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Erin.Grewar Diverse Learning Needs, Planning

Effective Planning for Core French – From Scratch

Effective Planning for Core French – From Scratch

Core French is an interesting subject to teach that is full of…paradoxes so to speak. Interestingly enough, I’ve never seen any other subject area where the resources are so painstakingly developed. In some, there is a detailed breakdown by the minute of each lesson accompanied by an actual teacher script (Allez à la page 2 de votre livre. Quel est le titre du chapitre?) A little surreal actually. One would think that teaching core French would be the easiest thing in the world; your lessons are all planned out, no shortage of worksheets and someone has even thought out exactly what you’re supposed to say and when. How then to explain the digression of The Young and the Restless into Fear Factor? Well, it’s easy to write a one-sided script but not so easy to gage how the other party might respond. The most common problems for Core French teachers are a lethal cocktail of zero motivation and disruptive behaviour both of which feed into the other. Personally what saved me from successive agonizing 42 minute periods (time and time again) were well-crafted lesson plans and activities. The magic formula? Engaged students don’t misbehave. Does this mean you have to do more than open your book to the prepared scripted lesson of the day? Yes. Does this require a lot of effort on your part? Yes, countless hours. Is it really worth it? Most definitely. What follows are some ideas around
1) Students need to be able to relate to what you’re trying to teach them. That’s why bypassing the unit on Microbes (an actual unit in a popular resource) could save both your students and yourself alike. Instead focus on themes that reflect their actual interests.
2) Stay on top of current trends in everything (music, sports, tv/movies, etc)! No need to overdo it, but be aware of what your students are interested in.
3) Personalize your worksheets/assignments with names of your students and current info. In doing so, you will have tricked them into actually reading through the entire text.
4) Be very creative in terms of the concepts of your assignments. Use the curriculum as your base and integrate the concepts into something fun. An example for the passé composé would be to recount a week in the life of Beyoncé and include all the gossipy tidbits in the descriptions of her activities. Similarly for the future proche, they could write an assignment around winning the lottery and describing how they would spend their fortune.
5) Give them lots of support in terms of exemplars, reference sheets and anchor charts. Always make sure you have given them all the necessary tools to be able to work independently (without relying on Google translate).
6) Use the publishers resources as a guide but be prepared to redesign materials to suit the needs and level of your students.
7) Allow your students to make it as simple as they might need to or as complex as they are able.
8) Have fun in the process and think of it as a future investment. A lot of work up front but beneficial in both the short and long term.

Alison.Board Diverse Learning Needs, General, Integration

Integrating Arts, Language, and Science

In my last post, we left off with an inquiry about snow and ice, which ultimately led to water. It wasn’t that the students were particularly interested in water, but it seemed a natural segue from ice to water, and I had a particular book in mind that I wanted to read to the class. We had also learned about cycles (big idea) in various forms since October, such as the cycle of the seasons and the weekly cycle and daily cycle. To initiate our topic about water, I first asked the students, “Where does water come from?” Some of the responses were:

“Water comes from sinks.”

“Water comes from waterfalls.”

“Water comes from the sky.”

I then read the book titled, All the Water in the World by George Ella Lyon. It is a book that captures childrens’ imagination and interest. I read it to the class a few times. Each time we discussed the descriptive words. We also created a diagram of the water cycle.

At the end of the week, I selected materials that I thought they could use to demonstrate their understanding. The materials were shades of blue paint, white styrofoam, straws, small beads, and construction paper in blue, brown, and black. The children could select from any of these materials, but by controlling the palette I knew the outcome would resemble their intentions.

I asked the students to show where water comes from or where water goes. Their finished works showed their learning and understanding about the water cycle, it also demonstrated their use of language and how effectively they use materials for visual arts.

 

 

 

 

 

“Water comes from the clouds into the lake. Then in the pipes, then in the house.”  (JK student)

 

 

 

 

 

“When we wash our hands it goes from the washroom to the lake through the pipes.” (SK student)

 

 

 

 

 

“This is the cloud. The rain drops are coming from it. Down into the lake, into the tubes to the bathtub.”  (SK student)

These small projects integrate many subjects and provide the children with authentic learning that they can relate to in the everyday world that surrounds them.

Alison.Board Differentiated Instruction, Diverse Learning Needs, Inquiry, Learning in a Real Life Context

Science in Play-Based Learning

Science in a Kindergarten classroom looks like many different things. There are learning centres such as the sand or water table, where children are using free exploration and where teachers are guiding specific experiments. There are also inquiry projects that may last a day or a few months that evolve with the children’s interests and are continued with the educators’ guidance. I would like to share an inquiry that has evolved in our classroom this winter.

