Michelle Fenn Combined Grade Classes, Constant Learning, Curriculum Planning, General, Inquiry, Inspiring Students, Integration, Literacy, Modern Learning, Questioning, Resilience, Technology in school, The Global Competencies, Use of Technology

The Virtues of Non Fiction Reading and Writing – Part 2

Our Journey

We began by identifying the books in our book bags as fiction or nonfiction.  The students justified how they knew if a book was fiction or nonfiction.  In small groups the students compiled lists of nonfiction text features that they noticed in their stack of chosen books.  As a class we went through the Scholastic Book order and they decided which books were fiction or nonfiction and explained their choice.  The students discussed whether there was a realistic photo, the title and if there was a synopsis about the book.  We explored the “Explain Everything” app and played with it for a short period before getting into the project.  I find that a “romance period” with a new tool helps to keep them on task when they begin their work. The app was fairly new to me but the students found it to be mostly intuitive.  They were really stoked to use the feature that points to the words using a “light sabre”.  There were a few glitches with accessing text edits but eventually they got the hang of it.  We have the free trial version.  The actual app is quite expensive.

Establishing a Purpose

I explained to the students that our younger “buddies” were going to be learning about nonfiction and their teacher was looking for an engaging presentation about nonfiction text features for her students.  By setting up an authentic purpose and audience for writing, the students were engaged immediately.

These are the learning goals, success criteria, project checklist and anchor charts that we developed over a period or two.  We added and changed some things as time went on as well.

CEE6A17D-F84C-43F7-B9A9-25090CBB9579                                       A481EA45-96C1-430C-9EEE-5D04A47F2750

The students really had to think about the information that a nonfiction text feature gave them as a reader.  The learning was much deeper by creating a teaching video than if they had just identified the features in texts.  Students referred to the success criteria and checklists throughout the project.  Before they came to me they had to have some peer feedback.  They put their first draft on Seesaw and I provided some feedback online.  The students edited and adjusted from peer and teacher feedback and then posted for parents to see on Seesaw.  Below the blog, I have included three different examples of projects from both grade four and five.

Assessment and Evaluation

The integration of technology with a presentation provides an opportunity to assess many different curriculum expectations in language:

-ability to critically analyze the purposes for nonfiction text features

-ability to create a piece of media for a specific purpose and audience

-ability to oral communicate coherently and expressively

-ability to write clearly using appropriate conventions and their ability to edit their work

-ability to use success criteria, anchor charts and feedback in the creative process

In the area of learning skills:

Independent Work

-adhere to timelines and guidelines

-use class time appropriately to complete a task

-monitor, assess and revise plans to meet goals

Responsibility

-provide appropriate feedback to peers; being considerate of the feelings of others

-have their materials ready

Initiative

-find answers to questions and materials they need on their own

-find ways to make their work better

Organization

-set up their work so that the ideas are communicated and the audience understands their thinking

-prioritize what needs to be done

Collaboration

-uses politeness and kindness when providing feedback

-shares resources, information and expertise

Self Regulation

-asks for clarification about feedback

-uses mistakes as a learning opportunity

-provides evidence that they think about their thinking

Michelle Fenn Combined Grade Classes, Constant Learning, Curriculum Planning, General, Inquiry, Inspiring Students, Learning in a Real Life Context, Literacy, Use of Technology

The Virtues of Non Fiction Reading and Writing – Part 1

Many years ago at a Reading for the Love of It Conference, I listened to author and educator Tony Stead speak about the virtues of teaching non-fiction reading and writing in the elementary grades. It was an “ah-ha” moment for me as an educator. As an adult the majority of the text that we interact with each day is non-fiction. Writing a grocery list, filling out a survey, reading an advertisement, reading a blog and corresponding in an email are all examples of interacting with non-fiction text. If I read fiction it is because I choose to do so for pleasure. Yet, much of my language curriculum in the primary grades had been fiction based. I had chosen many beautiful picture books for read alouds and focused a lot of our time on narrative story writing.  Most of what I write as an adult is purposeful communication, not for pleasure. During that time I also put together that the majority of what the boys in my class were interested in reading and writing were non-fiction topics and that likely contributed to the reluctance of many of them to read and write.

Consequently, as an educator, I spend much more of my time teaching how to read non-fiction and how to write in different non-fiction genres.  Recently with my grade 4-5 class, we have been investigating non-fiction text features.  We are learning to use non-fiction text features to help us both as readers and writers.  For example, through inquiry the students learn what a diagram is, what is used for, how it helps the reader to gain new information and how we can then use it in our own writing to communicate information effectively.  The students are working towards providing a kind of instructional guide to non-fiction text features using the app Explain Everything to present to younger students in our school.  Students search for examples of non-fiction text features, take photos and using voice, text or diagrams; explain how the text features work and how they help readers and writers communicate.  Students understand that these diagrams, graphs, maps etc., in their texts can provide quick snapshots of important information and make their research interesting, richer and often more expedient.  In their writing, they understand that many features provide “proof” of the point they are trying to make for their readers.

My love of non-fiction does not exclude studies in fiction.  However, as educators it is important that we are expose our students to purposeful, rich, relatable tasks as well as good stories.  In part two of the blog, I will be sharing student work with non-fiction.  For more information about educator and author Tony Stead I have included some links below.

Tony Stead author biography

The RAN Strategy video

 

 

Will Gourley Constant Learning, Financial Literacy, General, Inquiry, Learning in a Real Life Context, Year End Activities

Mov(i)e Time

It’s the last school week of June. Things are still happening at the speed of learning, of course. Final assessments are in the books and reports are printed. Students are buzzing, bristling, and bursting with energy like they’ve been equipped with new solar panels from TESLA to absorb the energy of sunny days.

By this month’s end my school will have hosted an evening fun fair, a talent show, track and field day(s), a graduation, a TED Ed event, a play day, and a year end celebration. Despite June being the month with the longest days, it still feels there is not enough daylight to get everything done.

In addition to the above, we have curated, collated, crafted, and corrected our report card comments. Many of us are moving classrooms within the building or to new schools. Boxes are packed and rooms are returning to their neutral states, void of anchor charts, memes, inspirational quotes, and student work. The memes are gone too.

What do you meanWith so much happening around a school, it might be easy to let things slide with free time or busy work. Popping in a movie in order buy a little packing time is tempting, but it is also a great time to engage in some real world learning.

So in between assemblies, graduations, and ancillary events, instruction is alive and well. My grade 6s are working, consolidating, collaborating, digging, questioning, sharing, encouraging, playing(baseball for gym), and reflecting. As I type, they’re calculating the cost of living in Markham in Math. #EyeOpener

These lessons are meant to inform students in the area of financial, social, and life literacy as well as teaching them to be reasonable, realistic, and responsible consumers in our society. The lessons spark curiosity, comments, and conversations that lead to deeper understandings about a world of responsibility out there.

I’ve discovered that whenever students engage with activities like these, they are the ones that are remembered most. Most of the lessons will fade into the recesses of the mind, but the skills, the discoveries, and the “A-ha” moments never go away. As this final week hits its stride, my grade 6s are too. Now that is a scene that I can watch over and over again.

In my post Tick…tick…ticked off I rail against media making claims that teachers are holding film festivals during the last weeks of school.

The last weeks in a classroom cannot be taught on auto-pilot because there is still a lot to teach, discover, and share. So contrary to a public broadcaster’s opinion, the kids and teachers have not “checked out”.

Sorry I’m not sorry to burst this bogus bubble folks, but the kids will have to sit on their own couches over the Summer if they want to watch a movie.

Admittedly, I was prepared for another battle as June approached. However, this year, the same broadcaster brought forward a more appreciative stance towards educators, and in doing so took time to honour the hard work and dedication of our profession. Listeners heard stories of impactful educators as well as memorable students. Hearing these simple affirmations have made these last weeks, much more enjoyable. Once again, an encouraging word makes all the difference.

