Monthly Archives: May 2015

All about my space

Usually my space is pretty neat and organized however after week 8 it was such a disaster I had to get a picture to show a friend of mine…she had lots of questions about all of the interesting objects… I realized how much it all says about me, who I am as a teacher and my values.

In this basket is where I keep a variety of children’s literature that I use in my teaching or lend to students in my class.The shaker in my basket is one of my kindergarten materials, I keep it around just in case!
I am always being gifted the most beautiful artwork and interesting little cards! I display all of it prominently to show students I value them and that they are important to me.
This dinosaur is for playing with! Often my school advisor’s little one will play in the class after school. Play is an endeavour worthy in itself, even in grade five (even in any grade).
I keep sticky notes in this ornate box which I often use for thinking routines. I was very careful to make sure all of the materials I introduced into the classroom environment were conducive to the cool toned colour palette in the room. As someone inspired by the Reggio Approach I know that the environment is The Third Teacher and my school advisor’s inquiry is about learning spaces. Between the two us there is a lot of attention to classroom design and aesthetics!
Recycled materials… so far used for planting flowers in and creating hand made journals… looks like junk, I promise it’s useful!
Directly below the floating number 6 is my folder system where I keep a file for each student. I include work that I have formally assessed and more informal records too. Sometimes I will find a scrap of something that says so much about a student, it’s nice to have a place to put it. I’ve found this system invaluable so far in the parent meetings I’ve attended.
This poster was given to me by the district aboriginal curriculum mentor teacher who is really lovely and has helped me a lot this year. My favourite from this poster and First People’s Principles of Learning: “Learning involves patience and time”
Under here is my daybook… most days it is much more visible in case I’m away. Then anyone can see what I have planned! I love my daybook because the cover has my own artwork on it. The way the book is folded on my desk no one can really see… but I know it’s there
This is a lap desk I found in my garage and repainted for student use in the classroom. We are trying a variety of options in the class including different sizes and shapes of tables and groups, some individual desks, standing desks, gathering areas and alternative workspaces. I need to take the lap desk home to make some more adjustments to it which is why it’s under my desk. I’m thinking of trying to attach something metal to make it magnetic…
I have these recycling bins all over the classroom! I will admit that paper on the floor does annoy me.

So here it is – all about me and my teaching from my desk! Although there is one thing about my desk that says the most about my teaching…you CAN’T see it in the picture so I will have to tell you: I AM ALMOST NEVER SITTING IN IT! 🙂

Top photo: December 2014

Bottom photo: June 2015- week 9!

Butterfly Release

After caring for these creatures since they were caterpillars we released our painted lady butterflies in the school gardens. We were sad to see them go, but we wanted the best for them! We treated them with love and care in our classroom and now they are ready for one of the earths more important jobs! Being a pollinator!

Having living things in the classroom was never part of my plan this year but the experience has been so enriching for the students and for me I would most definitely do it again. In caring for our caterpillars recently, and our salmon I have seen students organize themselves, take initiative, be responsible, make observations, ask questions, be gentle and act lovingly. We are stewards of the earth!

Fatty Legs – A True Story

The group has become excellent at developing questions using our “Think Aloud” protocol… I like to build a lot of intrigue before starting any text.

Using just the cover illustration we developed a number of rich “why” questions. We resisted the urge to try and answer them right away! We will revisit them when we are deeper into the story!

Why are they wearing the same clothes?
Why is one girl standing in front of the others?
Why does this one girl have red socks?
Why is it snowing?
Why is it a true story?
Why do they look depressed?
Why is it called fatty legs?
Why are none of their eyes showing?
Why are they not wearing any snow gear when it’s snowing?
Why do they look like twins?
Why is Fatty Legs in bold red printing?
Why do they all have short hair?
Why is there no background?
Why is one girl crossing her arms?

I’m ready to delve into this book… I didn’t originally plan to do a unit on this before I started my practicum but after I heard about this book and read it I knew this would be a good fit for my class. I think Fatty Legs is the perfect book to open a discussion on this topic, so much so that I went through great lengths to gather enough copies to have a class set! I have some copies from the public library, some copies from two different high schools, a copy from our school library, and some from the district resource centre! I hope one day the school district invests in a class set of this book as I think other teachers would like to use it. Another grade five teacher in the district has used the book with her class and between us I think we have created enough resources for other teachers to get started with this book. The story is beautifully illustrated, sensitive, and developmentally appropriate. I spent some time meeting with the district Aboriginal Curriculum Mentor Teacher and I feel ready to carefully and respectfully approach this text and the sensitive topic of residential schools.

Earthwise Gardens and a “normal” day!

Last week I took the class on a field trip to Earthwise Gardens. Earthwise gardens is a local organic farm that I was familiar with from my time working with the Chamber of Commerce in the community. One of my friends also worked there as a gardener so the location had been on my radar for a while! I knew they did “eco-tours” for school groups and I called to ask about a tour for our class. One of their regular programs is about pollinators- a topic we’ve been studying! When I told the education programmer that we were especially interested in bees she contacted the beekeeper and we received an engaging tour of the hives. We donned bee suits, learned about different plants indigenous to Delta, what types of flowers bees prefer, what bees do in the winter and how the bee keeper cares for them! The experience was very interactive. We saw the paint the keeper uses to mark the Queen Bee, we saw inside the hive, we even tasted honey and a few brave students held bees. No one was stung! We are were all mindful and respectful of the bees. If a bee got very close to us we practiced mindful breathing.

