Blog – Page 137

March 23, 2015 Lisa.Taylor Differentiated Instruction, Diverse Learning Needs, Homework

Homework – how much is too much?

Some teachers don’t give any homework, some give lots! There are lots of schools of thought on homework and if it is necessary, if it is valuable, if it serves a purpose, etc. I have had classes that had weekly homework for the whole year, and I have had classes that didn’t get homework once. It all depends on the group and what they need. I find homework is just as much for the parents as it is for the students, sometimes more for the parents! I follow a few important rules when I send homework home:

1. Never send home a new skill or concept that has not already been taught in class. Quickly explaining it in 2 minutes while you hand it out doesn’t count either – make sure the homework is a review of a skill that has already been taught and worked on in class – otherwise you are sending home an exercise in frustration!

2. Never send home something you want to use as an assessment. You can never truly know if it was done independently, nor can you be sure that it is a true reflection of the child’s ability.

3. Never penalize a child for not getting their homework completed – often it is not their fault. They have things going on after school that keep them busy (sports, clubs, etc.) or they are with a sibling or sitter for a while after school and when they do see their parents, that time is too precious to be used working on skills that they have already mastered.

4. When in doubt, send home reading!! This is universal – you know their ability, you have taught them to read the pictures, so even if the words are a struggle, there are other options.

5. Never send something home for the sake of sending something home. Have a purpose in mind. When you get something ready to send home, before you make copies or hand it out, ask yourself, what am I trying to accomplish with this? If it is not helping you to accomplish your goal, don’t send it home. Homework for the sake of homework is frustrating, especially as the parent at home struggling with your child to get it done!!

When you establish a homework routine, make sure it is that – a routine. If you are going to have homework coming home regularly, be consistent with it. Don’t send things home randomly and expect parents will just know what to do. I often rely on my child to go through her backpack to find things for me, and if she doesn’t come across her homework (or more likely, ignores it), and we don’t see it until we are packing bags for the next day of school in the morning, as a parent, I feel so blindsided. If I know something is coming home, I can make time for it and be ready for it. If something is coming home randomly, make a big deal of it – make note of it in the newsletter, staple a reminder bracelet around my kid’s arm so I know to look for it, or send an email reminder to parents so they know something is coming.

If you differentiate in class, you need to do the same for homework. If you have a child working on an IEP in class and they need extra help with counting to 100 for example, you could be sending home lots of extra counting to 100 activities. You don’t need to send those home to the rest of the class if they have that skill mastered though. If the rest of the class is working on counting to 1000, don’t bother sending those activities home with your student that is on the IEP if they are not ready for that, as it is not part of their IEP goal, and it will again just be an exercise in frustration for that family.

I would often send home words of the week. No spelling test at the end of that week, just words to work on. We would have a word family to work on that week (primary). We would build our new word family on Friday afternoon for the following week and then each student would pick their words to work on and get their list approved by me from our words we created. So if we were doing -ig words, some of the lower kids might have pig, wig, dig, on their list, but some of the stronger kids might go for ignite, enigma, etc. on their list. At the beginning of the year I sent home a tic-tac-toe board that was laminated. In each of the 9 squares there was a different activity (i.e., make your words out of magazine letters, rainbow spell your words, have a family member make your words into a word search and then solve it, etc.). Each week they had to get 3 in a row. They would mark them with a marker and wipe it clean each Friday. This was great as many of them could be done in the car, while parents were making dinner, etc. They were quick easy tasks that were meaningful, and relevant, and the words the kids were choosing were at a level that was relevant to them. It is impossible to make a spelling list that serves all students in your class. This method helps to give your kids more ownership and responsibility over their words. It was always a successful system!

In the end, you need to make sure you are predictable and consistent, you are serving a purpose, and that you are giving them something meaningful that they need to work on. When in doubt, have a reading challenge!

