Episode Details

Superintendent:
Hello and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. Today we take you into the world of Harry Potter with potions, wands, dragons, and wizardry. It's all a part of one of the most exciting weeks for third grade students at Black Ridge Elementary School. But this year, due to school dismissal, teachers had to work their magic to make what is called "Fantasy Week" happen in homes with virtual lessons that had students thoroughly engaged and excited about learning. Let's start with third grade teacher, Becky Mariani, who explains what "Fantasy Week" is all about and why Black Ridge wouldn't be the same without it

Superintendent:
Interviewing over zoom, of course, making sure that we are socially distanced and in the background, it really looks like you are a part of the House of Ravenclaw. Tell me how this all works.

Becky:
I actually am a Ravenclaw to the very core of my being, but this is a little bit different every year. In third grade, we studied the different genres of reading and writing. This particular year was a little bit challenging because when we got to fantasy, we have what's called Fantasy Week and we create a school of witchcraft wizardry, and the kids go to magic school for an entire week and they do all their reading and writing and even their math and all of their science is done in the realm of fantasy. So they're divided up into houses, just like they would be at Hogwarts. And then they go to the Black Ridge School for that week.

Superintendent:
So does the hat sort everyone into their house?

Becky:
It does. That's the very first thing that happens when the kids come to school. They go through a sorting ceremony. We put the hat on their head and they get sorted.

Superintendent:
Wow. And is it competitive throughout the week?

Becky:
Yes, we're all vying for house points and this is one of my favorite things about it, because as they're sorted into the four different houses, I will have all four houses in my class and all the other classes will have members of the four houses. So instead of classes competing for points against each other, that's houses competing for points. So if I have four to six Ravenclaw in my room, they may be doing really well, but Ravenclaw in another classroom might be struggling. So they'll balance each other out at the end when we add all the classes and all the points.

Superintendent:
Wow. So there's an element of unity and competition all at the same time.

Becky:
Absolutely.

Superintendent:
That's exciting. I know that competition can be very motivating for students. Do you see a higher level of engagement during Fantasy Week?

Becky:
I would say it about quadruples. They will do just about anything to get those points. And this year was kind of fun. We've been able to do some things online that we couldn't do in the classroom. So they've had a little Claws class point tracker and it's tracked the points every day and they've been able to keep track of the totals and you should see the chats going on. As soon as that, you can tell when the house points have been updated, because the chats just start firing and you see them talking about, we're not here, we're here. So even from home, they're following this.

Superintendent:
So which house seems to be ahead right now?

Becky: