This was the first full day of kindergarten for my students. Students walked through my doors in the morning wearing their emotions upon their faces. Some looked worried or anxious but for the most part my new students entered school looking hopeful. Their eyes wide, they exclaimed joyfully and without reservation at every new discovery in their classroom. They wanted to touch things, to physically get their hands on everything around them. I had so much information I had planned to share with them; expectations, rules, guidelines, all stuff these students will eventually need to know but instead we spent the bulk of our day following their joy.  They will have many elementary years learning to sit criss-cross applesauce so today we jumped up when we were excited. They will soon learn to listen and give their friends a chance to speak but today we talked over each other in our excitement. Later on the importance of cleaning up after ourselves will be stressed but today we dug our hands into some homemade playdough with glee, we mixed colours with abandon and we didn’t even wash the food dye off our finger tips. Yes, their ABCs and 123s are important, but so to, is their joy. My students walked in with hope and they left with joy. Today I learned that joy will be my professional goal in kindergarten, both for myself and for every student in my care.

Katrina Watson (@busybeakers) kindergarten teacher, science lover, momma extraordinaire, artist, cyclist, eater of good foods and thinker of happy thoughts.

If you build it, they will come, or more accurately in the case at Tom Baines School, if they build it, they will come. This year, some Grade 8 students have been exploring the world of programming, 3D design, and robotics through one of their complementary courses.

The year began with much excitement and hesitancy from the students, and me, as we investigated these domains. New equipment such as Mindstorms EV3s and a Robo3D printer forced us to constantly reflect, learn, and relearn as we worked together to plan, design, and create.

When the course started, I had no intention of running it as a flipped classroom, and although it never truly evolved into this, to my delight the students took their learning home and expanded upon it. They developed new skills and knowledge with help of online content, experts, and sometimes, parental support. More importantly though they shared this learning with their peers and me. I ended up becoming a student in my own class as my students taught me much more than I could them.

This, in turn, spread to other classes as the students took their learning there and applied their new skills to new situations showcasing their learning in those areas too. Encouraged by this, students not in my class were coming to me to use the equipment too.

However, the coolest part for me was when I had students I did not teach coming up to me asking me what I was planning for next year and how excited they were to take the class. More amazing learning will take place next year as I will be moving classrooms and setting up the Tom Baines Maker Space in the former Industrial Arts room.

Jeremy Lang (mrlang.ca and @JPLL8) is a new father, tinkerer, techno-geek wannabe, future Maker, and a self proclaimed introverted extrovert.

The trouble with citing finished examples of classroom work is that something inevitably gets lost in translation. It is near impossible to capture in words the richness of a conversation or the magic of a smile.

But I’ll try…

This year, after many years in grades 1 to 3, I decided to teach Kindergarten. I made a promise to myself that literacy for our youngest learners would be as much about discovery as Science is and as much about problem solving as Math.  It would be as much about creating as Art is and as much about community as Social Studies. It would not be systematically delivered; letters first, then sounds, then words, then sentences. No.

Where is the wonder in that?

Today you would have seen a child (who has yet to know all her letters) write a prescription in the hospital center before moving on to work with a peer to craft a thank you letter for a class visitor. You would have seen a group working on a sign for our fire station. You would have seen tracings of flowers, labeled sketches of tomato plants, and pencil rubbings of nasturtium leaves “Look Mrs. George, I drew a nasturtium. Mrs. George, how do you spell “shum?”

Today in Kindergarten, you would have seen invitations to write in every corner of our space, a topography of sorts Gk. Topographia, from topos “place” and graphein “to write.” Because when students have something real, worldly and relevant to write about, the “shum” in “nasturtium” matters.

Jennifer George (@firgeorge) is a Learning Leader at Evergreen School. She is passionate about literacy and learning spaces that inspire.

What Did I Learn Today?

Nineteen curious five year olds entered the room, greeting each other and chatting. During carpet time, we gathered together to decide how the day would unfold. Before going to their centres, I let students know that I would stop their play at some point to have them draw their thinking.

