OUTDOOR SCHOOL!
This week consisted of one classroom teaching day (due to the holiday on monday), and three days of Outdoor School in Squamish. I felt so honoured and happy to be a part of it this year, especially going by myself with just my ten grade 3s. I had the grateful opportunity to meet some amazing teachers from other schools in the district, teach field studies with other Highlands teachers, and meet the Outdoor School staff. Everyone was so helpful, and it was a beautiful experience being in nature with the kids and other staff members.
On the first day we met the OS staff, and had an amazing lunch. The food was spectacular, which I didn’t mind. Later in the afternoon was the first field study, which I lead with another Highlands teacher. We took the kids outside to do a nature art lesson, inspired by the works of Andy Goldsworthy.
http://www.goldsworthy.cc.gla.ac.uk
Here is an example of some of the work the kids produced:
A lot of them ended up being more like structures than smaller pieces, which wasn’t surprising, given that most of the 3’s had just finished studying structures in science.
One part of the OS experience that stood out to me was the exposure to the farm animals. There were goats (including babies), pigs (babies as well), turkeys, chickens, baby chicks, and other birds on the property. I spent a lot of my free time hanging out with the goats.
It was so lovely to see all of the students from Sherwood Park and Highlands being away from screens all weekend, and fully embracing the beautiful nature around them. I noticed that so many of the kids with behavioural issues seemed to be doing so well in the outdoors, and away from the classroom. I wish that Outdoor school was part of all of the districts curriculum, and I hope I have the opportunity to go back again in the future.
Week 7!
I cannot believe there are only 3 more weeks left of practicum, and most of next week is Outdoor School with our ten grade 3s! One day of classroom teaching next week, and then a whole lot of wilderness exploration, learning, baby animals, and getting our hands dirty. In dirt.
This week was busy with bike week, and also a week full of presentations. Four of the girls did attributes presentations, where they presented poster boards, videos, or other creative and well crafted displays about themselves and their positive attributes. They were very well done, and so cute. I was so proud of them. This is a picture of Emma with her presentation.
She had pictures and a poster board, and put on quite the “performance” let me tell you. She’s a hilarious little kid.
The grade 3’s did their social studies province presentations, and most of them put quite a bit of effort into them, which made me so proud. They are so protective of their provinces now, and always want to talk about them, which shows me that they enjoyed the research, and have learned to love these parts of Canada. Below is Nicole, with her poster board on P.E.I.
It really dawned on me this week how much I am going to miss this experience, despite how tiresome and gruelling it sometimes got (gets). I am so looking forward to Outdoor School, where I can be in a whole new environment with them. I love taking these girls outside, as they are such little explorers. I am so grateful to be working and learning with such a well behaved, smart, lovely, and hard-working group of girls. I have been so spoiled with this class.
Oh, and I got this poem from Nicole the other day.
Week 6:
Week 6 is now complete and I have been receiving nothing short of helpful and encouraging feedback from my two SAs and my FA. My girls have been teaching me so much, and I am anticipating missing them when the practicum is over. I am looking forward to London, but will miss Highlands.
I have been assisting in Outdoor School prep, something that I feel so fortunate to be a part of this year. I am looking forward to taking our 3s to OS and learning so much from the other Highlands teachers, as well as the Outdoor School teachers.
It warms my heart everyday to see how happy and excited the girls are to do drama, especially when it is a surprise (language arts or social studies). They motivate me to bring art and self expression into the classroom, and their eagerness and dedication is inspiring.
I began my poetry unit recently, and this is a unit that the girls are so very excited to do. Almost every day one of the girls brings in a new poem that they have read and enjoyed or written themselves, and begs to present it in front of the class. I say “present” and not read, as these girls have so much expression and passion when it comes to creative writing and sharing it with the class. This has made me want to push them even more with their understanding of poetry. Two classes ago they wrote a letter to a worm, based on a poem they read about a wiggly worm. They shared their writing with the class, and this eagerness and creativity caused me to change the next lesson by asking the girls to make a good copy go their letter and then mount it on the bulletin board. This gave the girls the understanding that poetry does not always need to rhyme, and that it can simply be a letter in response to a worms life and routines.
These ladies impress me every day, and I am so grateful to be learning with them.
4 more weeks. Woah.
Week 5 (Halfway, already!)
Week 5 is finished, and we are all now halfway done our 10-week practicum!
Not only are we halfway done, but we have all now just completed our first week of 80-100% of teaching. I felt nervous for this week, but am feeling more calm and organized now. I feel as though I am finding the flow of the room, and learning more about the students in a full day capacity, which is so helpful. They are starting to treat me more like the teacher, and coming to me for basic questions before going to my SAs, which forces me to immerse myself in everything within the classroom. My SAs have been so entirely helpful by giving me permission to explore different ways of approaching lessons, while giving me extremely helpful feed back in such supportive ways. I am beginning to feel more confident in my lessons, and I feel like the students are picking up on it.
The girls cannot wait to show their parents the Pig Interview video from a week or so ago. I will be emailing it out to the parents this week. They are also extremely eager to do theatre and drama most of the time, which gets me excited, as I can consider my inquiry question to most classes. I have the grade 3 girls doing readers theatre on monday, and cannot wait to do a video of the grade 4’s (weather) in the next couple of weeks.
Here is an attachment to my Pig Interview on my closed youtube account.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5U2C0E_4Bwo
– Jamie Taylor, signing out
Week 4 (almost halfway there!)
This week was another 4 day week, due to the Easter long weekend, and only consisted of 3 days of actually class time. On Tuesday, I showed the girls the video I did of the grade 3s for language arts – The Pig Interviews! They loved the editing, sound effects, addition of images and text, and wanted to watch it again! I need to find a way to send this to the parents, so they can see their daughters’ brilliant performances! They were amazing.
