Walk into Silver Lake Elementary this week and you’ll see a replica of an airport named “Silver Lake International Airport" that is complete with a baggage claim station and the inside of a plane’s cabin. Throughout hallways, one will also see travel-related bulletin boards such as a campsite and maps of national parks. Three times a year, the school transforms its hallways according to a theme as part of “Experience Design Week,” with the first one happening this week, September 30-October 4.
Principal Dr. Nicole Whiteside explained that teachers look at the standards and curriculum for the week and incorporate lessons that connect back to the theme.
In Ljirija Sagiri’s third grade class, for example, she pretended to be a travel agent during math time. Her students then had an opportunity to learn about different places that they could visit during their travels and then created pictographs, bar graphs and dot plots with the data of the various locations.
Another class went on a pretend safari, practicing their reading as they found different clues across the campus of where a bear could be hiding.
Classes were even traveling back in time. Two teachers dressed as individuals from the 1700s when the Constitution was signed, while a different class traveled to the 1980s.
“The goal is to provide students with experiences, whether that is traveling to a national park, learning what going to an airport could feel like and experiencing what it means to travel around the world,” Dr. Whiteside stated.
Experience Design Week is a “community effort,” she added, because it’s a “partnership between instruction and also the parents. It takes all of us working together to do something special for our students.”
The next two themes coming up during the school year will be “Spy Mission” and “Factory.” This is the school’s sixth year the school has organized thematic instruction through Experience Design Week.