With 450 minutes or less of instructional time left to count down on this year’s clock, I know most teachers are looking forward to every minute. I hope that you do too.

 

 

 

Beverly Papove agency, Inquiry, Student Ownership, Students as Teachers

For Earth Day – A Chance for Environmental Custodians to Show What They Know

Knowing that I have a worm composter in my kindergarten classroom, two girls (grades 1 and 2) came up to me last week as they walked in from recess holding a bucket of earthworms. A bucket. Full of worms.

They asked me if they could join these worms with the ones in my classroom, and I had to tell them, “No”, that just as there are different kinds of fish or dogs in the world, so are there many different kinds of worms, and these two kinds were very different, not to mention the fact that the worms in the bucket had been born in the wild and that is where they should remain. The students were a little disappointed by my answer, especially after all their hard work delicately harvesting about 2 cups of worms, so I suggested that they could introduce them into the gardens in our courtyard (outdoor) classroom. The girls headed into the courtyard, found a spot near a tree and gently dumped the contents of the bucket on the ground. They were very proud of themselves and told me they knew about how worms help us so they felt that they had really helped the worms, too.

While I was on lunch duty in their classroom a while later, the girls were still eager to talk to me about the worms – evidently, the vermicomposter makes me some sort of expert in the way of the worm. Anyway, they told me that they were just getting started. The girls had BIG PLANS. They wanted to start their own Worm Care Service, since they know exactly what worms need. “Great!” I said, as I realized what a great inquiry-based learning opportunity this was, “Maybe you should make some posters and business cards telling people what it is you do.” This got them even more excited and they wanted to get down to work as soon as they finished eating. Even though selling a worm care business may not be a realistic venture, there is the fact that the girls could at least have an opportunity to share their knowledge about worms. And that is how the idea of a Children’s Fair to showcase students’ environmental interests and projects has come to be added to this year’s Earth Day Celebration. Being the first time at my new school, it will start out with just one or two tables, if we’re lucky, showcasing students and their nature-conscious projects and hobbies. The Fair is open to grades 1 to 6, and all the students will get a chance to visit and ask questions and learn from each other.

Having done something like this last year at my previous school on Earth Day, I had forgotten how rich an experience it was for the students involved. I realized afterwards that it had been so successful because it was an opportunity for students to do something at school which had no rubric or assessment attached to it, and for which they were highly motivated. Last year, all I did was call a meeting together asking students how they would like to participate in the Earth Day Celebration. That’s when things just started to morph into them wanting a way to share their knowledge or expertise about the environment. At the meetings, there were lots of ideas and “Can I…?” questions. In the end, not everyone was ready to set up a table with items and information, but at least it got them to consider the possibility that something they know or do could be of some interest and value to their peers and the adults in their life. This year, I don’t know what expertise we will showcase, but If someone has a feather or rock collection they are proud of, if they know how to fold newspaper into compost bin liners, or if they know how to make bird calls or care for worms, then the Children’s Fair is the place to show what you know.

Beverly Papove Inquiry

One Inquiry, Two Classes

March is a great time to study the human body because it makes a logical segue into Nutrition Month. For our two kinder classes, my partner and I decided to set out a few provocations to see how far the students would delve into the body before we moved on to learn about the four food groups.

To start things off in March, we had “Mr. Torso”, a life-sized, human torso which became an internal organ puzzle that could be taken apart and reassembled by the students. In small groups I was able to present the torso to the students and answer their questions about the organs and how they worked. What the students seemed to be most interested in, apart from the functioning of the large intestine which elicited plenty of giggles, was the brain.

In the torso puzzle, you can remove half of the brain and then take it apart in three pieces of hard plastic. I could not imagine anyone being motivated to learn about the brain using chunks of grey plastic, and yet, an inquiry began to take shape one morning with one of our classes.

I asked the students what they wondered about the brain, and the questions that arose were terrific;

“How does your brain control everything in your body?”

“How come our brain has water inside?”

“How does our body talk to our brain?”

“How does the blood get to the brain?”

“How does your brain make you think?”

Amazing! We set about having a Knowledge Sharing Circle where they talked about what they knew. They also shared books from the classroom library, sat with friends looking for the answers and watched short animated videos that helped explain the way the brain works. Every student was involved somehow in the brain inquiry.

Now here comes the part of the story where the knowledge building is reserved for me as a teacher keen on re-enacting the same exciting inquiry-based lesson. When I did the same provocation with my second class the next day, the brain inquiry seemed to spark a little at first and then fizzle out. Puzzled and frustrated, I found myself wanting to lead the students into formulating their questions, and much as I tried to duplicate the energy and excitement of the previous day, I was trying a little too hard to draw out ideas and questions like; “Do you have any questions about what our brains DO?”, or, “Try starting a question with HOW…”  Much as I tried, there was no spontaneous interest or individual ‘wonderings’, just a few students who were looking at me and trying to follow my prompts. So after eventually getting only one question which, I believe, even the student who offered it was not quite convinced that was really what he had wanted to ask; “Does the water in the brain… pump…to make the brain… change shape?,” I did my best to clarify the question with the help of the group, realizing that I probably should have asked them what organ they were interested in learning about, rather than expecting them to be as interested in the brain as the first group was. It’s not a student-led inquiry if the teacher comes up with the questions, after all.

Beverly Papove Inquiry

Construction Day

Something my ECE partner and I are developing is a more general structure to our week so that the students know what to expect on certain days. We have the usual special activities throughout the week such as Reading Buddies and going to the library, but we have begun to look at having a theme for certain days. So far, we all now look forward to Fridays – not only for the obvious reason, but also because it happens to be our weekly Construction Day (Jour de la construction). We got the idea from one of our colleagues who mentioned that she had heard about a kindergarten teacher who had a building day where the students exercised their burgeoning engineering skills. Given just the general idea of a day dedicated to building stuff, my partner and I jumped on the idea and are now constantly building on (no pun intended) ideas and activities for the kinders as designers, builders and artists.

All week long, boxes are delivered to my classroom from other teachers, from the breakfast program, from the office administrators, and even from the construction workers who were on-site for several weeks putting in a new accessible toilet in the school. In the classroom during the week, the creation station might not be set out, but is always an option if someone asks for it. We do hold on to some special boxes so that there is plenty of variety to be brought outside during the first block of outdoor learning on Friday morning, if the playground is dry. Typically, masking tape, scissors and markers are brought out as well to be used with the cardboard. From our shed, large building blocks, buckets, shovels and sometimes pylons, are also hauled out and presented as possible building materials.

Before we get building, however, we usually have a book and a discussion on the topic, just to stir up the creative energy and to garner ideas of things that are built – either by people or by creatures. Last Friday, we made a list of planes, trains and castles, until one JK student with a fascination for spiders, put up his hand and said that he wanted to build a giant spider web. Great idea! I thought for a moment, then told my ECE partner that I needed to get a few things from inside the classroom. I found 3 different small balls of yarn in various colours and textures for the giant spider web. I attached one end of the yarn to a spot on the chainlink fence, and gave the ball to the student. He easily picked up the idea of how to weave the yarn through the links, and the spider web started to grow. Other students became interested and soon I had fished out 5 more balls of yarn. One side of our school yard began to bustle with children who were pushing and pulling yarn through the fence, trying to attach pieces of cardboard or rocks, some of them even getting ‘caught’ in the giant web as they tried to pass over or under someone else who was weaving. It was a huge success. The web stayed up for about a week, until the arrival of heavy winds and rain, then it soon came unravelled and blew away.

Every Friday, when we come into the classroom, we continue construction activities with whatever we can gather up from our art supplies and toys; playdough; blocks; Duplo; popsicle sticks and white liquid glue; or, chairs, tables and table cloths. We ask the students to draw a diagram of what they plan on building before they get started. For the SKs this is an interesting challenge, while only a few JKs at this point are able to see the connection between what they are drawing and what they end up building. Nonetheless, they like to talk about their ideas, whether the final project looks anything like their ‘blueprint’. Midway through the day, we have a circle so that students can share their creations and hopefully inspire others to build different things than they usually build, like the spider web.

