I originally planned to show this to my students in 4th grade (pairing up with another teacher to cover more students!), but the Pres was held up so it started late. Instead, a class of 3rd graders watched and I've never seen them so glued to every word that was said in the library!! It was fantastic for them to eat up the words of encouragement.
I'm going to show the video below (a replay of it) to my 4th graders next week as an end-of-the-year send off. The goal is to have students participate in a "back channel" like TodaysMeet where students can discuss what they're listening to, and share their reactions. I'll be posting how that goes in a later blog.
Below in the pictures are some of the strongest messages that came out of this VFT that we discussed as a class. Students reflected on how we have so much information at our fingertips, but it can be overwhelming (cue: why librarians are still relevant in the 21st century speech!), that learning is not just showing up to class but actually DIVING INTO the material with enthusiasm, and we chatted about what STEAM is and why boys and girls should care about these subjects.