March 21, 2015March 24, 2015 Beverly Papove General

Sharing your Experience with Others

I recently asked several colleagues a question; “Is there a tip someone has shared with you that has been helpful in your teaching practice and that you would pass on to a new teacher?” The colleagues who contributed their ideas range from relatively new teachers – 5 years in the classroom – to those a few years away from retirement, as well as a vice principal who has just completed all her courses and requirements to become a principal. Most people responded immediately and enthusiastically, while others needed more time to think of just one thing to share.
Responses vary in categories from classroom management to collaborating with colleagues and organizing lesson plans and resources. Some pearls of wisdom come with explanations while others are self-explanatory or open to interpretation. I was happy, but not surprised, to find all of the comments to be useful reminders of how to achieve a well-balanced and respectful working and learning environment.
A Sampler of Tips for Teachers
• “Align yourself with like-minded colleagues who are realistic, resilient, and creative, and have a sense of humour! It makes the job enjoyable and more productive!”
• “I’m not sure who told me this, but I’ve discovered: Sometimes throwing the lesson plan out the window can create the most meaningful and memorable teaching moments.”
• “Don’t worry if your students “like” you or think you are cool. Be fair and warmly strict and they will like you by the end of the year.”
• “Beg, borrow and steal if you need to! This really translates into not being afraid to ask for help with resources or lessons. Too often teachers reinvent the wheel rather than pooling or sharing resources.”
• “Choose a few things to focus on. Don’t try to be perfect at everything your first year.”
• “Make friends with the school custodian.”
• “Bow down to the office chief administrator! She is often the hub of the school and can be a wonderful source of information about everything school related when you need help. And don’t forget Secretary’s Day or celebrate it with a small, impromptu “thank you” on any other day of the school year to show your appreciation.”
• “Never contact a parent about an issue regarding their child’s behaviour on a Friday when it can wait until Monday. Why cause unnecessary concern or misunderstanding over the weekend?”
• “Let students “play” with manipulatives, regardless of their age. There is always a lot more learning going on than meets the eye.”
• “Be nice with everyone. You are the best model for appropriate behaviour for your students.”
• “Look for ‘invisible students’, the ones who are good academically, tend to be quiet and who rarely ask for assistance. These students may be easy to over-look in a class with high behavioural or academic challenges but need your attention just as much.”
• “Go the Ronald Morrish way! (author of “With All Due Respect – Keys for Building Effective School Discipline”) Greet your students by their names at the door as they come into the classroom, and expect them to acknowledge and thank you for holding the door open for them. I use this to help to identify that the classroom door is the threshold into a respectful learning environment.”

There are plenty more to be added to this list and many of them are common sense. Building common sense and respect into your teaching practice makes for a much more fulfilling work environment and can contribute to professional growth. If it is useful, let it be used!

March 9, 2015March 12, 2015 Mike Beetham Before School Starts, Building Inclusion, Challenging Topics, Learning About Your Students, Student Ownership

Trust and Verify

This is a fantastic new phrase I came upon. I have been experimenting with it in my class over the last two months. As I work with my special needs students I am always looking for new ways to say the same message. A key component that I strive to accomplish in my classroom is the concept of trust. That entails students trusting adults, adults trusting students, and students trusting students. TRUST is a pillar of an effective classroom community.

This phrase puts the trust factor as automatic and you know the verification will follow. That is a paradigm shift for many people. But what I have found from my student conversations is that the fact that I automatically trust them is in itself a breakthrough for their confidence and self esteem.

The way that I am using it is to show them that I believe in them, trust them to do what is right or what they were asked to do. Their role (critical piece) is to show me that my decision was the correct one. I guess a simple way to explain it is to see this as an attribute based approach in that all children are innately good and capable of being trusted. It is proving to have a self-fulfilling affect on my students. As a young boy in my class put it, “You are right Mr. B., I can be trusted”.

