Welcome back to campus for Term 2…
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVS3WNt7yRU[/youtube]
Hell0 to the 6 TCs who are joining the Middle Years cohort in this section of LLED 320. I’ll post class updates on this blog so be sure to check here if you’ve missed class or misplaced a handout.
Here’s what shook down today:
Daily Write
We took 5 minutes to think and write about the topic:
- Everything I really need to know about teachign I can learn in a K – 12 classroom
or anything else that’s on your mind. We took up a few responses when we were done.
Preview of Thursday’s Class
Please bring the following items to class:
- the 4-6 writing samples you gathered during your 2-Week Prac
We’ll be using the samples in class on Thursday, 20 January.
Revised Course Schedule
The course meeting times have been changed and are now as follows:
- Tuesdays: 1:00 – 5:00 in Scarfe 1328
- Thursdays: 1:00 – 5:00 in Scarfe 207
Course Outline
Here is a copy of the course outline:
Looking Back & Looking Ahead
I accessed your prior knowledge – the info covered in LLED 310 – so I didn’t overlap my instruction with what had already been covered. Also, I asked you to indicate topics you’d like addressed in the course so I can determine how best to focus the class time we spend together.
Energizers
Hey, it’s a long class for a Tuesday and Thursday afternoon. To spice things up and to model the types activities that you can do in your classroom with your students, we will be working some energizers into our session together. I kicked it off by modeling Hot Categories and, later in the session, a Medieval version of Fruit Bowl/Basket:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GruDA8LrUcc[/youtube]
Each TC will need to present an engergizer to the class and we drafted a schedule to that effect. Here it is:
Please email me or hand me a short description of the activity for posting on the blog. I’ve set up an Energizers page on the blog for ease of reference.
How Might We Define Literacy Placemat Activity
We used the placemat strategy – described in a goodly amount of detail here – as a means to access your PK on literacy. I’ve posted the completed placemats in 1328 for all to see. Below is a template of the graphic organizer used to do this activity:
Here’s a link to a fairly comprehensive definition from the folks at The Centre for Literacy.
Building Classroom Community Through Medieval Drama
You’ve heard of the European Middle Ages, right? A time of brave Black Knights and, well, “coconut” horses…
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eMkth8FWno[/youtube]
I had a few goals in mind when I planned this task for today’s class:
- Getting the MY and newly arrived TCs working together
- Modeling how the LA strands and literacy, in general, can be infused across the curriculum
- Having some fun at the end of a long, long day
To those ends, we engaged in variety of dramatic activities, including:
- At The Fair – an riff on the active (and very competitive!) game Fruit Bowl/Basket
- Exchanging Objects – trading imaginary objects with fellow fair attendees
- Preparing for the Royal Feast – create a tableau the depicts some aspect of the preparations for a grand medieval feast.
Here’s the handout with all the details:
To bring closure to this piece of the lesson, I asked you to consider two questions:
- What aspects of literacy were involved as we engaged in these activities?
- How might you use or adapt these activities to good effect in your practicum (or another) classroom?
The Students We Teach
To wrap up the session, I asked you to consider a student in your class that made a strong impression on you. Then, as best as you can, I asked you to create a poster with their likeness on it that described their:
- Personality
- Background
- Strengths as a learner
- Challenges as a learner
- A slogan they’d likely have on their t-shirt
We had time to finish the poster creation but not to take them up. We’ll do this in Thursday’s class. Please remember your writing samples then, too.
– Lawrence