Planning – Page 7

May 2, 2012May 7, 2012 Alison.Board Building Inclusion, Diverse Learning Needs, Planning, Resources

Say, Show, and Do

In my Grade 1 and 2 classroom, it feels like we have been focused on writing for many months. Writing narratives and reports, using graphic organizers, and editing drafts into published pieces. The children have been “saying” and “showing” a lot, and as their energy is rising with the warmer weather, I think it is a good time for some “doing.”

A couple of weeks ago, our class was invited to watch a Grade 3 class present The Great Kapok Tree: A Tale of the Amazon Rain Forest. It just happened that we were enthralled with reading a book about saving trees too, Wangari’s Trees of Peace: A True Story from Africa. When we returned to our class to discuss the play we had watched, the children were inspired to create their own based on the book about Wangari. I realized that taking the opportunity to watch the Grade 3s perform was beneficial as they modelled for the Grade 1 and 2 class how a non-professional play looks.

Our current big idea is “How has the world changed?” with a focus on structures and movement (Science curriculum for Grade 1 and 2). The book, Wangari’s Trees of Peace is a text that lends itself to many other big ideas such as environmentalism, women’s rights, education, and world peace. When we read the book together for the first time, the students also saw its connection with the idea of hope, which was the inquiry question we started with back in September.

This project has revitalized our classroom. We wrote the story into a script format, dividing most of the story into parts that will be read by four narrators. Then we added a few lines for the characters. We discussed the scenes in the story and decided on three scenes. Children readily volunteered for parts in the play, to paint the background images, to create costumes, and to change the sets between acts. During our inquiry periods, I look around the classroom and see some of the children working on draft versions of the background settings, while others sit in pairs or groups practicing their lines and discussing the various roles.

Today, the narrators and actors read their parts in front of the class for the first time. I couldn’t help but notice how attentive the rest of the class was, as I thought their attention at the carpet was previously waning. They offered suggestions to the readers or actors and represented themselves as a community of learners. This play project emerged at just the right time in the year, when the children are comfortable enough with each other to take risks with acting and ready for a new challenge.

I am not sure how long it will take us to prepare for a presentation of the play, as I am learning along with the children. We plan to invite their parents and definitely the Grade 3 class that inspired us!

April 22, 2012May 11, 2012 Roz.Geridis Classroom Management, Occasional Teaching, Planning, Professional Learning and Growth, Resources

Working with or as an Occasional Teacher

When thinking about occasional teacher planning many questions could go through one’s thinking process (what do I leave, how much, what do I bring?). If you are an occasional teacher you need to be able to teach for the time you are in the class with plans or not. If you are a contract teacher, you want the occasional to teach what you would do even if you were there. I just finished having a student teacher in my classroom and as her practicum was coming close to an end, the conversation of occasional teaching came up. She wanted to know how I decided what to leave for an occasional and how much but also what she should expect as an occasional teacher. Below is a summary of what I shared with her:

Planning for an occasional teacher

1) Make sure you leave a current seating plan.

2) Leave tips and notes about your students but remember to be professional as sometimes notes are left in the room for kids to see. Only phrase things in a positive language, leave strategies to help the occasional connect with your students, and 1 or 2 students who the occasional can ask questions about the routine.

3) Leave as much information about your class as possible but remember all information will not always be read. Don’t forget to highlight the allergies in the class and if epi-pens are used (if so, where the epi-pens are stored).

4) Leave lessons which your students will be able to complete. Usually, I still leave my lesson (as if I am there), I make sure I am prepared to complete an assessment for learning when I immediately return. The reason for this is the classroom teacher understands how each student learns, the comfort is there for the student to ask questions and clarify misunderstandings. Also, sometimes occasional teachers don’t have enough background information to connect the lesson for the students, students sometimes behave differently with occasional teachers and lessons are taught differently; the full lesson might not have been taught. I can’t tell you how many times I have returned to my class with a note stating the effort was made but the redirection of behaviour took up too much class time. That being said, I make sure lessons are connected to the curriculum but sometimes I may need to do something different than following my unit plan. It sometimes helps to make the occasional teacher’s day a little more fun.

5) Schedules – leave them in the supply folder. All resource, yard duty, classroom schedules need to be available for an occasional to view.

6) If you need items for a science experiment or art lesson, leave items out or in one location and share the location of items with the occasional teacher.

Working as an Occasional Teacher

1) Arrive as early as possible to give yourself time to review notes and lessons left by the classroom teacher.