March 4, 2015March 6, 2015 Mike Beetham Before School Starts, Challenging Topics, Learning About Your Students

Accountable Talk

Students love to talk and some students love to talk more than others. That isn’t a bad thing! Talking is and should be an essential component of every classroom. The key is to help students understand the different types of talk that will take place at school. I teach my students the term ‘on task talk’. That means that if it is math we are working on, then it is math we are talking about or if it is science then scientific conversations are taking place in my room. This creates a win-win situation as humans are social beings and talking is a huge part of both the socialization and learning process. This is part of the routines and expectations that are established at the beginning of your year.

A second type of talk is question and answering or as I phrase it ‘inquiry talk’. This is different in that there is a key person who is explaining or justifying their solution or work to a group of peers. The students asking the questions need to be taught what thinking questions are, how to create them and what respectful dialogue looks and sound like. The person receiving the questions needs to understand that the questions are not meant to be negative but rather to evoke thoughts and express opinions.

The final type of talk in the classroom is social talk. This is just friend-to-friend conversations that take place. I will often interject these sessions as transitions in the room. For example we have just wrapped up our writing and I will tell my students to take a two-minute social break. During that time they can get up and move or talk with a friend or friends.

The key is to help students develop an understanding of what each type of talk is as well as when and how to use it. This is specific to each teacher and their style of teaching. Embrace the power of talk in your classroom

February 28, 2015March 3, 2015 Beverly Papove General

What is a District Review?

Next week, our school will be under District Review. We have known this for months, of course, and have been guided by an excited administration on what to expect and how to prepare for something called the “Walk About”. With all of the lead up to the visit, one can definitely detect some anxiety in the air. Making a comparison, I guess it is a bit like having company coming and wanting to be sure that you are ready and that your place looks great.
District Reviews generally take place every five years. In essence, a review is when the administrative members of the school district come to a school to see what is going on. They take notes, ask questions, and try to get a general feel for the school environment. Afterwards, the team makes a report highlighting what the school is doing well with regard to school board mandates and initiatives, and includes suggestions for areas that could use more focus.
The “Walk About”, which is the main part of the Review, seems to generate the most anxiety amongst teachers because superintendents, principals and vice principals from other schools join the school’s administration on a tour of the site, visiting classrooms and chatting with teachers and students. You may be in the middle of a lesson when the team drops by. They will look around your classroom and try to be as discreet as possible as they make their observations. The moment one of the members crouches down to quietly ask one of your students; “What are you learning?” and “Why are you learning that?” can be a little unnerving. Reviewing anchor charts, posters and messages on the classroom walls may make it easier for students to answer questions regarding their learning environment. In addition, you may want to make sure Big Ideas are clearly posted and that the students know to expect someone may ask them questions about their learning goals for the lesson.
While a School District Review is a big responsibility for the school administration and may seem like a distraction from your day-to-day teaching, it can also be viewed as an opportunity for you to take stock of how your classroom presents and how effectively you are communicating on a regular basis with your students regarding their Learning Goals. Take a look around. Do you still have Christmas decorations up in February? Does your class library need some organization? Are your bulletin boards interesting and informative? Would any of your students be able to answer the questions, “What are you learning and why?”? Review what you are already doing. This is not the time for you to change your practice and try to outdo yourself. Rather than being anxious about a District Review it may be more productive to take an objective look at your classroom, do some tidying up and make sure you are ready for visitors.

February 27, 2015February 27, 2015 Shawna Rothgeb-Bird Literacy, Math

My Favourite Cross-Curricular Visual Arts Activities

I love Visual Art. It was always one of my favourite subjects in school and I was fortunate to have several teachers who engaged me in unique and exciting art projects. Tragically, I can’t have my students do Visual Arts all day, every day – bummer! Over the last few years, I’ve tried to find ways to integrate a bit of Visual Arts into many other subjects in ways my students don’t expect. Here are a few of my favourite projects from the last four years:

1) Quilts

What the project was: Working in groups, my class and another class of Grade 4/5 Middle French Immersion students designed, cut, and assembled baby quilts. At our annual art show, we ran a raffle for parents ($1/ticket). The proceeds from the raffle (over $300!) were donated to a charity. All of the material we used was donated by parents – much of it fabric ends from household projects, but some also salvaged from old pyjamas and blankets that were no longer wanted or needed.

