June 2015 – Page 2

June 3, 2015 Lisa.Taylor Classroom Management, Differentiated Instruction, General, Inquiry, Learning in a Real Life Context, Literacy, Math, Year End Activities

Keeping Lessons Engaging to the End of June

It can sometimes be difficult to stick with the curriculum until the end of June. The sun is shining, you hear kids outside your window playing soccer-baseball during gym class, the room is sweaty, it is just time to be done! Resist the urge to abandon the curriculum for recreation, unless you can combine the two!

There are lots of fun ways to keep kids engaged until the very end of the school year. In my experience, the last month of school is the best time to do a big, whole class project.

One year, when studying Ancient Civilizations, we wrote a poem about some of the major battles in Ancient Greece. Then we drew on the Arts curriculum and made a set, props, and developed acting cues for the poem. We worked with the Media Literacy curriculum and marketed our production to the rest of the school and families. We did some math around how many showings of the play we would need to do if we had room for 35 seats in the classroom. We talked about what it would be like if we charged money for the show, what would we use the money for, how much would we get if we charged $0.25 per seat, $1.50 per seat, etc. What if your ticket included popcorn, how much would it cost? We purchased popcorn, popped it and measured how many servings we could get out of it. Then we did the math on how many bags we would need and how much we would need to charge for it. They worked out the math on how long the show was, how much time would be required between showings to get organized again, and then looked at the school schedule to see how many showings they could fit in during the day. They wrote reviews of the play for the newspaper, they wrote ads to go on the announcements, they even filmed commercials! They made a program to hand out, worked out how many copies they would need, they did it all.

The learning in this project was incredibly rich, and it was all culminating in the final 3 days of school when they presented their play multiple times throughout the day. This kept them busy, engaged, and connected to the curriculum for the last month of school. The last few days which can be chaotic, were a breeze. They ran the whole day, bringing classes to and from their play, presenting, and keeping the set organized and ready to go.

There are so many different ways you can plan for this last month to ensure the learning is rich, the students are engaged, and the days fly by! Inquiry Based learning is the perfect way to finish out the year. I had a grade 2 class that was very interested in restaurants. So we incorporated the social studies of food from around the world, and we turned out whole class into a restaurant that served dishes from different places around the world. Again, we did advertising, signage, lots of math around how much we would need of different supplies, etc.

Pick a topic that you know will hook your class. Then turn it into something big and run with it. You will be surprised at how much learning they get out of it and how quickly it takes over!

June 3, 2015 Lisa.Taylor General

Field Trips – Making them Meaningful

Field Trips are often booked in a variety of different ways, for a variety of different reasons. How do you infuse a field trip with learning to ensure it is as valuable as a learning experience, as it is as a life experience?

Some trips are booked for you. The school might have funding for each class to attend a theatrical production, or a science activity, so sometimes you don’t have any say in what trip your class is participating in. In this case, all you can do is know that if admin has booked it or approved it, that it must be educational and board approved. It is not inappropriate to ask admin for a summary of what the trip involves to you can preteach to what the focus will be. If there is content that might not be familiar to your students, it will add significant value to the trip should you prepare the students for some of what they will learn. In the past, my class has been assigned a trip to see a drama troop that had a focus on mime. My kids didn’t know what mime was, so in the weeks approaching the trip, we talked about mime, watched some videos of different types of mime, and then we tried it ourselves. When they saw the live performance, it was so much more meaningful.

When you book a trip yourself, you will likely need to fill out paperwork to have it approved by the board. Often a risk assessment is necessary – is there potential for the kids to get hurt? Once it is approved, you need to ensure you have permission slips, supervisors to meet the adult to student ratio, and a bus booked (or walking route set up). It is NEVER okay to transport students in your own vehicle, nor should you be planning a trip where parents are driving students that are not their own child.

You will also need to consider the cost for the trip. I have been at schools that have a community that can afford to go on expensive trips regularly, while I have been in other areas where asking for any money for a trip can be asking too much of the families. You need to know your clientele and make sure you are booking appropriate trips. If families cannot afford to pay for trips, your school may have a fund that can be accessed to ensure no child is left out. You should not be taking trips that include required content for essential learning and exclude students if they cannot pay. This is a huge equity issue.

You will also want to ensure you have a plan in place if there are any medical emergencies, behaviour issues, or other unforseen problems. Will you call the school to have someone come join you? Will the trip just get cut short? Will you bring an EA along with you that isn’t part of the ratio so if there is an issue the EA can take the student that is struggling and work 1:1 with them to ensure the trip is successful? There are lots of things to take into consideration when planning a field trip.

Make sure you run all plans by the office. The last thing you want, is to have a problem while you are on the trip and find out that the admin had no idea that was part of the trip and that they wouldn’t have approved it if they had known. Cover all of your bases before you leave!

Make sure you bring all epi-pens, medications, therapy devices, and a first aid kit. I always bring my cell phone as well to call for help should I need to. You will want emergency contact info for all students on the trip as well to ensure you can contact parents if there is an emergency.

June 1, 2015June 2, 2015 Mike Beetham General

An Unexpected Teaching Assignment?

You have just had a meeting with your principal and at the end of the meeting you have been assigned a subject that you do not have a strong skill set for.

What do you do?

This has and will continue to be a very difficult challenge for teachers. I think the first thing you do is to spend time familiarizing yourself with the appropriate content that is required of you. For this article’s purpose, let’s say that you are asked to teach physical education to Grade 3 students. You are not comfortable with gym, you do not feel that you have the skills to teach gym but yet you are given this assignment and must not only teach it, you must report on it.

The good news is that in these modern day times the world is at your fingertips. There is almost an endless amount of online material to support teachers. Your critical step is to understand what the BIG ideas are for your subject. You then do not have to invent the wheel over and over. The expertise of teachers around the world can assist you in the delivery of the content. For example I have very limited artistic skills, yet I am able to provide an enriching program to my students by finding activities, projects or lessons on how to teach my students the critical content they need to know (and I am aware of).

In an ideal world, schools would have specialists in areas such as art, gym and music. But as we know that is rarely the situation in Ontario. When I was asked to teach my own music I went to my principal and had a conversation with her about how limited my music skill set was. The end result of our meeting was that she knew my students would have a fun, enjoyable time in music. They would develop a positive attitude and great appreciation for music. I realize that type of working relationship is not always the norm.

It is a critical time for you to keep a healthy balance in your life. Knowing the expected effort that will be needed to learn your new teaching content, you will need to reduce the extras that you typically carry out on a voluntary basis in your role. This is a key opportunity for you to demonstrate to your students that you are modeling learning is a lifelong journey. You do not have to be the expert on everything, nor is it possible to be such.