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Alison.Board Assessment, Celebrating Success, Classroom Management, Communication with Parents and Guardians, Planning, Report Cards, Use of Technology, Year End Activities

Celebrating Our Year

We often think that the last two months of school will be all about reflection and reviewing, yet with so many other demands outside of the classroom – our last weeks can feel rushed and frantic. Teachers are often asked to think about planning for the following year, before they can fully complete the one they are in.

To stay present and celebrate with your current classroom community, here are a few suggestions:

1. Consolidate learning – Spend two or three weeks in June reflecting on the students’ learning and giving them time and opportunity to make connections between topics or skills. As a class, you can can discuss the highlights of the year and chart them, or have students work in small group on their shared topics of interest. This may evolve to look like a yearbook that they make with words and images or a story they create in comic form on the computer.

2. Celebrate learning – Provide students with an opportunity to invite other classes, learning buddies, or parents/friends to the classroom before their projects are sent home. Students can make invitations, create portfolios of work, or set up the room for an open house. The celebration may look like a gallery walk, a dramatice presentation, a sharing of portfolios, or a relaxed poetry cafe.

3. Outdoor Classes – In the last week of school when you are sending home work and generally cleaning up your classroom, take students outside for activities that you would normally do inside. This could  look like a read-a-loud, visual art activities (such as sketching), visits to local parks or public libraries.

We are completing our assessments and writing reports now, but with a little planning for the next few weeks with reflective exercises and opportunities to make connections, the students will be more engaged and value their last weeks at school as meaningful and rewarding.

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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!

 

 

 

A sign that say No Bully Zone
Carmen.Oliveira Building Inclusion, Learning About Your Students, Professional Learning and Growth, Resources, Wellness

No Bully Zone

Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life, but define yourself. -Harvey S. Firestone

This past week I watched a screening of the upcoming movie/documentary “Bully” directed by Lee Hirsch.  It was a highly emotional experience for every educator in attendance and the conclusion many of us reached was the same: we think we know what’s going on with our students but in reality, that’s not always the case.  In fact, getting to know our students is an ongoing process and I believe that we, as educators, must be responsible for creating the safest environment possible and hold ourselves accountable if we fall short of that expectation.

One of the most powerful and emotional scenes was listening to a mother who lost her son after he committed suicide following years of being bullied. She expressed exactly what I, as a mother, also feel when I leave my son at school.  Our children are our precious babies, our treasures, the most important people in our life.  We entrust them to educators who we believe will teach them, guide them, and protect them from harm.  The responsibility we take on is immense but it’s our job to take it as seriously as a parent would.

I shared my thoughts and feelings with my students and they felt that we should take it a step further by creating a school initiative after looking deeper into the issue of bullying.  I will be sharing our unit and progress in a later blog.

I highly recommend that all educators, parents, and students over the age of 11 watch the movie/documentary.  It captures the raw and cruel reality millions of children face each day at school and opens the floodgates to conversations and issues we need to address in our classrooms and schools.

Here are some helpful links:

A good book to read:

Bullying: the bullies, the victims, the bystanders

 

Photo of Roz Geridis
Roz.Geridis Communication with Parents and Guardians, Diverse Learning Needs, Resources, Use of Technology

Addressing Student Needs

After returning to the classroom, I have been introduced to a wonderful computer program which supports student learning. Read and Write Gold is a computer program which is used to help student read and write. Anything on the computer can be used with this program (Internet sites, email, scanned reading selections, electronic books/resources).   If you teach for the Toronto District School Board all students have access to the program through every school and the program can be downloaded on a home computer for free. Other boards may offer the same support, please check with your administration.

Read and Write Gold is a text to speech, easy to use toolbar which sits on top of any open Windows application (it also works with MAC computers). Not only is it great to help organize information for students with learning disabilities, students without learning disabilities like the structure of the program.  To give you a quick overview of the program:  the students highlight a selection to have read to them. The speed, passage, volume and voice of the reading selection is determined by the user. The students can also highlight important information using 4 different colours. The program will sort the colour coded highlights and merge (into fact folder) all highlighted information onto a word document. The program even sites the sources for the students.

You can check out the program at: http://www.pdfaloud.com/media/12742/Read%20Write%2010%20Gold%20Beginners%20Guide.pdf

I have used the program with my students for their research projects. In order to support the students with learning how to use the program, our school held an evening learning session for parents to learn how to use Read and Write Gold. At first, it wasn’t about the research, the assignment was about learning how to use the program. The students have a better understanding of gathering research and compiling it for a paper or presentation.

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Carmen.Oliveira Assessment, Communication with Parents and Guardians, Interviews, Report Cards

Constructive and Productive Parent-Teacher Conferences

Just having read Alison’s post “Reflecting On Reporting” I have to admit that all too often we tend to become focused on assessing our students with tools and strategies that can feel overwhelming in our need to “get it right” with respect to our evaluation of the students’ progress.  The fact that “a picture says a thousand words” is good reason to use pictures and video as a very valid and authentic form of assessment.  What a meaningful way to share student learning with parents…

Speaking of parents, I’m beginning to prepare for the Parent-Teacher conferences next week.  I have found that the preparation beforehand goes a long way to create an opportunity for  a constructive and productive meeting during which time we can cover the student’s strengths, needs, next steps, and celebrate accomplishments.  I do this by:

1. Sending home a pre-conference letter getting the parent(s)/guardians to share their thoughts, questions, concerns, etc. about the report card and listing possible topics/questions they hope to cover during our conference.  This gives me time to gather the appropriate samples, resources, and recommendations specifically tailored to the needs of the family.

2. Using data from their report card, their Daily Journal, and conversations with me, students choose 3 goals for the following term and specify the steps they will take to achieve them along with how they will celebrate their success.  Students share their goal setting plans with parents during the conference.

3. During the conference, I keep notes based on our conversation (on my computer) and by the end of the night or the following day, I send the notes in an email to the parents (in our class we communicate through email which I’ve found very helpful and parents appreciate the opportunity to get in touch with me without always having to come in or call).

It may seem like a lot of work but I’ve found that our conferences are constructive, productive, and best of all, we cover a lot of ground in a short amount of time.  It makes it more effective to work toward our goals when we (students, parents, and teachers) are on the same page.

Below I’ve attached the goal setting template my students use in preparation for conferences.

goal setting

 

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Roz.Geridis Assessment, Building Inclusion, Classroom Management, Communication Tools, Communication with Parents and Guardians, Diverse Learning Needs, Planning, Professional Learning and Growth

Engaging students in Visual Arts

Over the last 2 weeks, my class have been working on this wonderful visual art activity which is also connected to grade 6 aboriginal studies. We began by studying the art work of Norval Morrisseau, an Aboriginal Canadian artist (books are available at the public library). Morrisseau’s style is characterized by thick black outlines and bright colors. I shared with the boys the plan for this project was for everyone to complete their own version, then we would do body images of 1/3 of the class which will end up being painted on the Junior Stairway walls.

The boys were very excited about this project and I really tried to encourage their interest and ownership of the art work. As a class, we moved along for the boys to use an overhead and trace their head, hands, or feet to complete their own versions of Morrisseau themed pictures. The boys then had a lesson on drawing the shapes inside their images (guiding them to leave enough room for their black line). Primary colours were used to colour the inside of the shapes and the background was in secondary colours. Using only 2 overheads for the whole class, this stage of project took a little longer than a whole afternoon.

At the end of the first day, we had a discussion as to what the images of the boys would portray. The next day, the boys were asked to bring in items which reflect them in a sport type of way; for example, scooters, hockey equipment, soccer balls, swimming goggles. The boys selected the images to represent themselves as a class. They selected swimming, cart wheel, hockey, soccer, mountain climbing, and baseball. We were planning on adding someone reading and a second image but time was an issue which didn’t allow our plan to fully work out. Using the overhead, in groups of three, the boys then traced their image on life size paper. As others were tracing, the first group would then cut out their image. After lunch, we were able to finish off full body tracing for the rest of the groups and began (the groups completed the cutting)  adding the shapes within their image. This aspect of the project needed to be reviewed with the class a few times. The first lesson was on the personal image, the second mini lesson was to remind them of what to do to begin on the larger image, the third mini lesson was to go through their larger image and fine tune their shapes. This took us a full day.

The next day, we taped up all body images on the stairwell walls. Looking to see which image should go where. This was an adult only decision. Once image placement was decided, the boys then traced their image on the wall. After every image was traced on the wall, some boys began painting the background colours while on the opposite side of the wall other boys were tracing their shapes in their image. This process took another full day. Each wall needed two coats and a day to dry between coats.

The fourth and fifth day, the boys were painting the shapes in each image (in groups of three) and then the black line last. We also needed time for touch ups. At the end of it, the boys were able to add their own signature to a wall which will be there for years to come. We are also painting some thank yous on a wall as all the paint used was donated by a local paint store.

The project took a total of five days and I really would recommend to get it completed in a chunk of time. The interest was there and interruption to your regular programming is not much. It was a week of limited program which was a great time to get to know and have some fun with your students. Remember, this is a visual arts project and it is connected to aboriginal studies. I have assessments for both curriculum areas. To adjust it for any grade, if your school walls are already colourful, you can do something very similiar and use the life size paper to paint and hang on the hallway walls. Also, use visual art as your first curriculum area and find a second curriculum area to connect it to, whether it is social studies or math.

Included are some pictures to help you visualize the project. It was a project completed with a parent (who is also an artist). While she was working in the stairway with the boys, I was in class keeping them on track. The first few days, there was plenty of work to keep the boys busy but by mid day on the fourth day on, the boys had less to do on the art project. That being said, behaviour was amazing!!!! I guess the boys thought if they didn’t manage in class, I couldn’t send them in the hall. Which is a pattern in our class. I definitely had support for this project (administration, artist, and Educational Assistant in the afternoon). I also sent out a letter to the parents informing them of the pending project, the boys working with Latex paint, and dirty clothes coming home (with a tear off signature return). I also asked for volunteers to come in a week later to help paint the final protective coating. I have many teacher and parent volunteers. The boys feel a sense of pride, ownership, and community to their school!

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Carmen.Oliveira Communication Tools, Communication with Parents and Guardians, Interviews, Report Cards

The Importance of Communication in the Parent-Teacher Partnership

As we devote the next few days to completing our report cards and prepare for our parent-teacher conferences, I’d like to share an experience that really came to prove that  how often and the manner in which we communicate with our students’ families and caregivers really makes a difference to in supporting and furthering their learning experience.

I am part of the Portuguese-speaking Students Task Force created by the TDSB.  It’s mission is to look deeper into the challenges experienced by Portuguese-speaking students and their families including a very high drop-out rate in secondary school and low enrolment with respect to post-secondary education.  We have spoken to the students themselves, teachers within the Portuguese community, and most recently, the parents.  We discussed at length issues including: how Portuguese-speaking students and their families are viewed by educators; whether students and families feel supported by the TDSB (programs, resources, etc.); what challenges exist; and possible solutions and/or suggestions.

I found it absolutely fascinating that there was one aspect/challenge that each group (students, teachers, and parents) mentioned as needing immediate attention: communication between the school/teachers and parents.   The reality, concerns, and suggestions made were practically identical and so I thought it would be beneficial to share the parents’ viewpoint as we think about our parent-teacher conferences.

Parents commented that although they understand teachers are very busy, they often feel left out of their children’s education because they do not really know what’s going on in the classroom on a regular basis.  They said that their children’s education is a bit of a mystery when it comes to what they are learning, how they are being assessed, how they can further support their child, and how the education system works overall.  It came down to admitting that they feel intimidated at times to speak to the teacher or ask questions about what is happening in the classroom.

When asked about what they would like to see happen with respect to communication between educators and parents, they put it very simply: they wish educators would reach out to them on a regular basis whether it be through a newsletter, email, webpage, tweet, agenda, phone call, etc. to let them know what the children are learning, how the learning will be assessed, and how the family can support and further the learning outside the classroom.  Overwhelmingly, parents said that when teachers care enough to take the initiative by constantly keeping the doors of communication open, they feel more motivated in able to guide/support their child.

Let’s keep this in mind…myself included!

 

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Samantha.Perrin Communication with Parents and Guardians, Learning in a Real Life Context, Wellness

New Year’s Resolutions

Happy New Year!!!

The New Year is a great time to reflect on the previous year and to set goals and resolutions for the year ahead.  I spoke to my students about New Year’s resolutions and shared some of my personal goals for school and for myself at home. I felt it was important for the students to see that setting goals help to make a person ‘better’ and that it is no different than the practice and work that they put in every day into their learning.  The message was not lost on them, and they were enthusiastic to prove that you’re never too young to start goal setting. In fact, I think that my young students really understood the purpose and value of goal setting because they grow, learn and improve so quickly (for example, in learning how to read).

Together the students came up with their own definitions of resolutions and we discussed the purpose and value of articulating a goal and coming up with a plan for meeting that goal.  Then, we all took turns sharing one resolution that pertains to school and one that pertains to home life.  The students then wrote about their goals for display in the school.  This week I will be sending a copy of the students’ resolutions home with them to serve as a reminder and a discussion point for parents in helping their children achieve their goals.

Click here to see some pictures of this activity from my classroom.

It’s important to strive for improvement, whether it is for the benefit of work or school, but also as busy teachers,  for achieving health and balance, which I will be working on  myself in 2012.

 

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Alison.Board Communication Tools, Communication with Parents and Guardians, Diverse Learning Needs, Homework

Homework and Parent Communication

While reading the previous post by Samantha, I was thinking about my own students, the homework they do, and the requests or concerns from the parents regarding homework. In my Grade 1 and 2 classroom, there is a definite connection between homework and parent communication.