Construction Day offers great opportunities for inquiry and it touches on key aspects (the Four Frames) of the kindergarten curriculum, namely, demonstrating mathematics behaviours, problem solving and innovating. What we like most about it is that it is largely a student-lead day. We have to do preplanning to be ready with a variety of opportunities for building, but we are at our busiest in the midst of a variety of projects, as we try to produce materials that the builders ask for.

Laura Bottrell General, Inquiry, Inspiring Students, Inspiring Teachers, Learning in a Real Life Context

Wisdom Begins in Wonder

 

tumblr_mabyllzj6p1qfvq9bo1_1280

 

The end of the Kindergarten day. The students are safely back with their parents, the classroom is a mess and I’m probably covered in some form of art medium, tidying blocks, cleaning paint brushes, organizing toys and most importantly, reflecting – reflecting on the deep thinking, problem solving, exploration and discoveries that my students made in just one day. Sometimes this meaningful learning took place as a result of a simple question or observation made by a child that exploded into a day full of inquiry. One morning, a group of students were chasing each other’s shadows, which led to the entire class exploring the concept of light, an inquiry that captured their full attention for three days. Another day, two students noticed a sprout growing in the cracks of the pavement outside which turned into a nearly month-long exploration of life and natural life cycles. Another time, a large truck came by the school to pick up a garbage dumpster, and after witnessing this the entire class spent days researching heavy trucks and vehicles, relating them to simple machines. This eventually stemmed into a second inquiry about recycling and caring for our environment. In every case, the learning spanned into their writing, their demonstration of mathematical concepts, their dramatic play, their art creations and their building projects. What was my role in all of this? To question them, support them and observe them. This is what I love about Kindergarten. It is the perfect environment for inquiry-based learning.

Inquiry is probably one of those buzz words that you are hearing left and right – and rightfully so. To prepare students for life in the 21st century, we need to change the way we are teaching them to think. In other words, we need to teach them to think. It’s not just about teaching facts and information, but teaching our kids how to come across, process and communicate that information. The process of inquiry is not just about delivering the curriculum in a new way, but equipping our students to apply critical thinking, research and exploration skills to all areas of their life.

A colleague of mine implements Genius Hour in his grade five class. For one hour each week, his students are given time to research and explore any topic that is of interest to them. His students are working in a variety of areas – researching dogs, writing skits, creating a new sport, making presentations about the Eiffel Tower. Are they necessarily working on curriculum concepts? No. Are they learning? Yes! Are they engaged, intrinsically motivated and excited about their learning? Yes, and this is the key.

When our students are engaged in an authentic inquiry process, guiding their own learning, being autonomous in their decisions and problem solving on their own, they are engaged in much higher learning. We need our kids to take ownership of their learning. We need our kids to be excited to explore the world around them. We need them to wonder. When we accomplish this through immersing them in inquiry based learning, we are creating 21st century learners. It’s not always about what our students learn, but how they learn it.

Many classrooms that I have been in are using the inquiry model of learning in at least one or two subject areas – most often in science and social studies. Think of how valuable the learning could become if one inquiry could span into all curriculum areas, much like it does so naturally in the Kindergarten classroom. Why not give it a try? As I’ve learned from teaching Kindergarten, when students are free to direct their own learning, amazing things can happen.

As a teacher, it is such a rewarding feeling to watch students go above and beyond in their learning when they are motivated and engaged. I think it’s important for us all to remember that sometimes we need to step back, stop teaching and start asking.

 

.

Beverly Papove Inquiry

Final Inquiry of the Year

Cruising along towards the last 2 weeks of school in senior kindergarten and we have just started an inquiry on bees. It came about when the wasps and bees and other flying things started to hover around the garden in the school yard. Students would scream and run, or spread rumours like, “I think it’s a yellow jacket.” “No, it’s a hornet. And if it stings you 3 times, you die.” Bugs were caught and squished as the Protector Instinct surfaced amongst a few students even while I tried to interrupt the squishing with reminders that, “True Nature Detectives are Observers NOT Disturbers!” To little avail.

