Month: February 2016

Over the past few years, I’ve spent a decent amount of time amassing quick and simple language activities to use with my class. I’ve focused on finding things that easily adapt to a wide range of abilities, can be used in a variety of ways, and are fast to set up. I like to use these activities during my language groups/centres time, but they’re also really handy to have around in case there are any last minute schedule changes or an unexpected absence.

1) Photo of the Day: I load up a photo from a website like National Geographic (their Photo of the Day galleries are great) or a news source. I like to choose photos with a lot of interesting elements to them – things my students can talk about, think about, compare to their own experiences, etc. I provide my students with some sentence starters (I teach a second language program) and then ask them to write about the photo, prepare a short presentation for the class, or discuss it in groups. My sentence starters are things like:

“In this photo, I see…” / “Dans cette photo, je vois…”

“I think ________ becase ________…” / “Je pense que ________ parce que ________…”

“This photo makes me think of…” / “Cette photo me fait penser à…”

My students talk about where they think the photo was taken, what they think is happening in the photo, what details they notice which provide them with insight into where/when the photo was taken and what is going on. These activities have taught them a lot about providing evidence and justifying their responses, which has helped their literacy development considerably.

 

2) Journal Tic-Tac-Toe: At the beginning of the week, I set up one of my language centres with a tic-tac-toe sheet (really just a 3×3 grid) where each square has a different writing prompt. Over the course of the week, students choose three prompts to write about, with the caveat that their three choices have to make a straight line. The prompts can be as simple or complex as you want them to be. You can tie them into your Social Studies or Science units, or you can focus on specific writing forms, or follow a simple theme. These sheets provide students with choice while focusing on specific skills or subjects.

 

3) Story Starters: My husband is a professional artist, so sometimes I ask him to make things for me to use in the classroom. It’s pretty awesome when he has the time to make something for me! One thing he made me several years ago was a bunch of sets of “story starters” – collections of images (two characters, an object, and a location) based on fairy tales or themes. I printed them out on cardstock, laminated them, and put them all on their own keyring. In my classroom, I use them for writing and drama. They’re handy to have around for having students come up with simple skits to get them speaking (especially useful in a second language classroom like mine). Sometimes I use them in their original sets, other times I mix and match characters, settings, and objects from different stories/themes. I have about twelve different sets of these, which I keep in jars/tubs that students can draw them out of randomly. Here’s an example of a printsheet with a few different sets:

Story Starter Small Set 1

 

4) Boggle: I have a standard Boggle template I’ve made and a bunch of laminated square cards that I can write letters on with dry-erase markers. The square cards have magnets on the back so that I can stick them on the blackboard. Students have to make as many words as possible with the letters provided. In French, I don’t worry about adding accents to vowels, telling my students instead that they can add accents to the letters as necessary when forming words. We keep a tally in the class throughout the week of which students have found the most words and/or the longest words, which really motivates them to try and find more as the week progresses. I usually pick the letters for the week by starting with a long word so that my students have a really good one to find. Sometimes I use letters that I know will form a vocabulary word from a unit we’re studying. I don’t do Boggle every week, but they enjoy it every time I do!

 

Hopefully those are a few ideas others can use in their classroom when they need something fast and simple to prepare. The nice thing about them all is that once you’ve set them up once, they’re really easy to come back to again. I have all my favourite photos bookmarked, for example, and I keep lists of Boggle letter sets my students were really successful with.

If you have any favourite quick/simple set-up language activities you do with your students, let me know! I am always looking to add to my repertoire.

When I started teaching five years ago, I quickly became known at my school for being at work late. I was usually one of the first teachers to arrive, and I was nearly always the last teacher to leave. I would be in the building for ten to twelve hours a day. I brought work home with me many nights, and every weekend I would spend hours marking, planning, finding ways to keep working long after I should have been finished for the week. I had the sense that if I didn’t spend that much time doing work, I would fall behind, my students would suffer, and my colleagues wouldn’t see me as a dedicated teacher.

(The funny thing about that, as an aside, is that I never thought any less of my colleagues who didn’t spend ten hours a day at work. I could see that they were all good teachers no matter how much time they spent at work. So why did I feel like I was any different?)

