Walksheets Reinforce Lessons on the Platform and Make Learning Fun (Minnesota)

Profile

Birch Grove Community School is a K-5 charter school in Tofte, MN. The school is nature-based, utilizing both nature and movement to enhance the curriculum. The  school also embraces a multi-classroom approach with classrooms divided into kindergarten/1^st, 2^nd/3^rd, and 4^th/5^th grade classrooms.  The school has a total of 52 students.

Samantha Forster teaches 2nd/3rd at Birch Grove Community School in Tofte, MN. She has been teaching for two years.

“My students love the Walksheets because the directions are very easy to follow, and they know exactly what they are supposed to do.”
- Samantha Forster

Goals

Because Birch Grove Community School is a nature-based school that embraces movement and activity to teach students, Samantha Forster was immediately interested in trying Walkabouts when it was introduced to teachers by the school’s director. Forster and her colleagues are always looking for innovative ways to engage and motivate their students, and the concept behind Walkabouts appeared to be a great fit.

Outcomes

Forster has been using the Walkabouts platform for most of the school year. She says she uses it to introduce topics to engage students and get them ready to learn. She really appreciates that the lessons in Walkabouts align to state standards, ensuring that she is always meeting the appropriate standard. Her favorite feature of the platform is the Walksheets that reinforce the concepts taught in the movement-based lessons.  She says, “The Walksheets also incorporate movement. The directions are very easy for the students to follow, but they are more engaging than normal worksheets with multiple steps that include things like cutting and coloring.” More importantly, she explains, “The kids really like them because they are intuitive, so they don’t get frustrated by complicated directions, which makes them want to do the work.”  In addition to the ELA and math lessons, she really likes the social and emotional learning Walksheets, which she uses for her morning meetings and during SEL time once a week.

Walkabouts lessons are also more engaging for her students because they are different every time they are played, and students have fun following the directions from the characters, who are very relatable.

Recommendations

Forster said she has already recommended the platform to other teachers at her school, and she knows the 4th/5th teacher uses Walksheets to reinforce her lessons. She believes Walkabouts, along with Walksheets, help improve learning and behavior. Looking ahead to next year, she says she has already selected “a stack of Walksheets” to use in conjunction with her lesson plans.