First Day of School is fast Approaching!

I know teachers are wondering about their first day of school this year and are trying to come up with some new ideas to break the ice with their new classroom of students. I just read about a terrific idea from Mrs. Ratzel about how to get to know you and math by the numbers. Or there's a 'get to know me' by the numbers. For example, you would pick a number and give 4 possible answers that best describe that number with relation to your interests. Then the students must guess which answer is correct. Amber Caldwell explains this in greater detail.

Another great idea would be to create an Acrostic poem using the students' letters of their name. The object of this would be for the students to use descriptive words to best describe their likes/personality/hobbies. For example Mrs. Plumb > P is for Purple because that is my favourite colour...and so on- or more currently P is for Prince Harry who is one of my most liked royals; or P is for Phelps as in Michael Phelps the Olympian who won the most medals in the 2012 Summer Olympics.

A group activity would be a great starting activity. For example the students could work in groups to create a mural drawing. Another group idea in creating a mural is for each student to write using any font or shape/colour like graffitti writing to describe their favourite summer activities. Then each group would present it. Anyone else have any more ideas?

"Questions are the Intellectual Source of Renewable Energy"

We need to teach our students to ask the right questions. Sometimes when they are learning a new concept they don't even know where to begin except to say "I don't get it." Well we have to help them help themselves by getting them to ask the right questions. This is an important point within the first 3 min. of this video where Dan Rothstein Speaks  at the TEDx conference.

What a Fantastic Year!

I had an amazing time practicing my teaching skills and abilities over the course of the year and it proved to be rewarding. I thank all of you who helped me in kind, encouragement, inspiration, spirit, and in deed. I had ups and downs and it wasn’t easy but I made it through my first year of teaching, albeit supply teaching and I am thankful for the help along the way!

I thank the organizations that provided the many ideas for activities that I used in my Before/After School Classroom (Kaboose, Activity Village, DLTK, Crafts for Kids and the myriad of fellow bloggers and twitterers).

I thank the students with whom I worked, my co-teachers – some of you supported me in ways you do not know through your great teaching skills which I observed and tried to emulate, the Administrator and the Principal for all that they have done for me, and the teachers for whom I supplied who left great lesson plans to follow. I realize even more that I love teaching and I plan to keep pursuing it. I will build upon my experience and someday be in the ranks of some of the great teachers/educators I know!

Collaborative Instruction Approach!

The first step of Collaborative Instruction Approach to teaching involves task acheivement where the group focuses on objectives followed by group maintenance by using interpersonal and group skills, then finally group effectiveness which involves reacting to group needs. I used the Collaborative Instruction approach when I taught my group of Primary students to make Father's Day cards. For example, the first step was led by myself by modelling the skills to achieve the desired objective which was the outcome of a certain Father's Day card - either a shirt or a dog's head. The second step included interpersonal skills and group skills that each of the students lent to the learning process whereby some of the students helped other students with the gluing step etc. Finally the third step was reacting to the group needs such as more paper, and other extensions of the original idea to elaborate on card making and effectiveness - for example, extending the card to an entire body or entirely different original idea using collage to create the words or dot-to-dot idea. The entire group was full of excitement and enthusiasm to obtain a finished product which they could be proud to give to their Fathers on Father's Day next weekend. Look at some of the results!
(Foundational Methods, Third Edition, Edited by Hilary Brown and Darlene Ciuffetelli Parker, Ph.D)

Father's Day card open and closed by Bhavya gr. 1

Example of an extension by creating the whole body by Sasha, SK

Father's Day card opened by Sasha, SK

'Dog' Father's Day card exemplar

Extension of 'Dog' Father's Day card by Natalie, gr. 2 with heart and tail

Original Father's Day card using collage for the word 'Dad' by Andrei, SK

Original Father's Day card by Andrei, SK dot-to-dot wagon

Father's Day Daffodils by Andrei and Jefferson, SK

Social Learning - Constructivism!!

When my students worked on beaded necklaces with a ceramic amulet for Mother's Day it was a social learning experience. Some students were quite eager to make a necklace and others were a little reluctant but were encouraged by their fellow students. Social Learning, where some students learn how to behave from watching other students, can also be talked about within the context of Social Constructivism which is a belief that knowledge is first learned in a social setting and then applied to other circumstances. For example, the first bead that the students threaded was how the necklace was to be made. This process (of stringing beads together) was practiced on their own and within a social context in a small group of students. Then the decision of which colour and how many beads to use was up to the students - this follows the social Constructivist learning theory where the learning is centred around the student, and the student decides on the objective/goal and what to do/or it is negotiated with the teacher. Vygotsky suggests a method of learning something new by doing what the student can do first, then challenge the student with something he/she might be able to do, and then move on to something that the student won't know how to do but will learn with assistance (Zone of proximal development). When we were making the neckalces for Mother's Day almost everyone (JK - gr. 3) knew how to thread a bead onto a piece of string, then they learned how to mold a piece of modelling clay onto or arround the string, and then they learned how to tie a knot. For some students the thing they needed to learn was how to tie a knot, for others it was how to attach an amulet to the necklace. This was learned using the zone of proximal development. Here are the results of this activity!

Beautiful Mother's Day necklace by Serina, gr. 2

More lovely necklaces for Mother's Day by Benedict, Hayden, Aiden, Joshua, Benjamin, Serina, and Natalie

Individual Unguided Instruction!

One way in which I have used Indvidual unguided instruction is when one of the more creative students works on creative arts by herself. This is an example of an indirect teaching strategy because the student works through self discovery and inquiry to learn problem solving techniques in developing her creative ideas into a completed work of art. A good time to use indirect inquiry is when you would like to focus on thinking skills and processes, learning 'how' to do something when it is more important than 'why' or 'what', and when students need to experience something rather than just hear or read about it. Some of the basic processes of inquiry that my students are using are observing, measuring, using space-time relationships, predicting, controlling variables, experimenting and communicating. The purpose of using unguided instruction is to allow the student to develop through thought processes which are specific experiences and observations to draw inferences and generalizations. This information was gathered from Foundational Methods - Understanding Teaching and Learning Third Edition. Here are some examples of completed work through unguided instruction.

Individually designed and painted by Benjamin, JK

Hand made book mark by Natalie, gr. 2

Indivdually designed and painted by Jefferson, SK

Hand made purse by Natalie, gr. 2

Individually designed, drawn, and coloured picture by Andrei, SK.

Complete Fairy set (wings, tiara, fan, and wand) indvidually developed and created by Natalie, gr.2

Tutoring the Fantastic Way!!

I've been tutoring a grade two student in Language Arts, more specifically reading comprehension and writing. He has been working through his work almost as required, with the help of me keeping him focused and not letting him go on about getting after Dora (The Explorer) because his little sister likes her show :-). He gets through the material more or less as I expect. Now I am faced with 'inference'. Through reading comprehension he must learn how to infer, which I don't think he has learned in school yet so this is a little tricky for me because he lacks the ability to make the connection to his inclass learning experience. So this leaves me with using implied messages to help him understand. For example, I use questioning to help him think and I say... what do you think will happen when you hear that someone had to go to the Principal's office? He takes a few moments to think and he came up with... 'he must have forgotten his lunch and his Dad dropped it off there!' I encourage him and say that this is what he can infer from the original sentence. This is one reason why I love the Primary students - they are still so innocent and don't think about getting in trouble in the Principal's office! :-)