their plan is to create a theme for one week during each quarter of the school year.

“We chose superheroes because we wanted to start with something that is in movies and books, but can also evolve to include the superheroes that are in our community,” Levine said. "Not all superheroes have superpowers, we have the ability to make change ourselves."

This super collaboration between these specialist teachers is just one of the many learning experiences that bring Lindbergh students together.