What it taught my students: This project was a joint Visual Art and Mathematics project. From the VA side, it taught the use of tools (including electric sewing machines), complementary colours, patterning, and adapting to/solving design challenges. From the Mathematics side, it taught area and perimeter, measurement, and patterning.

What was challenging: We had 50 students cutting fabric, assembling quilts, and using sewing machines at the same time. The project took months (working one day a week) and the help of a few parent volunteers. I ended up giving up a few of my lunch breaks towards the end so that my students could finish their quilts before our art show.

2) Graphic Novels

What the project was: Students in my Grade 4/5 class each chose a fairy tale to retell in the form of a graphic novel. Their story had to be different in some way from the original without changing the overall message. They started by brainstorming, then created storyboards, then moved from storyboards to the actual comic panels.

What it taught my students: This was a joint VA/Language Arts project. From the VA side, it taught students composition, shading, line, perspective, and creating a narrative work of art. From the LA side, the expectations are always a little different depending on the grade level and program I’m teaching.

What was challenging: This project takes a long time. There are a lot of steps involved in getting to the final product, and students need a bit of guidance not to get too caught up in their storyboards. Many of them also needed to be encouraged to scale back their story so that it wasn’t 20 pages long – because 20 pages of comic panels is a LOT of drawing and colouring!

3) Carcassonne Variations

What the project was: Students in my Grade 4/5 Middle French Immersion class worked in groups to create their own versions of the board game Carcassonne. They had to plan/draw/colour their tiles and design a scoreboard. If they added any extra tiles that weren’t in the original game, they had to explain them with written rules.

What it taught my students: This was a joint VA/Mathematics project. I’ve used it to teach a variety of concepts in both areas. It changes a bit each year! For VA, I’ve used it to teach line, shape, colour, and texture. For Mathematics, I’ve mainly used it to teach probability (as the game involves drawing tiles from a bag) and fractions.

What was challenging: The first year that I did this project, I let students choose their own groups. Whoops! I ended up with several imbalanced groups – some with lots of artistic talent but who struggled with the mathematics side, others with lots of mathematical aptitude but who struggled with the artistic side, and everything in between. The next time I did this, I put students into groups, trying to balance artistic ability and mathematical aptitude… but as with any group put together by a teacher, occasionally my students had difficulty working together to plan and design a project like this.

Without going into too much detail, here are a few other Visual Arts activities I’ve done over the past few years:

Oliver Jeffers-inspired Picture Books (Visual Arts/Language Arts): We love Oliver Jeffers. His stories are whimsical, funny, colourful, and poignant. One of my favourite things to do with my students is have them create their own stories in the style of Oliver Jeffers. They get very creative!

Collaborative Mural (Visual Arts/community building): Each student received a piece of the mural without knowing what the final design would be. Their page had only black linework on it, with some areas coded to be coloured with hot colours and others coded to be coloured with cold. When they finished, we assembled them according to the numbers I had put on the back of each page.

Melted Crayon Art (Visual Arts/Science)

February 26, 2015 Tammy Axt Communication Tools, Communication with Parents and Guardians

Communicating with 500 parents

I am a music teacher and I have around 500 students that I teach this year. Communicating with the parents of 500 students needs to be approached a little differently than the regular classroom teacher. I don’t send home a beginning of the year letter as I have taught most of my students for a couple of years now. I usually send home communication for other purposes. Below are two letters that I will be sending home in the next couple of months. The first letter is about recorders, and the second letter is about an upcoming concert at my school.

