Teaching with Heart

Cultural Stories

Posted by in Language Arts, Social Studies

As part of an integrated Social Studies and Language Arts unit, students explored the diverse cultural backgrounds of family, friends, classmates, and neighbours in their community.  To frame this unit, I sent home a letter to students’ parents asking them to discuss and review their child’s responses to three questions. The questions surrounded students’ linguistic background and cultural experiences, including favourite foods and traditions. I appreciated the parents’ willingness to support this project by sharing their gifts and heritages.  Students then used their responses to create and share a book…read more

Jul.13
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Community: Then and Now

Posted by in Social Studies

To highlight how communities change over time, I used Jeannie Baker’s story, Window. This wordless picture book served as an engaging hook to the topic. Before sharing the story, I gave pairs of students a page of the book. With their partner, students discussed what they saw in the picture. They then worked collaboratively as a class to put the pictures in an order. To accomplish this goal, they were required to share their observations and explore how their pictures connected.  This activity was the first time students were required…read more

Jul.13
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Pen Pals

Posted by in Language Arts, Social Studies

During my 10-week practicum, I was fortunate to be working in the same grade level as one of my close colleagues. As a result, we were able to collaborate on several units and create connected learning experiences for our classes. In our Community unit, for example, we arranged for our classes to exchange postcards, describing the activities they like to do and places they visit in their respective communities. Not only were the children excited about writing letters to another school, the letters prompted further inquiries that enhanced students’ exploration…read more

Jul.13
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What Stuck With You?

Posted by in Assessment, Social Studies

In my classroom, I used a “What Stuck With You?” chart to evaluate student learning during a unit of study.  I invited students to post sticky notes each week about what they learned, in their own words, on a particular topic. Although the initial contributions required some scaffolding, students quickly became familiar with the process of reflecting on and sharing what they learned.  It allowed students to work with the material at their own pace and to express what was important to them. In addition to gauging what students learned, I used…read more

Jul.13
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