 

It all started with a fish. The children found a piece of ice on the pavement in the schoolyard. They noticed right away that it was formed in the shape of a fish. One of the children carried it in his arms as we lined up to go back into the school. My first reaction was to tell them to leave it outside, then I realized this could be the beginning of something bigger – an inquiry on ice and possibly how it melts into water – that the children could observe and discover.

 

 

 

 

So, the children were thrilled and brought it into the classroom. We put it in the empty water table container. Before we left for home, I asked the children to predict, “What do you think is going to happen to the ice fish?” Here are some of their responses after a brief discussion:

  • It will melt in spring.
  • It will melt in one hundred days.
  • It will melt if we put it in the refrigerator.
  • It will melt by tomorrow.

The next morning when I entered the classroom, my teaching partner asked me if I had looked at the ice fish. I hadn’t, and figured I already knew what to expect, a container of water. When I looked, I was surprised to not only find the water from the melted ice fish, but an imprint. This was a surprise for me, something I couldn’t have planned for. We were excited to share the finding with the children when they arrived.

 

 

 

 

 

The children were excited to see the shape of the fish made from the sediment in the ice. They instantly realized that it was left from when the ice fish melted. That day, the children observed the dirt and some made drawings. As a group, we discussed the possibilities and the children decided it was the dirt from the snow that had sunk to the bottom of the container.

 

 

 

This inquiry led to more experiments with snow. We talked about the difference between liquids and solids. Through our discussions we wanted to make snow melt faster. The children made suggestions on how to make the snow melt faster and we tried them through various experiments. We set some snow under a lamp in our classroom, and it took all day to melt. We also tried adding cold water and hot water (with adult assistance) to the snow. The students discovered the effects of water and compared these to the conditions outside.
This inquiry has led us to learn more about water…
peer-to-peer book recommendations
Katie Pryde Diverse Learning Needs, Literacy

Reading Suggestions

I have often heard about teachers doing Peer to Peer Book Recommendations (see picture below)in their classrooms, however, I have never heard of doing Student-Teacher Book Recommendations. While reading the Guide to Effective Instruction in Literacy K-Grade 3, I read a section that touched on the idea of having book recommedations in the classroom, and I thought this was a wonderful idea!

1) Peer to Peer Book Recommendations: This is an opportunity for students to recommend books that they have read to other students in the classroom. This is a wonderful idea for many different reasons. Most students will recommend books that they have enjoyed, and that they hope another student would like based on the characters, or plot. This will help students read books that are interesting, as well as show them that the other students in the classroom truly know them if they recommend the book based on the knowledge of the students’s likes/interests; it’s a great way of showing that each student cares about one another and has paid attention to eachothers’ likes and dislikes.

2) Student to Teacher Book Recommendations: This is an opportunity for students to recommend books to teachers, which can be used for novel studies, read alouds, shared or guided reading. This is a wonderful way for teachers to ensure that they are using books in their classroom that are of interest and of relevance to their students based on their interests, culture and reading levels. Of course, teachers will have to evaluate and look at the reading levels to ensure they are appropriate for readers if using as a novel study or guided reading piece, but I think this is a wonderful idea for ensuring students are interested in the reading material which will help instill a true love of reading for all students. This can very easily be done by the teacher, but creating a suggestion-type box where students can write down their book recommendations for the teacher.

* The picture above was provided by www.scholastic.ca

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Tina.Ginglo Building Inclusion

Building Community with a Student of the Week

When I was teaching pre-service and visiting teacher candidates at their practicums, I had many opportunities to see the different ways teachers create community in their classrooms.  One fourth-grade classroom teacher (I am sorry, I don’t remember the classroom teacher’s name) assigned a table in her room for a student to set up a display about his or herself.  This display immediately caught my attention because the student, whose turn it was to share, had brought in a variety of Montreal Canadian artifacts. Since I am a Habitant fan, I immediately wanted to meet this student and talk with him about the artifacts he brought to school.  The student was so pleased to talk to me about how he and his family came to be Hab fans.   The other students in the class were quick to fill in pieces of information the student didn’t share.  This told told me that his classmates practiced attentive listening and mutual respect when the artifacts were presented. I left that classroom knowing that when I returned to teaching elementary students I would do something similar.