2) Be familiar with the grade curriculum (if possible).

3) Try to connect with the neighbour teacher and ask any questions you may have.

4) Have a Language, Math, Science lesson in your bag, as a back up. On very few occasions you may walk into a classroom which has no lessons available for the day. If you have a lesson for each of these subjects, you can fill the day. Based on the grade, have some addition, subtraction, multiplication, division review fun sheets in order for the kids to complete (begin with asking the students to complete any 5, then to pick another 2, and so on). If no photocopier is available, write the questions on the board or display them on the smartboard and have the students record the questions and answers in their math workbooks. For Science or Language, you can have a story book related to the environment. “Where the Forest Meets the Sea”by Jeannie Baker or “The Lorax”by Dr. Suess are two great examples which can begin discussion on environmental issues, based on a situation you give them have the students develop different endings. Another Science activity might be a recycle sort — go through the classroom garbage bin (bring plastic gloves) and sort out what can be recycled or put in a compost. Again, there are many story books you can tie this theme to. For Language, you can use the newspaper and have the students discuss an article you feel is age appropriate. You can also have the kids write down 3 truths and a lie about themselves — then each student presents the 4 statements to the class. The class has to guess which is the lie. The students really enjoy this activity and it does take up an hour and sometimes even more (if the class size is bigger). Please don’t forget about your diversity of learners and adjust your lessons as needed.

5) Don’t forget about yard duty.

6) Try to deal with classroom behaviour in the class. But of course, if safety of yourself or other students is/are at risk, make sure you immediately contact the administration. Having a little reward planned for the end of the day helps students to look forward to something. Making the connection by saying hello/good morning to every student as they enter helps to start off the day well.

7) Say good bye to the administration and thank you to the office assistant(s).

8) Most of all…enjoy the day!

April 13, 2012April 13, 2012 Samantha.Perrin Diverse Learning Needs, Planning, Resources, Use of Technology

Teaching Music When You’re Not a Music Teacher

I did not have a very extensive musical education as a student. I could tell you that every Good Boy Deserves Fudge: and FACE are some things to remember when you are reading notes. I may not have an extensive musical background, but that’s not to say that I can’t teach music:

I truly do appreciate music. I like a variety of melodies and enjoy paying attention to lyrics, instruments, beats and rhythms of songs, and I believe that discussing an appreciation of music can be educational and fun for students and the teacher. From time to time I incorporate this kind of music appreciation into my classroom, and now that I am daily occasionally teaching, I find it an excellent back pocket idea for instances when I am called into teach Music for the day or when I have some time and need to settle an active class.

I found ‘music appreciation’ to be successful with the students that I was teaching, because they like to sing and they can move to the rhythms. Music has also been shown to improve cognition in younger students: http://alumni.news.yorku.ca/2011/10/27/york-study-verbal-iq/?utm_medium=Email&utm_source=ExactTarget&utm_campaign. And let’s be honest, it’s fun to just groove out sometimes.

In my planning, I identify a genre of music (e.g., Jazz), read up on its history, instrumentation etc. and after playing some music for the students, we just discuss it. My I phone is very helpful- I can YouTube some music and Google additional information on it and play it for the students. We talk about how it made us feel and what we liked about it or didn’t like. Later, we learn to sing the song, we analyze the lyrics and research the genre some more through media literacy (e.g., I’ve had the students learn more about Jazz styling by exploring websites like http://pbskids.org/jazz/join_the_jazz_band.html.)

I hope this gives some beginning teachers some inspiration to make the most out of music instruction, even without a formal background in it. Good luck!

April 12, 2012April 13, 2012 Tina.Ginglo Diverse Learning Needs, Planning, Resources

Another good resource for teaching the Arts curriculum

Some time ago I shared a great website resource for drama and dance lessons and units- http://code.on.ca/resource

I have another favourite on line resource created specifically for Ontario teachers.

Learning Through the Arts hosts dance, drama, media arts and visual arts lessons based on the revised Arts curriculum for Ontario teachers. I like that I am able to watch the integrated arts lesson unfold with real students. You can browse by division or by subject. I am going to attempt the third grade animal legends unit in May. I hope you find this resource as useful as I do!

April 11, 2012April 11, 2012 Alison.Board Communication with Parents and Guardians, Learning in a Real Life Context, Planning

Excursions

When I taught Kindergarten last year, it was a half-day program. This was challenging for excursions, since we only had a two and half hour window to go somewhere and get back to the school so the children could meet their day-care providers for pick-up. This year, with my Grade 1/2 class, I have enjoyed many class trips. Most of them I organized or booked back in September to support the learning of our “big ideas.” A couple of trips were more spontaneous, like a trip to hear an orchestra, which was organized by the school.

On one of the trips, a parent volunteer that joined us for the day asked, ” Why do some classes in the school have more trips than others?” She thought that the trips were arranged by the school (administration?) for each particular class. This surprised me, but I explained that it was the discretion of the teacher. Years ago, my mentor suggested taking students on a trip once a month. I remembered this, and tried it out this year.

The places we visited were connected to our big ideas. I found the excursions worthwhile as it engaged the students, affirmed our sense of community as we ventured out of the school together, and provided alternative contexts for the students to create new connections and understanding. We visited a variety of facilities ranging from museums to conservation parks, which offered a range of indoor and outdoor experiences appealing to the many learning styles of the students.

Taking photos on the trip is a great way to document the learning. These photos can be shared with parents on a website as a form of communication or presented back to the students to promote more questions and thoughts. I often asked the students the same question when we returned, “What did you notice?” And it always amazed me how this open-ended question elicited observations that I never expected. We then recorded the observations of the students and used them for further investigation or discussion.

Class trips are like family vacations, you may not recall day to day events, but you often remember the big trips with happy memories.

Our class gets a guided tour at the zoo.

April 1, 2012April 2, 2012 Alison.Board Assessment, Diverse Learning Needs, General, Learning About Your Students, Learning in a Real Life Context, Planning, Professional Learning and Growth, Resources

Big Ideas as Themes

I enjoyed reading Sangeeta’s blog and the meaningful themes that her students are learning about in her classroom. When she says, “there are some conflicting opinions about the use of themes in teaching” it is more likely the use of themes that lack relevance, scope, and purpose, such as a theme devoted entirely to apples or penguins. The themes that Sangeeta have chosen are meaningful to her students and it is evident that she has selected them as the needs of her students have emerged throughout the year.

In my Grade 1 and 2 class we are learning the curriculum using similar themes, though we call them big ideas. These big ideas are umbrellas for the various subjects and strands that we are working on. The big idea provides a lens to consider our world. I used a question format for the students, asking them “What is hope?” at the beginning of the 2 month inquiry, then again at the end.

Here are my reflections on the first big idea that we embarked on back in September:

By recording the children’s responses I could see that the children had similar ideas of hope as wanting or wishing, such as “I hope I get a new toy.” Only one comment (made by L.) seemed to differ in that it touched on worry or care for others. The children need an opportunity to consider hope in a deeper context. I looked at the sub-questions developed in connection to the Science and Social Studies curriculum, Why is hope important to our community? How is hope different for other communities around the world? How do the sun, air, and water (as energy/life source) give hope to people in our community and other communities around the world?

I needed to find rich texts to read aloud that would provide the opportunity to discuss the idea of hope in relation to our own community and communities elsewhere in the world.

The following four texts became the foundation for our inquiry that were not in the original long range plan:

Poor Fish (local and global environment)	Listen to the Wind (Korphe, Pakistan)
Lila and the Secret of Rain (Africa)	The Whispering Cloth (Thailand)

In my long range plans, I had outlined the culminating task as a fabric picture, using a variety of textiles to represent their understanding of hope in the context of their local community (grade one) or another community in the world (grade two). Part of our learning included a class trip to the Textile Museum of Canada. This trip provided us with information about the symbolism and purpose of clothing in African cultures. It also gave the students an opportunity to explore textiles, wool, and weaving in a hands-on area.

After our trip to the Museum of Textiles, extended “inquiry time” in the class to pursue topics and interests at various centers, and discussions around our four foundation books, the children started to make their own observations and connections. Integrating the science curriculum for both grades, which included focus on the sun’s energy (grade 1) and the need for air and water (grade 2) contributed to their understanding of the texts. I asked the children again “What is hope?”

M.: To keep the environment clean.

L.: To build a school.

A.: For rain to cool down the land, fill the wells so people will not die.

M.: To live in a new country; to have a home.

K.: To go to school.

The children’s responses are reflecting their understanding of hope in other contexts. I see them making connections between the books that we read. They are also showing interest in locating the various countries that are the settings for the texts. When we were in the computer lab many of the children searched their country of interest on Google Earth. Some students were surprised to see the snow covered mountainous terrain of Korph, Pakistan. What a difference when they compared the region to their own street where they live.

L. takes her chair to work by the map where she is working on locating Korphe, Pakistan and describing its climate.

When it came time for the culminating project, I doubted my decision to rely on the fabric representation for assessment. So, I created a graphic organizer or template for the children to complete first.

Grade 2 student, L.,uses detailed drawings to represent her knowledge when comparing her community with a community in Pakistan. Note the curly lines in the mountains representing the effects of the air as wind in the higher altitude of Korphe.

L.’s fabric representation shows the altitude of the Korphe community, the challenge of the water that was previously crossed using a wire pulley and a box to sit in, as well as the wise man who slipped. Their need for a bridge to connect them to building supplies and resources is more clearly needed before planning for a school.

A Grade 2 student, uses fabric to effectively demonstrate her understanding of the dry African landscape. She has also shown perspective with a home and person in the background on the horizontal line, skills that were explored during instruction of the visual arts curriculum.

At the end of the inquiry, I asked the students if their ideas had changed about hope;

K.: Hope is more about needing something, like a place to live, food or water to survive.

L.: We pretty much have everything we need.

In addition to the observations, recorded conservations, and demonstrations of understanding through their independent works – their final responses to the question “What is hope” showed how much they had learned from the first day we considered this big idea.

March 29, 2012March 30, 2012 Sangeeta.McAuley Building Inclusion, Learning About Your Students, Learning in a Real Life Context, Planning, Social Justice, Use of Technology

Themes As the Driving Force

While there are some conflicting opinions about the use of themes in teaching, I have found that they are extremely powerful tools we can use to help our students connect their world to curriculum subjects.

I began my school year with the theme of Identity, so my Grade 4 students could know more about who they are as individuals. We examined factors like religion, gender, family, and media and how they play a role in shaping our identities. I was particularly excited to zero in on gender, in an attempt to work on one of the UN Millennium goals:

Goal #3 – Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women (http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/)

This led us to discuss stereotypes that can exist for males and females and through drama, visual arts and writing, my students reflected on their experiences and how stereotypes can lead to exclusion. We read personal stories and viewed clips from the site, “Because I Am A Girl” (http://becauseiamagirl.ca/) and they mapped places in the world where these stories came from and looked for patterns. At the end, students wrote about themselves and their learning in a blown-up version of their individual fingerprints.

Over the course of working within this theme, I began to see the challenges my students had with the concept of Choice and realized I had found my next theme to explore with them.

Goal #1 – End Poverty and Hunger

Goal #2 – Achieve Universal Education

My students made puppet shows on iPads to illustrate a time when they had to make a difficult choice and we studied persuasive writing and how their voices can have an impact on the choices others make. Closer to the holiday season, we planned a fundraiser and I shared Unicef’s website and the survival gifts program (www.unicef.ca/). They convinced me that we should raise money to send a child to school because that would decrease the chances of this child living in poverty. So, we sold popcorn throughout our school, in the hopes of raising $75 to send a child to school. My students designed posters, they went to each class in the school and shared our idea, they counted and tracked the money that came in with the orders and to our surprise, we raised $300 and were able to send 4 children to school. Their one condition before I made the donation: can you please make sure that it is 2 boys and 2 girls?

Over the holidays, I contemplated how relatively quiet my mind was because I wasn’t hearing the daily concerns: he’s not sharing the soccer ball, I can’t find a teacher to help me outside, no one will play with me. In order to help my students with some of these issues, I needed to move to Power and its role in relationships and specifically on the playground. My students took post-its notes outside to record when they heard power being used and we studied about power in science through light and sound. They wrote articles for a class newspaper that outlined powerful people in our school and my personal favourite, we discussed imbalance in power, which led to yoga during our gym periods.

As I move into my last theme of the year, Agents of Change, Mission Impossible music plays in the background while my students are designing badges and creating surveys which will provide them with the data they need to make changes within our school.

Goal #7 – Ensure Environmental Sustainability

When my colleagues ask me how I find time to teach the curriculum, I say: The themes are my curriculum, they are what drive me to make connections for my students.

March 28, 2012 Samantha.Perrin Classroom Management, Learning About Your Students, Occasional Teaching, Planning

Classroom Management and Tips for Daily Occasional Teaching

It’s funny to me that when I tell people that I am ‘supply teaching’, I am often met with statements along the lines of “Well that’s pretty easy, you don’t have to plan, and you basically just watch the kids for a day.” At this statement, I usually scoff and reply with “Do YOU remember what you and your classmates were like when your teacher was away?”. This is usually met with a chuckle and a “oh yeah, I see what you’re getting at.”

I think we can all recall a time in our years as students, when the absence of the regular classroom teacher was met with the idea that there was a free pass to try to get away with what you normally couldn’t get away with when the regular classroom teacher was around. Kids being kids, this scenario still often rings true: students, knowing that an occasional teacher is only in for a day and is not familiar with the rules and routines, will try to push some boundaries. For me, when teaching as a daily occasional teacher, this is where classroom management and foresight are paramount to having a successful day. I have started my daily occasional teaching assignments, and in preparation, I read Chapter 7- Preparing for or Being an Occasional Teacher (Heart and Art of Teaching and Learning). I found the practical ideas from Connie were helpful in getting my head around teaching in someone else’s classroom for the day, and in being proactive in anticipating the turns the day could take.

In addition to the good ideas already mentioned in the book, I start out my day with my own bag of tricks. My daily bag is equipped with my desk bell, a whistle (in case I am teaching gym), a book of fun drama activities and a few picture books that are appropriate and liked by many age groups. Along with it, I try to think of a follow up activity that can be used if the teacher hasn’t left any plans or when work is completed and we have an extra chunk of time (for example, plotting the beginning, middle, and end of a book, writing in the point of view, creating an alternate cover page for the book).

For the older grades, I make sure to write Ms. Perrin’s Expectations on the board for the students to see right when they enter into the classroom. My expectations follow along the lines of:

Be respectful of your classmates and teacher
Raise your hand and wait your turn to speak
Ask for permission to use the restrooms or to leave the classroom
Be kind and do your best
Let’s have a great day together!

I find that taking this little step sets the tone for the day. The students immediately know who I am. They understand that my expectations are probably similar to their regular teacher’s expectations, and that I want to have a positive day with them. Once the students are settled, I take a few minutes to introduce myself and share a little bit about the grades and schools that I have taught in. This way, the students (hopefully) view me as a teacher (and not as some grown-up impostor who has taken over the classroom for the day). I also take a minute to inform the students of my strategy for getting their attention (ring bell, clap sequence) and what my expectations are for when I use the strategy (stop what you are doing, track the teacher). With these expectations already established, the students are aware of what being successful and being unsuccessful looks like in terms of their behaviour.

Another thing that I do for most grades that I teach, is if the student’s desks aren’t labelled, I will have the students create a personalized name tag that reflects who they are (and maybe include 3 things that they would like to share with me or the class). I find that this is a great community building exercise, that lets the students know that I am interested in learning a bit about them, and it helps me to call on the students by name from the beginning of the day. A few minutes spent at the beginning of the day establishing community and guidelines, help me to set a tone that is conducive to us all getting along and doing what we need to do.

I find it most helpful to envision what I want my day to look like, then think about the things that need to be established in order for that to happen. If you’re starting out as a daily occasional teacher, or are struggling in getting the students ‘on board’ in your teaching assignments, referring to p. 115-116 of Heart and Art is a good place to start. Hopefully my tips will also help some beginning teachers to have a smooth, well managed day of teaching too. Best of luck!

March 1, 2012 Samantha.Perrin Occasional Teaching, Planning, Professional Learning and Growth

Colleague Collaboration and Leaving a Teaching Assignment

In just over a week, my LTO (long term occasional teaching) teaching assignment will be over, I will say good bye to my lovely Grade 1 students and surrender myself to new students and the world of unpredictable daily occasional teaching once again. Leaving a classroom, just like starting up a classroom, is a process that requires planning, communication, organization, and it is a process that is seriously benefitted by collaboration.

In my school year start-up planning, I was mindful of the kind of student-information that I would need to have on-hand to transfer over to the returning teacher. In my planning I made sure that information on students, timetables, assessments and the like were all clear, concise and put together in such a way that anyone could make sense of the information. I started this when I created learner background forms back in September (with parent information, information on allergies, caregivers etc.), which were placed in a divided binder where the students’ progress report, report card, IEP’s and parent communication records would later be added). This process of having to later transfer student information was also in mind when I created student files with examples of student work and diagnostic testing for an informative ‘at a glance’ of each student, that could easily be passed on to a new teacher.