Letter #1:

Dear Parents/Guardians of Student in Grade 3,

As part of the music program, students learn to play the recorder starting in grade 3. Playing the recorder is an excellent way to develop fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination and concentration. At this level, recorders are the best tool for teaching students to learn to read proper notation on the music staff. Studies have shown that taking music lessons increases overall academic achievement, and helps to develop self-confidence and problem-solving skills. For your information, there is an article on the back of this letter on this subject.

At the beginning of May, students will be provided with a clean recorder for use at the school. Each student will have his/her own instrument assigned to him/her that is not used by other students. These recorders are property of Red Willow P.S., and will remain in the music room at all times.

Although it is not mandatory, we strongly suggest that students buy a recorder for practicing at home. This recorder will remain at home. Recorders will be used extensively in grades 4 and 5 as well, and sheet music will be going home for students to practice with. Buying a recorder through the school ensures that your child has a good quality instrument. Recorders purchased at the dollar store are not good quality and they almost always have the wrong fingering system.

Recorders cost $10.00. Please pay in cash. We need to pre-order, so forms with the money are due by May 7, 2015. Please fill out the form below and send it with your child/children.

Sincerely,

Ms. Gallant

Letter #2:

The Music department at Red Willow is extremely excited to invite you to a spring concert starring your amazing children!

What will be happening?

Your child, along with all the other grade 3 and 4 students, will sing songs they have written, share dances that show different cultures, perform a black light show and much, much more. There will be snacks available for purchase, as well as many photo opportunities.

When is this fantastic event?

The Spring Concert will take place on April 23^rd, 2015. The show will begin at 6:00pm. We ask that your child be dropped off to the side entrance by 5:30pm. Teachers will be at the door to greet them starting at 5:20. Students are required to stay until the end of the show.

How do you get tickets?

Due to the number of grade 3 and 4 students who will be performing; we must limit tickets to 2 per family. More information regarding tickets will follow.

February 25, 2015February 26, 2015 Shawna Rothgeb-Bird Celebrating Success, Communication with Parents and Guardians, Student Ownership

Showcasing Student Work for Parents

I’m not a huge fan of Parent/Teacher Interviews. It’s not the idea of speaking with parents about their child’s progress, because I am totally on board with that. It’s not the time spent after school, either; I’m usually one of the last teachers to leave my school at night, so I’m pretty used to being around after hours.

My issue with Parent/Teacher Interviews is that the focus is rarely, if ever, on talking about what students are doing daily in the classroom. To me, that’s the important thing: seeing their work and their progress over the course of the ten months that they’re in my class. My students work hard and take pride in their accomplishments. I’ve never liked that interviews are linked to progress reports or report cards because the natural thing to do seems to be to talk about grades.

I hate grades, but that’s another story for another time. 😉

A few years ago, I did something with my class that I felt really offered my students the chance to show their parents just how much they had accomplished that year. It was a really rewarding experience for everyone.

In spring of that year, a few students in my Grade 5 class came to me and asked if we could do a class talent show. This was a congregated gifted French Immersion class with many performers of all kinds. We discussed it as a class and nearly all of them wanted to participate. We decided that we would host the talent show in June as an end of year event and invite everyone’s parents to come. I was not going to force anyone to participate, though, so I had to come up with some reason for the parents of students who were not performing on stage to attend.

My students had been amassing large portfolios of work all year. I’m a bit of a hoarder when it comes to student work and I like them to keep it all at school for as long as possible. Usually this just leaves me drowning in a pile of art projects, scientific models, chart paper, and duo-tangs, but this one year it really paid off. I had my students go through all of their work and choose five things that they were really proud of.

We discussed why they might choose certain pieces over others. Some pieces were chosen because students had worked particularly hard and had done a really great job with them. Others were chosen because they were really fun and exciting. Others still were chosen because students felt that they had made a lot of progress that year. The highlight, for me, was when one of my students chose to showcase her Mathematics notebook. When I asked her why, she said that it was because she started that year hating math, just like every other year, but by the end of the year she felt really confident in math and it had become her favourite subject.