At the beginning of the school year, there was no assigned homework. However, unfinished work would often be sent home with the students for completion. One student in particular welcomed this opportunity, as she said her parents wanted her to have something to work on while her older sister was doing homework. Other students were rushing to complete their work so they didn’t have to take it home. This resulted in a large gap in completion time from the “rushers” and the “procrastinators.” Since it is usually the same groups of students, I have since been encouraging the rushers to go back and take a little more time, while encouraging the procrastinators to use their time efficiently and giving time for completion at the end of the day. All of this echoes Samantha’s comment about “the importance of differentiation in the classroom.” Not all students will need the same skill practice or review. Some just need more time, and others may need more support or practice.

I communicate to parents using our classroom website, emails, and the agendas – depending on the type of message I am sending. Every week when I write a journal entry on the website, I let the parents know what we are currently working on in class, for example addition and subtraction. I then provide an idea or resource for homework that the parents can use at their convenience, such as a link to an on-line math game or a game of concentration with sight words. For many of the parents it gives them concrete ideas for supporting their children in fun or interactive ways, without the pressure of completing a paper and pencil task while making dinner. I also review the children’s work during the day or when conferencing with them, and make a list of the students who may require more skill practice at home. By recording a particular task in their agenda, the parents are aware that this is specific to their child’s needs. Communication with the parents has provided a consistent extension of support from school to home. It has also helped when a student is distracted or having difficulty, and the parents are able to communicate what might be going on at home as an explanation. To be purposeful and effective, homework should be differentiated to the student or group of learners. At a Grade 1 and 2 level, good parent communication will support the learning at home.

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Samantha.Perrin Communication with Parents and Guardians, Diverse Learning Needs, Homework

Philosophy and Practice of Homework

Recent posts about assignments and parental involvement had me reflecting on  my own dilemmas about homework assignments and how my philosophy  toward student homework  has  evolved depending on the students, the grade that I am teaching and my own experience.  There are many  factors that can influence the kind of homework students could/should receive, and that can be the students’ grade-level, ability, community access, level of support at home, the management of the classroom environment and extracurricular commitments, to name a few.  It’s up to the teacher’s professional judgement to decide what is appropriate. For me as a teacher, additional influences such as experience (or inexperience) with a grade level, access to resources, ability to plan ahead and knowledge of what is actually ‘useful homework’ versus ‘make work’  influence  the type of work that is sent home with the students.  I am discovering that all of the factors contribute to the continuous shifts and swings in the planning and pacing of class work and assignments.

In my first year of teaching, homework only came in the form of research for class work and completion homework.  The intended outcome of this kind of homework was to ‘help the students keep up with the classroom program’ (Heart and Art, p.80), which often backfired.  Some of the same students who consistently did not complete their work in class also had evening commitments, parents with little spare time to supervise them and were forgetting to bring work back to school, resulting in further disruptions.   Frustrations mounting, I quickly learned the importance of differentiation in the classroom and learning a better system for staying on top of the students’ progress.

In my second year of teaching, with little time and knowledge of how to access building materials  for a unit that required the building of bridges, ‘Building a Bridge’ became the month-long home assignment.  My assessment of the assignment required a lot of thought (weighing and grading the different aspects of the assignment) and planning, as most of the bridges that arrived in my classroom were worthy of a passing grade in an architectural course. The students’ grades were heavily derived from their classroom research and ability to orally explain the mechanics behind their work.  While it was a successful assignment that enabled the students to work with and learn alongside their parents, I felt conflicted knowing that the parents/caregivers also sacrificed their evenings and weekends to support their children.

So much of what we as teachers learn is through trial and error, and most of what we learn, remember and refine is from the ‘errors’ that we make along the way.  Now, the homework that I assign falls in the categories of practice, preparation and extension, which I discovered through my trials and errors, and also from the partnerships that I have this year (i.e., learning from what other’s have discovered to be successful).  Weekly, my students are sent home with a language activity that reinforces and extends a concept learned in class, and a math activity (that is intended for family participation and problem solving). The math activity reinforces the skills of explaining thought processes (e.g., pictures, numbers and words to explain their solution), and is intended to prepare the students for the continued expectations through the grades.   Preparing these materials isn’t too taxing of my lesson planning time, the homework is encouraged but not mandated, and through this, I hope to be considerate of ‘family time and commitments’ while giving the students (and their parents) means to practice and support classroom learning at home.

I realize that the next grade I teach will require more re-working and re-programming to find a good-fit homework outcome, and I am learning that this is normal.  In planning the kind of learning that takes place outside of the classroom, I will continue to consider the many factors that influence successful ‘homework outcomes’ and utilize the tips and insights of my trusted colleagues who also continue to work and re-work their methods and planning.