In the month leading up to the ‘transfer’, I took inventory of the classroom supplies that the new teacher would need for the upcoming months and made sure to place my order so that the class was short on things that might come in handy (fresh glue, markers, erasers, pencils). I also made sure not to over-order knowing that the teacher might want to order supplies in June for the upcoming 2012-2013 school year. I made sure to return books to the library and return any borrowed resources to other teachers in the school. As a child I was always told to ‘leave a place in the same, or better, state as which you found it’, good advice for any teacher, whether they are changing classrooms, leaving from a leave, leaving after a day of supply teaching or leaving a long term occasional assignment.

I have also been in touch with the returning teacher, and we plan to meet next week, when she will observe the classroom routines, meet the students and we will also have a chance to go over some of the planning and she will get a sense of where I will be leaving off. I have also emailed her my day-plans template, week at a glance timetable and class list, so that she does not have to re-invent the wheel, and so that she can focus on other priorities such as getting to know her new class. She also knows that she can contact me with questions once she returns to work.

I know that a lot of what I am doing isn’t actually required of long-term occasional teachers, or of contract teachers who are going on leave, but I believe that teamwork and collaboration are positive and essential practices for any teacher. We teachers are not required to meet, or to share our personal ‘creations’, to share our units, resources, ideas, or hand over our ‘intellectual property’, but we put so much of ourselves into our work to benefit our students, why wouldn’t we share if someone could add to it and make it better? Why wouldn’t we divide the labour so that more attention can be given to an area that needs it? Or Why wouldn’t we lean on one another and be a team so that we restore ourselves from time to time and take turns leading the charge?

I have been in teaching situations where I was given little, or any information on how to program my classroom, which resources to use, how to order supplies, establish systems or routines (teaching under these circumstances can be quite challenging, a trial-by-fire learning experience that is never forgotten), and I have also been in teaching situations where harmonious team work, sharing and planning was the norm (which had an even more positive impact on my experiences as a teacher, my learning and on the kind of things the students and I were able to accomplish in the classroom). Perpetuating a practice that supports teachers, inexperienced and experienced, that allows them to succeed and in turn assist the students succeeded is just another reason why we teachers should do our best to help each other out. Whether we are moving classrooms, going on leave, leaving an LTO behind, or leaving a classroom after supply teaching for a day, I hope this post helps us all be a little more mindful of other ways we can be more positively collaborative and communicative with our colleagues.

February 28, 2012February 29, 2012 Alison.Board Assessment, Diverse Learning Needs, Learning About Your Students, Learning in a Real Life Context, Planning

Opportunities Beyond the Classroom

This week is our school’s Speech Arts Competition. It was introduced at a staff meeting with the hopes that all classes would participate. Some teachers are enthusiastic, some are not participating, while others (like myself) are using it as an opportunity to focus on oral language skills. I am presenting it to the students more as an opportunity than a “have-to”. There are kids who are thrilled to create or memorize a poem, add dramatic flair and share it with the class. There are others that are anxious about selecting a poem, being able to memorize it, and having to present in front of their peers. Despite emails of worry from concerned parents of the anxious children, I continue to remain calm and relaxed about the process. It is the process that I want the children to learn from. If a few of the students are too nervous, they can recite their piece to me quietly when students are working independently. This option has eased their worry, however I am sure that when the time comes they will be fine, as a sense of community and support already exists within the group.

There are so many opportunities at our school for those who are confident expressing themselves in writing, visual art, or sports. I think that the Speech Arts Contest will appeal to those students who have abilities in oral language and drama. There are so many forms of expression, yet children are often presented with the same options. As teachers, we need to look for opportunities to explore other options and to provide students with a multitude of languages for self-expression, whether it is sculpture, nature, music, or math. I have one student who is often invisible in group discussions. Yet, if I play music or show a video with music, her face lights up, she moves to the beat, and she becomes the most visible.

With over 30 teachers and 500 students, our school buzzes with activity and events. It can be overwhelming for some (like myself) to participate in all the opportunities that are created by various staff members, such as growing seeds and tending our school garden, attending the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, participating in food drives, or sending Valentine’s to the Senior’s home, in addition to your own class trips and activities. However, I have realized that these are opportunities for the students to experience forms of expression beyond what I may provide in the classroom. If you can connect these opportunities with your own plans (such as graphing for Data Management during the food drives), the learning and the experience becomes authentic.