I would highly recommend Earthwise gardens to other teachers!

Making an unusual day productive:

Something a little unorthodox that I did was that I planned the field trip on the same day as the district track meet. Some people would avoid this day but I strategically made the decision. I wanted to have as normal of a day as possible, even with eight students away for the track meet and a long weekend coming up for the students because of Victoria Day and a professional day. This is how I made the most of the day:

– At the beginning of the week I started reader’s theatre. I made it clear that next Tuesday would be the day we perform. I made a clear schedule of how to stay on track and posted it to the board. This set up Thursday as the last day to practice. On Thursday morning the students knew what to expect and were ready to get started.

-I created groups of 3-5 for the project. The eight people going to the track meet were in groups together. This way on Thursday morning no one was missing a group member during the rehearsal time.

-I politely asked the other intermediate teachers if I could keep my group together for Thursday due to our field trip in the afternoon. I did not receive any students from other classes on this particular day. I felt that I had planned my activities and organized my students in a way that I had enough students left to have a normal instructional day. I know that one of the grade seven teachers had also asked to keep her group together too. Last week with only a few students left from my class I didn’t mind at all taking in students from various classes. However with the majority of my students left I was a little bit cautious not to get too off track from our regular activities!

Tiles, mod podge and self-regulation

“This art project takes a lot of patience!”

: A finished product

: The process

: The process

A parent from the school donated several boxes of beautiful tiles to our class. Interestingly enough my school advisor and I were the only ones interested in having them…

I spent some time thinking about a way we could use these beautiful materials to make an art project, especially in time for mothers day.

I settled on an image transfer technique using mod podge… I wanted to make decorative tiles… similar to the Sid Dickens ones sold at decor and gift shops. A local gift store sells these tiles at a price point of $80-$100!! I consulted with a friend who has a fine arts background and was on my way!

Our class managed to make these as gifts at almost no cost as the tiles were donated, we borrowed the mod podge from another class and used loose leaf supply paper from the school.

I incorporated some flexibility and choice into this project in a few ways.

I left it open ended by telling students everyone would make between one and four tiles.
I had the students to choose their images or image theme
While mothers day gifts were the suggestion I left it open to students about how they would gift the tiles… one student preferred to save these for her mother’s birthday which was coming after mother’s day. Another student made two tiles for mom and two for grandma. Depending on family situations mother’s day art activities can be sensitive… I framed this more as an art activity we were doing and you could use this project as a gift for your mother.

In my daybook I gave this activity a lot of time which turned out to be a good choice! There was a lot of trial and error…I expected this to be a process, however to be completely honest I didn’t realize how messy this project was going to be and how long it was going to take. I made a couple tiles myself the weekend prior and had figured out the basic process which I demonstrated under the document camera.

Many students were not successful until their 3rd or 4th try on this project. I warned students before we started that it may take some time to get this right and that you may need to wash your tile and start over a few times. The first demo I did under the document camera actually didn’t work- in some ways that was lucky for me because it set the tone for the students that it’s okay to not be successful on the first try. I also had an opportunity to show them how to scrub the tile to start over!

In some ways it was a really excellent learning opportunity for some students. One student who is always successful at everything we do tried at least six or seven times before she managed to make hers! I was impressed with her attitude and perseverance. In the end she created four beautiful tiles that she was very proud of.

There was however one point when the room was an absolute mess and I thought this art project was a total failure. Just then I overhead one student say “This is the most fun art project we’ve done!”

Ultimately every single person was successful in making at least one tile. I’m happy I did this project. At first I was very tempted to just use one of the mother’s day art project I had done in a previous year. It would have been a lot easier…

Now I have something new to add to my repertoire! I was even able to make a lot of connections to our math learning about transformations, especially reflection and rotation when positioning the image on the tile!

The process required a lot of patience, focus and self regulation. Not to mention that the art process required a lot of physical strength from pushing, rubbing and adding pressure. (One student even asked if this was my idea of having another gym class!) The end results however were absolutely amazing. There are a lot of things I would do differently if I were to this project again (mostly to streamline the process). I also think I would never ever do this project with a primary grade because it’s just too frustrating for young children.

Grade 5 students however… they were so proud to make these. Many students told me the following monday how the tiles were on display in their families homes including in their gardens, on patio tables, and even mounted to the walls!

Grades 5/6/7

With all the shuffling today for track I found myself teaching a group of grade 5s, 6s and 7s from many different classes! There were only six students from my class who didn’t attend the track meet so many other students from other classes joined us today while their teachers supervised the meet. It was a fun experience. having a multi age environment.

The few students left from my class enjoyed showing off our classroom and showing of our classroom to our new classmates for the morning! We have so many fascinating projects going on that students from other divisions find fascinating…

I tried to follow our routine as much as possible. We had modified literacy centres this morning – I had everyone doing word work. Then I read the story One Grain of Rice on the document camera and we had fun with our manipulatives following along with the story and pausing in between to try out different math operations and ideas! I love using children’s literature in math, especially when some books pose such wonderful rich problems. After, I did a short lesson on digital literacy and we did some research on dying bee populations (another theme my class was able to help people get up to speed on!). The students have their eyes peeled now for plants in our community and on our school grounds that may attract pollinators. We ended the morning with some time after recess to work on projects that other teachers had left for us and some math fun!

In the afternoon we switched off with the other teachers and had an exciting afternoon at the track! (Many ribbons and smiles in my class!)