So, we had a talk about wasps and how they are related to bees and that there are so many kinds of bees it can be hard to tell which is a bee and which is a wasp. The next day, I brought in a book of mine called “A Natural History of Bees”, and asked our wonderful school librarian if there were a few bee books I could take out to share with the students. As I started to read the books aloud, I was amazed at how focussed all the students were on learning the facts about bees. After reading one particular book, they started to mimic the circular dances bees do to communicate where a good supply of pollen and nectar can be found, and everyone started buzzing.

Back in the classroom, with only paper, markers and masking tape put out on the art table, self-conceived bee costumes began to take shape. At other tables, some students would pour over the photographs in the books, while others would start drawings of hives, bees, trees and flowers, and plasticine bees and hives were created. Perhaps the best question that came out of the inquiry was, “How do bees make honey?” I had no clue, so I read books with the class until we could answer the question. Essentially, a bee chews up pollen, then spits it into a cell in the hive. The wax they use to form the perfect hexagonal cells in the hive comes from sacs on their body and keeps the honey for the growing larvae to feed on. We learned, too, that a honey bee will work all their lives collecting pollen which amounts to about a teaspoon full of honey. Fascinating stuff. One little girl, however, wanted to clarify a fact when she asked, “Soooo, honey is really bee spit?” Yep!

To further their knowledge about bees in an interesting but unobtrusive way, I found a National Geographic video on bees that I projected onto the screen at one end of the classroom with the sound off. Students could walk by and stop and watch bees up close for a moment, then go on their way to whatever activity they had chosen.

For a math question, we imagined that our classroom was a beehive. I asked, “If this really were a hive, how many drones and how many worker bees would there be?” Having learned that drones are male and worker bees who collect pollen are female, the students had to come up with a way to count to find out how many of each kind of bee we had. They settled on the idea to have all the girls stand in one line and have a boy count them, and then have the boys all line up and have a girl count them. I asked why that might be a good idea, and they knew it was because you often forget to count yourself. They counted 13 worker bees and 13 drones.

After a few days of inquiry, I decided to read the book, “The Very Busy Bee” by Jack Tickle. While I was reading, I could tell that the students were a little disappointed to hear how it was not at all factual, as they started making comments like; “A boy bee doesn’t go out and collect nectar!” and “A bee can’t just eat pollen and not bring it back to the hive. They don’t eat it to get fat, they collect it for the hive.” These comments highlighted the knowledge that they had acquired from the inquiry, as well as their critical thinking skills, and their understanding of the difference between fiction and nonfiction stories. Report cards may be done, but ongoing inquiry in the classroom helps to keep the students focussed and makes it easier to continue to plan interesting activities – especially when it is the end of the school year.

 

Beverly Papove Constant Learning, Inquiry, Outdoor Learning, self reflection

Stewardship/Sustainability in SK

With our winter inquiry coming to an end, the biggest challenge in my mind was how to facilitate the opportunity for my senior kindergarten students to use what they have learned so that they can become valuable stewards of the planet.

To provoke an understanding of the need to care for and respect the environment which related to our winter inquiry and hoping the students would automatically spring into action, I wrote a note from the creatures the students have observed living in and around our schoolyard. In the note, the creatures complain that the snow is so dirty, that it is making them sick: “Chers Amis, Our homes are not healthy any more! When the snow melts, the water we need to live is making us sick. Many of our friends have already left to find a cleaner place to live. We don’t want to leave! Can you help us? Signed, your friends – Earthworm, Chickadee, Rabbit, Crow and Cardinal. I folded the note and tucked it into a space between the bark and trunk of one of our maple trees growing along the fence in the schoolyard.

