French Readers Practice Language and Create Friendships

At Parker, we emphasize the fact that we are a model home filled with one complete community of learners. Often this is evident in the events that draw students across our divisions together, regardless of age, to interact and create memories that emphasize their personal development and growth as learners. These can be big traditions like Big Brothers and Big Sisters or smaller events like the Upper School Science Share Fair.

While we had to repurpose or reimagine some of these events in a year impacted by the pandemic, Upper School French teacher Cynthia Marker and Junior Kindergarten teacher Tisha Johnson proved that the spirit of this belief is still alive and well at Parker. “Formerly, my French groups have visited Tisha’s JKers monthly in person. These meetings combined fun and learning, as lessons included fun French songs, introduction of themed vocabulary and special design projects,” Marker explained. Unfortunately, this year, with Parker’s current safety mitigations in place, these in-person meetings were not viable.

However, knowing the value and importance of creating and maintaining these connections, Marker and Johnson decided to recreate their experience. To that end, they held story readings through which the Upper School French students read to their Junior Kindergarten counterparts. Using Epic Books and the tool ScreenCastify to record themselves, these Upper School students committed to reading a story and, thus, creating a connection that hopefully can carry on for the years.