Social Studies Ancient Greece Olympic Games

At the end of my extended practicum, my class organized and participated in their own Ancient Greek Olympic Games.  After dividing the classes into city-states, I provided tools for students to brainstorm ideas for ceremonies, flags, medals, and events. This activity encouraged a classroom of citizenship and respect. Students were consistently peer and self-assessing through evaluation forms, ensuring participation throughout the planning and event portions. Additionally, each city-state created flags, chose ceremony music, and planned events; which taught them event planning skills, collaborative work experience, and the importance of respect for one another’s work.

Poetry Open Mic

 I taught Poetry for my Language Arts classes during my extended practicum.  I was fortunate to receive outstanding work from all of my students, and concluded the unit with a poetry open mic. Most students were nervous and apprehensive towards public speaking, and I witnessed these difficulties in the earlier part of the year during a “10-things from home”. I asked for students  to read 1 poem for assessment and they could read to me during another block if they were truly adverse to public speaking; however, after setting up the room with furniture fitting of a poetry slam cafe and encouraging students to “snap” rather than the conventional clap, every student was eager to read numerous poems from their portfolios. It was a great demonstration of each of my teaching philosophies.

 

Track & Field and Basketball

 I hoped to teach my students the importance of classroom and community citizenship. I often tried to emphasize the importance of the classroom community during morning announcement and welcome block, through casual conversations about recent news or sports or just weekend catch up.  More importantly, I believe actions speak louder than words, and I tried to model active citizenship in the school community by coaching both the basketball team and helping with Track & Field. Through coaching these teams, I was able to create bonds outside of the classroom with students from all grades, making the large French immersion school feel a bit smaller.

 

Charlie & the Chocolate Factory (Novel Study and Field Trip)

Earlier in the year, a student in one of my classes lost their mother and was also going through various assessments. It was a difficult time, and my SA, partner teacher, and myself knew we had to find any way to support the student. After hearing that he was part of a youth musical production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, we decided to complete a condensed unit of the famous Roald Dahl novel and also planned a field trip to attend his show.  The day of the field trip was a blast, and the rain held off for us for just enough to finish our lunches on the high school football field.  I believe attending the student’s play showed an immeasurable amount of support that exceeded any sort of construction paper card. Our field trip demonstrated the importance of classroom citizenship.