Friday was Eco Fest. Highlands does this every year, thanks to parent volunteers. There were stations that the children visited all day, all to do with nature, the environment, and animals. We did a recycling activity, pulled weeds in the forest/park, played with spiders, geckos, turtles, and snakes, learned how to plant native plants, and built a structure with our “family groups.” I got to hold this little crested gecko for about an hour, and now I want one as a pet.
It was so good for the girls to be exposed to these animals who are often so feared. Most of them were quite brave, and I am so proud of how gentle they all were with them.
Next week begins 100%. Good luck, everyone (and me).
Week 3 of Practicum!
The weeks are going by faster and faster, and we are now only a week away from our 100% teaching load. I am nervous, but excited, and want to be thrown in. I spent a lot of this week prepping after class, as well as editing a video that I did of the girls last week, based around a chapter in Charlotte’s Web. I asked the girls to interview each other as if they were pigs (possibly Wilbur), and they were explaining the day in the life of a pig, or a pig’s daily routine. I gave them about 10 minutes to prepare, and then I called them out into the hallway, and filmed them on the iPad. I was mostly impressed with how they took what they had learned from the chapter in the text book, which explained Wilbur’s daily plans in explicit and precise detail. Some of the girls needed work on their focus, but for the most part, they were engaged and drawing from parts of the novel, which was the point of the mini project. I am almost done editing it on iMovie, and will be showing it to them on Tuesday when I am being observed. They have been asking about it almost every day, so I am sure they will be thrilled to see it. It has been editing to look like a real Newscast, so they are excited about that.
I am still figuring out the slow move into 100%, and when I can start to move in more in certain classroom activities. Thankfully, my SA’s are very approachable and helpful, and want me to start to take charge more as the weeks go on. I need to learn that I am not overstepping my boundaries.
One more week, and then onto 100%. Onwards and upwards, my fellow teacher candidates!
Week 2 of Practicum
This week was busy, and extremely entertaining. We had a field trip to the Burnaby Village Museum on Tuesday, Fire fighters in on Thursday morning, Vancouver tap dancers in to do a performance for the school midweek, and lots of hands on activities for the girls.
The grade 3’s made igloos out of sugar cubes, and had a blast doing it! They used the glue gun with minimal injury, and were eager to complete the mini project. It was difficult keeping them away from eating the sugar cubes, but they cooperated (either that or they were extremely sneaky and stealth).
Then I showed the grade 3’s a video on a spider wrapping it’s prey in it’s web, and they girls were disgusted and captivated. They recently met Charlotte (the spider) in Language Arts, and wanted to see more spider footage.
I was so impressed this week with the grade 3’s in Social Studies. We played a theatre game at the end of our lesson on Thursday, which involved memorization of parts of Canada, and they killed it! It’s a good feeling.
First Week of Practicum
Today, I am writing my first blog entry reflecting on my practicum. The first week has come and gone, and I am so eager to keep moving along and through the process. I taught 3 lessons of Charlotte’s web, 2 social studies lessons, and one theatre lesson, along with assisting in math and the morning booklets. I am feeling more confident with just being thrown in to help out and guide some basic activities, now, and I learning quite quickly where I need to change things in terms of lesson structure.
My Social Studies lessons went quite well, overall. I introduced the Canada chapter to the grade 3s, and got them to label and colour their own map of Canada, including the provinces, territories, capitols, and bodies of water. Some of the students took longer than others to get into the groove after spring break, but once they did, they showed some great work with their maps. They seem to be taking the information in, regarding Canada geography, and are remember most of what they learned from their BC unit. The second lesson ended up going quite well, as they were asked to write a letter to someone (anyone they wanted) about the west coast of Canada, assuming this person they are writing to knows next to nothing about the west coast. It was a slow start, but they ended up sharing their letters and some students made drawings on the letters to go along with it.
In terms of Charlotte’s web, the first two lessons went well (Chapters 1 and 2), but Chapter 3 was more of a challenge. I gave them a quick writing activity to do, which was related to the chapter “Escape.” They completely resisted, and claimed they had nothing to write, so the lesson ended up with them orally telling their stories, rather than writing down. I was struggling with pushing them to do an activity they were refusing to do, or changing it slightly to accommodate them, and hopefully assisting their learning in a more beneficial way. I am sure this will come with time. I was lucky to have Jodi in the room while this was happening, as she gave some helpful feedback. This was probably the first time that the girls have acted out this way.
Theatre is going well, and the girls scripts are coming along.
I am looking forward to my next 9 weeks!
more to come,
– J
Inquiry Presentation
On Monday, we presented our poster boards for our Inquiry final presentation, before we go into the classrooms. My inquiry question is “What is the importance of theatre in the classroom?” Having done my undergrad in theatre performance, and being an actor and creator in my other life, I strongly believe that drama and theatre are an essential part of creation, learning, socializing, and collaborating.
I made a short video and projected it onto my poster board, as well as attached some images, quotes, and my own personal thoughts and research in the classroom.
Counting down the Days
A week and a half until our ten-week practicum starts, and I am eager to get into the room and start the process. I am working on a theatre unit with the kids, and their writing and collaborative skills have been impressive, motivating, and creative. Being in a class with 24 girls (grade 3 and 4), I am noticing reoccurring themes, and focuses in their writing and devising.
This is a photo of a process I was a part of this summer. It was a workshop with a local theatre company, which involved children’s input alongside the story of Macbeth. This process set the path for my inquiry approach to theatre in the classroom.