Well, I finally introduced the idea of a “Student of the Week” when we returned to school in January.  I asked my student teacher to launch the project by sharing personal artifacts before we broke for the holidays so that when we returned, the first student would be ready to go.

Basically, each week a student prepares an oral presentation and display about them self to share with the class.  I tell the students that by sharing this information we learn more about each other and we will have a greater appreciation of how each member of our class is unique and special.  

Below you will find the learning goal and success criteria for this activity.

 Learning Goal: 

As Student of the Week, I will learn how to:

  • Organize my ideas and present information in a logical sequence;
  • Communicate in a clear way using good volume, speed and eye contact.

Success Criteria:

I know I successfully presented myself as the Student of the Week if:

  • I included information about my past, present and future;
  • I used visuals such as photographs, magazine or Internet pictures;
  • I included objects such as favourite toys, lucky charms or other artifacts;
  • I looked at the audience when I presented;
  • I spoke in a loud and clear voice.

My students LOVE our Student of the Week presentations.  Each week, after a student has done their formal presentation, the presenter pulls a new name from our Name Jar.  The name drawn will have one week to prepare their presentation and display.  I can’t believe how excited the students get when someone’s name is read from the jar.  You would think they one an iPad or somethingJ

I am so pleased with the quality of the presentations each student prepares, but I am equally pleased with the quality of the feedback the students receive from their peers.  Not only do they ask thoughtful and caring questions to find out more about the individual, they also point out which success criteria the student has included and which success criteria they can build upon.  What is really cool is that I didn’t ask the students to provide the feedback, they did it automatically, which tells me that peer feedback is part of the culture of our classroom (I guess I did something right!).

After the presentation and Q and A time I ask some reflection questions such as:

  • What did we learn about <student’s name> that we didn’t know before?
  • What are some of the things you have in common with <student’s name>?
  • How does this activity help our classroom community?

I am sorry I didn’t start this activity at the beginning of the year.  With a never ending list of things to do, I kept skipping over this activity. In hindsight, it didn’t take long to set up.  I basically purchased a display board and stick on letters.  I narrowed down our learning goal and success criteria and put it on a handout for students to take home.   Now Student of the Week is in the students’ hands!  So far, I haven’t had a student forget they were the next Student of the Week.  Each week the Student of the Week has come ready to set up their display and prepared to give their oral presentation to our class.  I think this activity is a keeper!

 

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Sangeeta.McAuley Differentiated Instruction, Diverse Learning Needs, Learning in a Real Life Context, Literacy, Use of Technology

Kings of Writing

Last year, when it was time to sign up for extracurricular activities, I chose to run a junior Boys’ Writing club.

Sometimes I find writing such a challenge for students. They struggle with how to make it “look right” and when I explain that spelling and neatness do not have to be the main foci, they can find it hard to believe. How is it possible that writing can be effective when there are misspelled words or words crossed out on the page?

So, my mission was born. I wanted the Boys’ Writing club to take writing in a different direction and helps students to see that it can be such a powerful tool for communication.

I began with some research. Namely, what were issues at our school that our club could address through writing? How could I use these issues to give writing a purpose?

Here’s what I came up with:

-775 students in our school

-families that are new to Canada

-lunch recess is 55 minutes

-some areas of our playground are closed during winter

-daily problems happen outside that students talk about when they come in after lunch recess

When our club met for the first time, the vision was clear: we could do an advice column to help the students who have problems outside at recess. We made an action plan, the boys committed to attending weekly meetings and I asked them to come up with a name: “Kings of Writing”, they told me.

We discussed how the advice column could work: we would make mailboxes, students from around the school could write letters to the club and we would write responses to these letters. I decided to add one twist. Rather than writing a good copy of these letters, we would record the final responses on an iPad and play these responses over the announcements once a week.

The “Kings” were thrilled. Hearing their responses made them feel like they were doing something worthwhile and I think writing took on a whole other meaning for them.

Here’s a sampling:

kings of writing advice1

kings of writing advice2

kings of writing advice3

This year, I’m doing a version of Kings of Writing that is open to all my students. They collect issues from around the school and we respond to the letters during class time. In some small way, I feel like I’m preparing my class for their generation. Maybe next year, we can do video responses to be played in every classroom!