During the morning Outdoor Learning period, we started off the lesson with a turn and talk activity to review some of the things we learned about What Happens in Winter. Information flowed as the students chatted with their peers. When they had finished, I gave them the challenge of looking for and finding evidence of living things in the schoolyard. I was beginning to wonder if anyone would find the note, when finally, a group of students came running back, all talking loudly at once about something they had found in a tree.

I gathered the students together and read the note aloud to them, ending it with the question, “What do you think?”  They turned and talked with their neighbours excitedly. “Rabbits can’t write!”  “Yes they can.” And about the message of the snow being unclean; “It’s true! There is sand in the snow. I can see it.”  “Snow looks clean but it’s actually really dirty.” Others mentioned the microbes and the dirt from cars as well as the dogs that dirty the ground. So I asked, “Can we drink the water if we melt this snow?” to which came the answer, “Ewww! No way!”

At this point, I was hoping the students would acknowledge that humans played a part in the messing up of things and that, consequently, it was up to all of us to stop it. However, I was quickly made to realize that, of course, how to clean up the planet is a gazillion dollar question that nobody can fully agree on, let alone a group of five year olds. At this age, they are very capable of figuring out how to help in such a situation, one animal at a time, by giving a bowl of clean water to drink, which is what they do for their pets at home. And what did I really have in mind as far as stewardship goes? Petitions? Posters? Protest marches? It became clear to me that rather than ask HOW we might help the creatures, a better question was, WHAT IF? So I started over again, asking them, “What Would Happen If There Were No Winter?”,  and I explained that, “There is something called Climate Change which is making our Earth warmer than it should be. Scientists think this is happening because of pollution caused by people using cars and airplanes to travel around, and building factories to make things.”

At first, the group was rather quiet, but then one of the students made the comment that a warmer Earth meant that the snow would melt. RIght away, more students began to add their thoughts as a conclusion began to form itself:

“If the snow melts, then the polar bears would have no home.”

“And the seals and foxes, too.”

“There would be no habitat for the animals.”

“All the animals would lose their habitat and then they won’t have anything to eat.”

“Their habitat is broken and the animals would get dead.”

Losing habitat is something the students could visualize and understand, and so I was able to ask them, “How do you think we can be habitat helpers, then?” They were so happy to articulate how they have bird feeders in their backyards, how they compost and recycle garbage, how they plant gardens with their families, and how sad they are when they see destruction of habitat such as trees being cut down, or dried up worms on the pavement. While five year olds may not independently engage in activism on a large scale, when we finished this inquiry, many of them realized that they already do have a positive impact on the environment. My own learning came when I had to acknowledge that Stewardship and Sustainability in an SK classroom are, of course, tied very closely to the five-year-old developmental stage and the way children at this age perceive the world, with themselves firmly at the centre of it all. I was reminded that everything does, after all, start with the individual.

Kelly.McLaughlin Combined Grade Classes, Constant Learning, Inquiry, Inspiring Students, Inspiring Teachers, Integration, Learning in a Real Life Context, Making a Difference Through Education, Resources, Students as Teachers, Use of Technology

Tech Talk

I would like to share a new initiative my class is starting at our school Ancaster Meadow.

Our class realized the large need for technology in the classroom. We noticed that students are sometimes unfamiliar with apps that are available for completing work and for presenting learning. We are starting a new program called “Tech Talk” where as a class we travel to classrooms and instead of “Reading Buddies” we will assist the class one on one with apps of the teacher’s choice. We came up with a benchmark of five:

  1. Explain Everything
  2. Kahoot
  3. Weebly
  4. Pic Collage
  5. Prezi

These apps will be explored in detail by my class so when we visit our first class after the break, the break off sessions will be smooth and very productive. We will offer this program to grades two-five and speak to teachers before regarding sign up. Students will be able to explore the apps, prepare a small task and then share it with the whole class. The sessions will be fifty minutes long as that is how long a period is in our school. We hope that students will learn from each other and that everyone will be able to use these apps in the new future. I hope it will be a meaningful experience for my class to teach younger students skills that they already have. I cannot wait for our first trial after the break. I encourage everyone to try this  “Tech Buddies” program and share your experiences as well.