This week flew by! It was my first week teaching full time and I enjoyed it, although there’s definitely an adjustment regarding an increase in responsibility and organization. I’m continuously thinking and planning two steps ahead, especially if an unexpected event occurs; being flexible and adaptable is key to successful teaching.

This week I took on the final unit, Language Arts. For our Unit of Inquiry, we explored similarities and differences between offspring and parent, extended our learning on living things by going on a nature walk to release salmon fry, and explored the concept of photosynthesis. Read on to learn more about what we engaged in.

Art:

The students created an animal flip book! This was an idea I got from my SA and wanted to reproduce with our students this year. Each student was given the same size rectangular piece of vellum paper. I drew an oval using a pencil and divided the paper into thirds. I then labelled each section, from left to right, as “Head”, “Body”, and “Tail.” The students were instructed to choose a different animal than everyone else and make sure their structural features were drawn in the appropriate sections (i.e., nose, ears, mouth, legs, wings, tail, etc.). They used a pencil to draw their animal and then outline it with a black marker. Once complete, they experimented with watercolour to paint their animal. A few days later, after they were completely dried, I used a cerlox machine to bind them. Then, I cut each students’ animal into thirds. Below is the finished product, whereby students are able to randomly flip each three sections to create a uniquely looking animal.

Math:

The bean bag math activity I engaged the students in a few weeks ago was a success. I wanted to bring math outdoors again and take advantage of the warmer and dry weather. For each grade I drew two separate boxes. The first box for each grade includes only minuend values. The second box for each grade includes only subtrahend values. This activity focuses on subtraction, as that is what we have been practicing for several weeks. In pairs within their grade, each partner would take a turn throwing a bean bag onto one of the grids. They would create a subtraction problem and have to solve it. Although it takes me approximately 10 minutes to set up, drawing the grids using chalk, it is definitely worthwhile in my opinion. 

Language Arts:

Taking on Language Arts for my first time this week went smoothly. For Language Arts, we have literacy stations from Monday to Thursday. There are seven stations and seven table groups, so it works out perfectly. Each group must complete each station by the end of the week. There will always be a phonics, journal, and guided reading station. I led guided reading and it’s been enjoyable thus far. As April is Poetry month, students were introduced to Acrostic poems. One of the stations required students to create their own Acrostic poem. At the beginning of the week, I discussed the format of an Acrostic poem and we collaborated as a class to create one. 

The left side shows students’ ideas of what they associated Winter with. On the right is our Acrostic poem.

Unit of Inquiry:

One of the Kindergarten classes at our school got salmon fry from a hatchery and was going to release them in the nearby creek. They kindly extended an invitation to our class to release some of the fry and we happily agreed! Since we explored the life cycle and journey of salmon, I thought this would be a rich hands-on opportunity for the students to participate in releasing salmon fry. In groups of 3 students released a salmon fry. We observed their Parr marks and how they camouflaged immediately once they went into the creek. We could barely see them! It’s amazing how much outdoor and hands-on opportunities there are when you’re surrounded by forests, water, and wildlife.

Salmon fry with Parr marks.

Releasing a salmon fry!

On our way to the creek, we stopped by our community garden. Usually a small group of students visit our community garden weekly with an EA to water the plants. This was my first time seeing our community garden and the students were excited to show me. 

Collard greens growing in our community garden.

This week we explored the similarities and differences between parent and offspring. As an interactive movement-based learning activity, half the class was given an orange card. The other half was given a yellow card. Each orange card stated an adult animal while each yellow card stated the baby animal of one of the adult animals. The objective of the activity, Find Your Family, was to identify the parent or baby of that animal. The first part of this activity included only the name. There were some students that had a difficult time trying to find their family. Once each student was paired up, I introduced the second part of the activity. Each student was given the same orange or yellow card but with a picture to accompany its name. This allowed them to assess if they found their correct family in the first part and affirm it in the second part. The students had a blast communicating with one another, trying to find their family. Once each family was found, we discussed how many offsprings looked similar to their parent. However, students noted how a tadpole didn’t look like their parent, an adult frog. This activity invited us to discuss the concept of metamorphosis; animals that go through four distinct life cycle stages and whose bodies physically change while developing into an adult.

Note that the picture of the Kangaroo (adult) and its baby is labelled incorrectly. I made that mistake and informed the students. It should be called a Kangaroo (adult) and Joey (baby).

We discovered the life cycle of a plant and discussed the importance of plants and what they need to grow. The concept of photosynthesis was explored and students were able to communicate that through it, plants absorb carbon dioxide, a gas in the air that is toxic for our environment, and release oxygen, a necessity for many living things. As well, plants need water, the sun’s energy, soil, and carbon dioxide to grow.

I’ll be heading into my 6th week of my 10-week long practicum! So far it has been an eye-opening and rewarding journey. I’m looking forward to what this week has in store for me. 

-Ms. Mah