Validation! My teaching is working! But that’s not what this post is about.

We ran the entire event in the school’s gym, which had an attached stage. I pulled out some tables and set them up, then gave each student a space to display their work. They decided how to display it. As parents came in, they were able to wander around the tables and see the work all of the students had put out.

The talent show itself was what I expected: a seemingly endless parade of ten and eleven year olds playing musical instruments, telling jokes, dancing, and doing whatever else they had come up with as a talent. It was really sweet. They did a wonderful job. All I really did was invite the parents; they coordinated who did what and when, rehearsed on their own time, and ran the whole show for parents.

After the talent show, all of the students went and stood by their work. They were expected to explain to their parents why they had chosen to include each piece. I was there and able to answer any questions and chat with the parents, of course, but the students were the stars of the afternoon. I got a lot of positive feedback from parents on the event and they were happy to be able to hear their child talk about his or her work in a positive light.

February 24, 2015February 26, 2015 Lisa.Taylor Celebrating Success, Challenging Topics, Classroom Management, Making a Difference Through Education, Wellness

Healthy Options at Schools PPM150

With PPM150 having had some time to settle into schools, there are blog posts and parent forums popping up all over with discussions about food options being offered to students at schools. While the PPM does outline expectations for what foods can be offered to students at schools, many teachers provide food in class as a reward for good behaviour, sharing candies and snacks as curriculum connections (graphing M&Ms, making Rice Krispie Squares for measurement, blowing a bubble with bubblegum for procedure writing, etc.). Websites like Pinterest are full of ideas that involved engaging students with food and candies.

As a mom of a child with a food allergy and significant digestive struggles that require a very strict diet, I am often overwhelmed when she comes home from school to tell me about all of the special snacks she had that day. It is next to impossible for a 6-year-old to say no to a cupcake, so we as the educators need to make those healthy decisions for them by simply not offering them at all. With poor eating habits and obesity on the rise, we need to take advantage of the time we have when children’s diets are completely dependent on the decisions of adults and only provide them with healthy options.

I have had classes that “earned” a positive behaviour reward and we opted to have a balanced breakfast reward where the first period of our day was spent talking about healthy breakfast choices and then we had a balanced breakfast together complete with wholegrain cereal, milk, fruit, and even some veggies! They loved it because it was a snack and it was out of the ordinary!

Think about the value of what you are giving your students both nutritionally and educationally. If you are giving candy or something that is not a healthy choice, ask yourself if there is a healthier option you could give that would get the same result (i.e., if you are teaching procedure with bubblegum, could you teach procedure with making oatmeal, or salad, or something else that is healthy?).

February 20, 2015February 23, 2015 Mike Beetham Assessment, Before School Starts, General, Learning in a Real Life Context, Planning, Student Ownership

Zipper Club

I truly admire and hold deep appreciation for all of you who teach Kindergarten or Junior Kindergarten. You establish the foundations that will support a child’s academic life and that will allow the rest of us to build upon. I had to share this great concept that I watched evolve from one of my colleagues who teaches Kindergarten. It is called the Zipper Club. The premise is that he is trying to develop and foster independence in his children (which can be transferred to all aspects of school life).

As his children grow from an academic, developmental and gross motor standpoint they are provided with success that fosters a belief of “I can do anything’. So as each child masters the famous jacket or hoodie zipper, he posts their picture in a public display in the hallway. This is then shared with our school so that all can see and celebrate. His students start to feel all grown up and this new found independence fosters many additional side benefits to his class such as less time dressing equates to more on task time.

I have adapted this style of setting targets and working toward those targets with exemplars of what success looks like, sounds like and/or feels like. To this point I have enjoyed many types of both individual and group success. By far the most beneficial has been in my understanding of how important targets and success criteria is.