It was a full house today at my K/Gr1 classroom! We had my S.A., me, a parent helper, my S.A.’s son and an E.A., pretty much half the school day (which I think is a LONG time).

The students pretty much spent the day finishing up their worksheets/activities that they haven’t finished up yet. They did a little “spring cleaning” of their desks, and you won’t even believe the things they kept in there! (Someone found a half-eaten biscuit) It was interesting because they were all really keen about cleaning their desks and finding things that they thought they lost.

We also had a fire drill today.
Which is always interesting because it seems like an almost impossible task for the children to line up in a straight line without talking or fidgeting.
I thought that my kids did a great job though, in comparison to the other classes beside us!

I was able to read them a story again! YAY! It’s always good when I get to do that and I always get super excited. I read the story “My Ocean”, and it was a story with a lot of great vocabulary words and images. Unfortunately, because of the scheduled fire drill and the mumbo jumbo schedule, I couldn’t spend too long of a time reading it to them. Probably just 10 minutes. If I had more time, I’d love to unlock the vocabulary words with them!

After lunch today, I accompanied my S.A. and her son to skating with the Kindergarteners (my class and the class beside us). It’s always a lot of fun and I love seeing how all the students are improving. Two of my students who used the hand rails the first two times decided to push themselves and try skating without the hand rails. They still needed it most of the time, but it was so great seeing them try to improve themselves like that. They’d push their hand rails away just a tiny bit and then skate towards it. It was so nice to see that type of learning and determination. They didn’t need to do that, no one told them that they needed to do that. They wanted to learn because they wanted to learn..

.. and that is just the type of learning that I’d love to see in my future classroom. I want my students to want to learn because they themselves WANT to learn. It’s so wonderful when they do!

Today is an exciting day because I went ice skating with my Kindergarteners! 🙂
There was only five of them really (one was absent), but it was still plenty of fun.

I was surprised as to how well some of my Kindergarteners could skate. Two of them were really really good! I found out that they both go take hockey lessons AND one of their dad’s is a hockey coach. So that totally explains it.

My only wish is that ALL my students would go skating together!

OH & also, today was the first INDOOR RECESS/LUNCH day and it wasn’t the best. I totally think that the students should be given the opportunity to run around and be outside. I felt that because they weren’t able to do that, they were EXTRA chatty and almost a little unfocused today.

That just solidifies how important PLAY is in a child’s day. It’s essential!
Sometimes I don’t really understand why some teachers are against play time, I think it’s such a marvelous learning opportunity for the students. A whole new type of learning occurs outside of the classroom and the skills learned from play are so important for the development of the child.

(Oh, and I also learned that there are star wars chocolate biscuits in the grocery and that the R2D2 ones– apparently– taste the best)

I was only in my lovely practicum class for half a day today *cue sad aww-ing*
BECAUSE I had to go meet my CFE partner!!! *cue yays*

Today was another nice day at the K/Gr1 classroom. I read to my students the book, “Snowmen at Work” by Caralyn Buehner. I’m really glad that I have the opportunity to read to them! I think it’s really important that they continue to see me as a teacher and not as an EA or as a helper.

The story was about the hypothetical lives of snowmen, if they were alive and could work. It was a pretty interesting story because it allowed the students to think outside the box and ask those big what IFs. What IF snowmen really were alive? How cool would that be?

I went on with a discussion about the jobs the snowmen did in the story and the type of jobs they wished they had in the future. It was interesting to hear their answers.
I think I might have pushed the conversation a little too much when I asked, what change do they want to make in society. I don’t think they really understood what society meant so I restated my question and asked what change do they want to make in the world.
I don’t think they fully understood the question, and I wish I had talked a little bit more about what the question meant and maybe gave some examples. They answered things like, I’d change all the food into ice cream, or I’ll change all the stores and make them brand new. Hoping that I’ll be able to discuss more about society and change, and their impact on the world next time! I know it’s a BIG topic, but I think that if I explain it properly, it shouldn’t be too difficult for them to comprehend.

Apart from that, I helped around with Math (explore +4), mostly with the Ks. I think they all did an excellent job with their pattern worksheets! 🙂

Before I left for the day to head out to my CFE, a lot of the kids stood up from their lunch and gave me a great big group hug! 🙂 Even the kids that I didn’t think I “reached” came up! I think that was the best part of the day. It’s like, “YES! I’m getting through to them!”.

Can’t wait for next week!
I think we’re going skating! 🙂 — which will be interesting!

Hello!