Two months ago, I went back to work after being on parental leave for a little over a year. One of the concessions I had to make, now that I have a child at home, was how much time I spend at work. I pick my daughter up from day care at 4 PM, which leaves us just enough time to get home, play a little, have dinner, take a bath, and go to bed. On days when I have to be at work later than usual (such as staff meeting nights or union meetings), I don’t see my daughter at all. She is just getting up as I leave the house in the morning, and she’s in bed by the time I get home on those nights. Because of this, I make it a point to leave as early as possible every day that I don’t have something after work.

Before, my hours were generally 7:30-5:30 or later. Now, I get to work between 7 and 7:30, but I leave by 3:30 every day. I am spending considerably less time at work. And here’s the thing: my students are fine, I’m fine, and my classroom is running pretty much the same way it always has. The only appreciable difference between my last year at work and this year is that I’m spending a lot less time “at work” and a lot more time with my family. I still bring work home sometimes, but I don’t feel guilty when it doesn’t get done. I still spend some time after work prepping for the next day, but more of my prep and marking is done during school hours (such as at lunch and recess). I’ve changed some of my assessment practices to make assessment easier and quicker (more on that in another post).

My professional life has not suffered in any way from me leaving at a reasonable time and leaving work at work. My personal life, however, has benefited tremendously from this new schedule: not only do I have more time to spend with my daughter, but I have more time for my husband and friends as well.

I am still behind on marking, just like I was when I would be at work late every night. There is still more I could do to prepare for lessons or plan ahead of time, just like before. There are many days when I am running around all day to get things done before leaving, and there are days when I bring a stack of work home because I have no choice but to get it done that night. But that’s my point: it was like that before, and it’s exactly the same now, only I’m spending a lot less time at work and a lot more time with family and friends.

And my students are okay.

If you’re a teacher doing what I was doing – spending over ten hours a day at work because you think you need to in order to be a good teacher – try taking a step back for a few weeks. Try leaving earlier, leaving work at home, changing some of your assessment methods so that you’re spending less time marking. You might be surprised at how little it changes your professional life… and how much it changes your personal life.

February is Black History Month. It is a month dedicated to paying homage to the diverse contributions and experiences of ordinary and extraordinary Black Canadians, members of the African Diaspora around the world, as well as those who live and whose roots stem from the continent of Africa. There are, in fact, many months that have like-intentions to highlight the narratives of historically marginalized groups in Canada: Women’s History Month in March, Asian Heritage Month in May and National Aboriginal History Month in June. The presence of these months speaks to the result of historical silencing of these narratives from mainstream discourse wherein a call for intentional action in addressing missing voices have been issued in public spaces. But how might we authentically achieve the goals of heritage/history months within our classrooms in ways that go beyond their designated months?

As noble starting points, heritage/history months, and in particular, Black History Month, can be addressed in tokenistic or celebratory ways that miss the intention behind their existence. Songs and dances, foods and celebrating public icons are great starting point in capturing the wealth of often untold histories/her-stories of the Canadian experience. Narratives of pioneers, inventors, politicians, “rebels” and “heroes”, civil right leaders, doctors, nurses, mothers, fathers, caregivers, veterans, children and their experiences in schools, laws, lawsuits, inclusion, exclusion, all make up the rich tapestry of Canadian nation building. With narratives so rich and deep, it important to have these included in the discourse of everyday schooling regardless of the month. As such, heritage/history months should be seen as an impetus to intentionally integrate the diverse narratives of Canadian communities in the everyday-discourse of our classrooms.

What does it actually look like to go beyond a heritage/history month? More than having images of people of racially and ethnically diverse backgrounds posted around the classroom, moving beyond the month might look like intentionally including diverse voices and perspectives in the classroom conversation. It may not solely be reading texts where the protagonist comes from a minoritized community, but rather inviting a discussion around the missing voices in existing texts. It may not be limited to including math questions that include ethnic sounding names, but rather investigating the practice of name changing or prevalence of anglicizing names in general. In grappling with what moving beyond heritage/history months might look like, consider some of the following questions:

• How might diverse narratives be shared in ways that do not reinforce limiting and sometimes harmful stereotypes?
• How might teachers engage students in learning opportunities when the student body seemingly is void of students who share the specific heritage that is being acknowledged during the month?
• What might the conversation sound like or feel like when addressing painful memories as well as uncomfortable truths?
• How might one invite the telling of stories by those who love them rather than telling their stories for them?

I end this post with more questions than answers. Perhaps this is an invitation to engage our students/colleagues in uncovering that which lie beneath the surface.