Monthly Archives: June 2015

CFE Week 3

This week marks the end of the CFE and the practicum experiences in general for the year. What a great time it has been. I am very thankful for being placed in an elementary school for my CFE. Over the course of the CFE experience I have learned many new teaching strategies that will be helpful when I begin to TTOC and have my own classroom. I was able to observe many teachers and their class management strategies. In particular, I learned a few new attention grabbing strategies such as a few songs, and some clapping strategies. Many teachers at my CFE school also gave me many ideas for TTOCing. My experience in the library was especially valuable as I was able to plan lessons based on different books and try to create cross-curricular lessons for various grades. This experience was also a great opportunity to work on asking “good” thinking questions during read alouds and activities to extend thinking and enhance learning. My most memorable experience was planning a lesson around the book “The Day the Crayons Quit,” a personal favourite of mine! This book inspired students to draw and create, as well as write letters from the perspective of a crayon. Please see the image below for a picture of this book.

CFE Week 2

Well it has been an eventful second week at my CFE school. This past week the school I am at participated in an Art For The Sky project. In addition to my placement school, 4 other schools participated making a total of 2500 people. There were a total of 4 elementary schools, as well as the high school these elementary schools feed into. Art For The Sky uses people to create art so it does not use resources. The artist creates an image and has people fill in the image, and then takes an aerial shot from the sky. The project focused on collaboration, interconnection, intention, and gratitude. I thought this was a great project to connect schools as well as to focus on human impact on the environment.

In addition to the Art For The Sky project, I also spent my second week practicing TTOCing various grades and working in the school library. I have really enjoyed both of these activities. Practice TTOCing has been a good experience as I have really had to think on my feet, come up with fun activities, and learn a bunch of names in a very short time period. Further, my library experience has been fantastic. I really enjoy working in the library and I have found many great books along the way. I now understand how books are cataloged and organized. I was also able to see all the grade groups come in and plan lessons for most of the grades.

I am looking forward to week 3 of my CFE!

Authentic Aboriginal Resources

Today I had the opportunity to meet with the Aboriginal Success Teacher for School District 44. She recommended many authentic Aboriginal resources to me to incorporate into my teaching practice. Please see the images below for some examples.

A Graphic Novel

This book was recommended as a read aloud to older students.

These books provide Cree dialect throughout.

This is one book in a guided reading series.

CFE Week 1

This week I began my Community Field Experience (CFE) at an elementary school in North Vancouver. Over the past two days I have had the opportunity to moc TTOC in a Grade 3/4 and Grade 5/6 classroom. This has been an interesting learning opportunity as I spent my practicum in a Grade 2 classroom. I have worked with various age groups before, but teaching various grades is new to me. I have really enjoyed this experience and had the opportunity to try out different strategies with the different ages. I also got to experience what it would be like to work as a TTOC and walk into a classroom and run a class without having already gotten to know the students.

In addition to moc TTOCing, I have been able to observe in a Grade 3 classroom and will also be learning about working in a school library. I am looking forward to the rest of my first week and the remainder of my CFE experience.

Adaptation Impacts Survival

During my ten week practicum I taught a Unit of Inquiry with the central idea “Adaptation impacts survival.” This was a really fun Unit of Inquiry under the Transdisciplinary Theme, Sharing the Planet. The unit started with a provocation in which the students visited various stations and had to record and explain in a personal research booklet if the animal at that station could survive in the environment at that station. This provocation launched the class into a discussion about the possibility of a dolphin living in a river, what a pangolin is and where it lives, and what a platypus is and where it lives. From this provocation the unit was launched and investigations and action were taken. Throughout the unit the students began to learn about adaptations and how they aid animals in surviving in particular environments. Along our journey, the students, as well as myself learned about various cool adaptations (ex. the mimic octopus). It was clear the students understood adaptations when we played a “Adaptation Game Show” in table groups and the students had to figure out what the mystery animal was, where it lived, and what adaptations it had. Please see the image of the “Bearhawk” below.

Unfortunately, my practicum ended before I was able to see the final lessons of this unit, but I will be visiting my class to see their final projects in a few weeks.

A few key learnings I took out of this experience:
– When teaching through inquiry, you need to learn how to ask good, deep questions
– Teachers will learn alongside their students
-Teaching through inquiry allows students to learn and retain the information better than through teacher-directed instruction

Learning about life cycles through inquiry

During my 10-week practicum my students were inquiring into the concept of lifecycles. The students were able to see first hand the lifecycles of various plants and animals. Each student was growing their own bean plant, their own marigold plant, as well as their own grass plant. The classroom also had meal worms, chickens, butterflies, and fish. The students had many questions that they were able to investigate and discover the answers to during this Unit of Inquiry. The highlight of this experience was seeing chicks hatch in our classroom. Please see the picture below of a Rhode Island Red chick hatching.