Practicum | Danielle Robertson's ePortfolio

Plant Growth

We started our plant unit near the beginning of May. My students had already explored life cycles and living things; therefore this was going to be an easier unit. On our second day of the unit we planted scarlet runner beans. My SA had bought soil and had pots for the students to use. We took about half an hour to set up our plants. The students received dirt, then got their seed, added more dirt, and finally received some water. We placed them on our windowsill and waited. I…read more

5 Minute Quiet

Posted by daniellerobertson in Classroom Environment, Practicum

Throughout my practicum I have realized that the students who are in my classroom are an extremely kinaesthetic bunch. They are constantly needing to move their bodies in some shape or form. They work best with hands-on activities rather than activities that require mostly speech. I also noticed that they had trouble staying at their own desks when it was time for independent work. Therefore, I implemented a strategy that we call ‘5 minutes quiet.’ This requires the students to remain quiet for 5 minutes as I circulate the room….read more

Self Portraits

I had initially wanted to have my students create poems about themselves and then draw themselves as part of an art activity. This was to take place during our poetry unit that took up most of April. However, the more I worked on this with my students I realized we were not in fact making poems about ourselves but rather just using describing words and phrases. I thought that I would roll with this because that was something I had been working on with the students, describing words or sparkle…read more

Classroom Arrangement

Once I was a few weeks into my practicum my school advisor gave me the a-okay to rearrange the desks. I took the weekend and really thought about it and the different ways I could set my classroom up. The students had started the year in pods of 6 which changed into pods of 4. By the end of the weekend I had come up with two scenarios. The students could set in pods of 4, but rearranged so students were sitting in different spots, or in a U shape…read more

Poets See Ordinary Things Differently

I found a very interesting lesson plan when searching for ideas on how to approach my poetry unit. In this unit plan I found the lesson, “Poets see Ordinary Things Differently.” I thought that this was such an amazing approach to take with the students. This would allow the students to all look at the same object but create completely different poems. I worked in four groups that I had pre-arranged with the students. This lesson took over two days to complete but was completely worth it. In the end we…read more

Egg Poems

In celebration of Easter we made concrete poems in the shape of Easter eggs. The students were extremely eager to engage in this activity, and were excited to decorate their eggs after completion of the poems. These poems were done in the early stages of our poetry unit and therefore look more like stories. However, as the students progressed through the unit their poetry matured as well. This can be seen in other poetry posts. Below are some examples of our egg poems. One student’s work. Another student’s work. Another…read more

Concrete Poem Lesson

During our poetry unit I wanted to expose my students to different types of poetry, including concrete poems. The students discussed how concrete poems are poems that are in the shape of the topic. They were given a rainbow outline and brainstormed what objects are the different colours of the rainbow. For instance, apples are red and plums are purple. Then the students wrote each colour in each arc of the rainbow and came for editing. Once their poem was edited they went over their words with felt markers and…read more

The Lunar New Year

This week when I went into practicum, the school was celebrating the Lunar New Year. The students had been discussing the importance of the dragon throughout the week, so as an art project the students created their own dragons. They first practiced on white boards, going step by step instruction. Then the students were given paper in which to re-create their dragons in pencil. Once this was finished, the students were given black pastels to outline their dragons. They were also given coloured pastels to add some elements to their…read more

The Reading Teacher’s Book of Lists

I have received many resources from my SA over the course of my practicum. One that I have been reading and loved is “The Reading Teacher’s Book of Lists” by Edward Bernard Fry, Jacqueline E. Kress, Dona Lee Fountoukidis. It has been extremely useful and I wanted to share it with everyone.