It was a busy hour of play, with students engaging in a huge variety of activities. Some worked on creating a movie with light and shadows in our shadow room.  One student settled into a beanbag to quietly research snakes. A small group built animal homes with blocks, some drew and others figured out how to remove the flesh from the coconut. Moving from teacher to guide, I assisted with materials, listened to conversations and worked on targeted strategies with some students.

Our teaching goal this year was to embed joyful writing and math throughout the classroom.  We often discuss how to show our thinking through drawings, messages and plans at different centres and ask questions about where we see math in our play. I stopped the class well into playtime to drop everything and write. I was surprised to see the students clamoring for their journals! While they sketched snakes with patterns, structures, art projects and more, the engagement was palpable.  

Later, my partners and I met for a post-dismissal chat. We have developed a protocol: we talk about what happened in our classrooms, share student, discuss the plan for the following day and then we go big with blue sky ideas.  Today, we discussed the journal entries that my class did, spent a few moments talking about our sustainability inquiry that we are developing, then our discussion turned to the importance of collaborative space.

Reflecting at the end of the day, I realized that my students are learning how to think, collaborate and ask questions and I am learning just how much student voice, collaboration and intrinsic motivation can drive my practice.

 

Stephanie Bartlett (@sj_bartlett) teaches Kindergarten FI at Chinook Park. Passionate about infusing creativity & teaching. Life long learner.

This story begins with a challenge: “Design a recreation centre for the youth of Tuscany.” This challenge came from a conversation with a visiting parent and set out to address a perceived need for this age group as there are currently few recreational opportunities for youth from 12-18 years of age in the community.

That’s it - that was the whole challenge. A simple sentence that led to weeks of survey construction, data collection and analysis, and careful architectural design.  A few teams felt unsure about how to proceed until one courageous and innovative group, with two students that did not view math as a personal strength, asked a simple question: “Can we use MinecraftEdu?”  

Suddenly, for some teams, everything changed. Using this tool they were able to create highly detailed plans for large and complex recreation centres. Instead of struggling with traditional procedures for creating scales and finding area/perimeter of large and unusually shaped areas, these teams could now show their ability to work through these challenges using a non-traditional method, one that is no less authentic or accurate in demonstrating their true understanding. Student leadership developed as these teams engaged in conversations around math concepts with ease and confidence, speaking clearly about the rigorous planning and careful calculations they were conducting in order to create their highly detailed designs, some of  which included functioning showers and food dispensers (and even a secret passage or two…)

So, what did WE learn? We learned that rigor takes many forms and that an understanding of math can be shown in many different ways.  We also learned that, sometimes, it takes a bit of ‘out of the box’ thinking (and your favourite video game) to create renewed passion and confidence.

We used to think it was teacher-led, theme based, and needed a paper product to prove you had learned something.

Now we understand learning is unique, just like we are! On a daily basis our students forge new relationships while learning to think as architects, scientists, leaders, mathematicians, readers, writers and most importantly community members, all through play.

Today, if you looked closely at our amazing 5 and 6 year olds, you would see:

• JS sitting in the middle of her peers explaining why she is shaving her head at our upcoming Shave Your Lid for a Kid event.
• A group of students moving from fear to wonder as they examine and research different insects using our Zoomy magnifying camera.
• GS pouring over his blueprints to ensure his diagram and labels detailing his invention, are ready to share with a global audience on our Wonder Blog.
• Pairs of students sitting together, giving feedback about how they can improve their work.
• A group of 5 students negotiating loudly at the block centre about what and how to build eventually coming to a consensus to use parts of everyone’s ideas and talents to create playscapes.
• 68 kindergarten students discovering ice melting, puddles forming, shadows lengthening while they ‘play’ outside.

What do our students teach us? Be brave. Try new things.  Let go of fear.  Dream big!

Learning needs to be messy, noisy, challenging, and most importantly, always WORTHWHILE!

@HeatherMMckay @JaimeHatchette are 2 kindergarten teachers on a curious journey where each day is filled with learning, playing, and creating. Join our journey: @wander4wonder1 and http://kidblog.org/ASK13/