Yesterday in class, we had a lot of discussion on how to embed more social and emotional learning in both the teaching and the learning in classrooms. As you may or may not know, I’m currently doing my practicum in a Kindergarten/Grade 1 classroom that does actually embed a lot of SEL teachings throughout the school day. My S.A. does an awesome job in making the entire day very SEL. I didn’t actually notice how much social and emotional learning is done in the classroom till yesterday when I had a discussion with my other classmates who are also doing their practicum in a Kindergarten-Grade 1 classroom!

My practicum class does things such as morning meetings, “how well did I do today” charts in Gym class, A LOT of SEL stories, a chance for collaborative work (in Math for example), family reading in the morning, “hug, handshake or high-five” at the end of the day and of course, a LOT of Centre time — after all, they ARE only 5-7 years old.

With that being said, I’m going to talk about this great resource I found online called “Creating Caring Classrooms” by Lundy and Swarts (2011).

I spoke about my Inquiry topic/question in my last post, but to refresh your memory, my topic is on how teachers can develop class community/unity in a split class or how teachers deal with a split class without compromising class community and unity.

This resource tackles the idea of building classroom community/unity, something that I’m really interested in, in terms of my topic and also because I think that classroom community is such an important aspect of learning in schools.

Community, as mentioned in the book, is about “everyone feeling (like) they are apart of the classroom experience, that they are included, honoured and valid community members who won’t be judged for who they are and how they present themselves in the classroom” (pg.13). It says how “the most effective classroom is  one with a caring, positive and cooperative learning environment” (pg.13).  — and of course it would be! We all know that when we feel safe in an environment, only then would we feel comfortable to explore, learn and grow!

This books gives great tips on how to build community, some of which are:
1.Write end-of-the-summer letters to families
2. Prepare a welcoming environment
3. Create a space that works
4. Greet students by name (We have learned from our other classes how important names are to students, and to adults alike. I wouldn’t want people mispronouncing or changing my name)
5. Connect with parents (this is something that I see my S.A. do quite a lot!)
6. Set rules and routines
7. Plan together
8. Agree on positive class symbols
9. Come up with a “class name” (I guess this further strengthens the idea of a community)
10. Determine how to begin and end (My S.A. does a good job making everyone feel included in the class with morning meetings in the well, morning and “hug, handshake or high-five” at the end of the day)
11. Establish a forum
12. Hold class meetings
13. Involve the students in communication with families
14. Engage in outreach
15. Encourage leadership
16. Reward GROUP accomplishment (As opposed to individual accomplishments)
17. Promote high expectations
18. Help students play together (PLAY is super important)
19. Discuss routines to help resolve conflict
20. Foster independence

It continues on with listing great activities that all help build that sense of community in the classroom.

This is definitely a resource that I’ll be checking out of the library or checking online — the activities and games mentioned are all great for embedding SEL in the class and thus, helping build that sense of unity and belonging — even in a split class! 🙂

My first day back in 2016!
How exciting! 🙂

I really missed being in the classroom — but that’s something I pretty much always say when  I’m away from my class for a significant period of time.

Today was a pretty standard day. The students got a LOT of work done, which always surprises me. I feel like as adults, we tend to underestimate how much kids can do and get done.

My day was spent helping the students complete tasks and also helping prep for the activities for the next day and for the next week (because in a K/Gr 1 class — there’s always something to prep for!)

But apart from the prepping, my S.A. asked me if I wanted to read a story to the class in the morning and of course I had to say yes! I read this book called “The Hat” by Jan Brett. Apparently, it was in relation to the book “The Mittens”, that they read a few days ago. It was great being in that “teacher” position again and I think that it’s a great way for the students to continuously see me as a teacher and not as a helper. I wasn’t fully prepared with a “lesson plan” for the book reading, and I only read it probably, a few minutes before I had to read it to the class — so I wasn’t the most prepared with questions. But I still think it went well considering that it was impromptu!

I was able to begin planning (sort of) my lesson plans for my long practicum today too — YAY! 🙂
I was able to sit down and plan with my S.A. after school today to discuss possible “themes” and ideas that I would be covering during the 10 weeks and I think it’s going to be so great. I’m really excited to start planning for the lessons and activities and I really hope that my students will have fun and learn a lot from them. The “themes” are all really fun and pretty broad, so it’ll be exciting to come up with ideas for them.

OH! Today, I also received my first ever “Christmas gift” from a student. It wasn’t anything much, but it was still really sweet that she thought of me to give me the gift 🙂