 

 

Photo of Roz Geridis
Roz.Geridis Building Inclusion, Celebrating Success, Classroom Management, Differentiated Instruction, Diverse Learning Needs, Learning About Your Students, Questioning

Wait time

The other day I was reading through Professional Speaking (our OCT magazine). I came across a little piece on wait time and it reminded me of a situation and comment from a colleague last year. I was a model classroom for a combined grade social studies lesson. While I was teaching my lesson, I utilized my wait time with the students throughout my lesson. Upon completion of the lesson, during our debrief session, the Instructional Leader highlighted my wait time. Which developed a fantastic discussion amongst the teachers. Some of the comments were about how long I waited, thought no one was going to answer, how quiet the room was, how proud and surprised many colleagues were about the rich classroom discussion developed due to enough wait time.

Wait time is something which is very important. The first few students who are ready to answer the questions are the students who may not need wait time and are ready to answer most questions. However, by using wait time we allow many students (if not all) an opportunity to process the question and gather information to answer the question. We also know that most students are ready to move on in the lesson and are not left behind still thinking about the question or answer.

A strategy I use to help keep the students focused is I asked the question a second time, the third time I will rephrase the question. Also, sometimes I may need to help activate the prior learning by using some guided questions. Every year I use wait time. Some years I have to wait longer than others but all my students know they need to be engaged and paying attention to the lesson and classroom discussions.

 

 

Classroom setup with drawings on the wall
Katie Pryde Classroom Layouts

Adding More Wall Space

I have often run out of wall space in my classroom. There is always so much I could hang up in my classroom, however, I often run of room. I never really knew what to do about it. But now, I do! Thanks to the teachers at my school, they have helped add more wall or hanging space in my classroom. In my classroom, I have many detachable hooks on my wall with string hanging from them. I used clothes pins to hang my students’ work, which allows me the opportunity to hang more of my students’ artwork. You can get these detachable hooks from many stores, including Walmart or Canadian Tire.

Here are some pictures of how it is set up in my room, and it allows me to hang a class’s worth of papers or artwork:

Writer's rainbow bulletin board
Katie Pryde Assessment, Literacy

Keeping Track of Writer’s Workshop

In my many experiences of LTO teaching in Kindergarten, all my classes have taken part in Writer’s Workshop. We have all used the Writer’s Rainbow as a form of assessment of students’ writing, as well as students using it as a form of self-assessment. I have struggled with keeping track of student writing growth, and how to assess their writing come report card time.

While working my current LTO, the teacher I am replacing has a wonderful way to easily keep track of student writing and growth. After every piece of writing, the teacher writes a little dot of the colour of the Writer’s Rainbow that the student achieved with that writing piece. I have continued to do this, and found it very easy to assess my students’ writing come SK report card writing. It was very easy to look through their writing journal and see whether the student was all over the board, or whether they were quite consistent with the colour of the Writer’s Rainbow. It was also very easy to see when students grew in their writing, by moving up a level (colour) or two. I have attached some pictures of the Writer’s Rainbow, as well as a students’ writing with the colour of the dot that corresponds to the colour they achieved. I highly reccomend doing this for any teachers, Kindergarten teachers or not, to use this as a tracking system of their student writing.

 

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Erin.Grewar Planning

The Unit Plan: The Timeless Form of the Pyramid

This may seem redundant, but I found that unit planning comes up frequently as a topic of interest during workshops for beginning teachers. This is probably due to the overwhelming nature of the job and all of the simultaneous demands coming at you. Consequently, a weekly (let alone a daily) plan is as forward thinking as one can muster at times. It is tempting to use the plans included with some of the resources or someone else’s. However, designing your own is really helpful because you’re forced to really organize your thoughts and direction. The best format of a unit plan that I have ever come across was given to me by a friend at the Halton Board and was the template used by French teachers there. As someone who is very visual and relies heavily on graphic organizers, I immediately put it to use. Without getting bogged down by detailed descriptions, it is very simplistic and allows you to clearly chart a course of action.

 
Shaped in the form of a pyramid, the base is the featured language structures. What follows next are the diagnostic assessments and activities leading to the formative assessment. Finally the peak is your summative assessment. I always begin with the base of curriculum requirements and move on to create the summative assessment related to those. I then plan out the individual activities/lessons that students will need in order to be successful in the final task. What I really like about this format is it allows you to plot out everything and to foresee any possible gaps. In the end you’re left with an efficient, simplified yet cohesive vision that relieves the stress of incoherent and random planning. Both you and your students will benefit. I have included a blank template as well as one of my sample units. Strangely enough, unit planning can be as satisfying as cleaning out one of your messiest closets.

 
pyramid unit plan – sample
pyramid unit plan template