What Did I Learn Today?
Katrina Watson (@busybeakers) kindergarten teacher, science lover, momma extraordinaire, artist, cyclist, eater of good foods and thinker of happy thoughts.
What Did I Learn Today? 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.
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What I learned today…. As we wind down the school year my students and I have been talking a lot about the past and what we have learned during grade one. Their answers are varied and day to day they come up with something new. There are a few who hold steadfast to the most important thing they’ve learned in grade one. One student is committed to his dream of becoming a builder and keeps telling me “math is the most important thing I’ve learned. I need to know how to measure.” A second student, quiet yet very reflective shared with me that she really learned that she needed to focus on her work. “That way you always know what is going on.” The most common comment is what they appreciate or are thankful for in grade one. One thing that has really struck me is observing the impact of acknowledging and showing our appreciation for the help and support we get from others whether from home or at school. Since the beginning of the year students have been “filling each others buckets” and recently shared with the class how much they appreciate them or what they are thankful for in their day. It touches me to witness them sharing what matters most: positive relationships showing connection, appreciation and respect. Their demonstration of citizenship in their various ways warms my heart and fills my bucket every day. Tamara (@TDKoach) is an elementary teacher and lifelong learner passionate about creativity and inquiry. Also a nature lover and coach inspired to help others. What did I learn today? Recent inscription on a Starbucks card from my student teacher: Sometimes when you are running a production studio, walking across Canada and planning an art gala, you just need a little pick me up! When I look at the words from my student teacher it makes me smile. To someone outside of education it might be hard to imagine she was talking about a grade two classroom. This year I have the pleasure of working with a group of wonderfully creative and talented students who are passionate about learning. This year has reaffirmed for me that if you truly honour the passions and interests of students, the only limitation they cannot overcome is the lack of time available in 10 short months. Within our school are very fortunate to have access to a variety of educational technology and two favourites in our classroom this year have been green screen technology and Google Apps for Education. Green screen technology allowed students to share their learning in such an exciting way by making a ‘TV show’ about Canadian animals at risk. They collaborated to create scripts that included news reports, dancing, and even a rock video. Google Apps offers opportunities to extend learning beyond the boundaries of the school day and physical building. I introduced Google Apps in January and within a short time they were creating projects at home, collaborating with friends online, and bringing this learning back into the classroom. I am in awe of what they are able to accomplish and the development of their competencies up to this point. What amazes me even more is to imagine them graduating 10 years from now. What will they be capable after 10 more years in similar learning environments? The learning shared on CBE182 gives me such great hope that my amazing little grade two students will continue to be engaged and empowered throughout their formative years. I leave them with this quote: Promise me you will always remember: You’re BRAVER than you believe, and STRONGER than you seem, and SMARTER than you think. ~Christopher Robin to Winnie the Pooh Julie (@juliequennell) is passionate about student voice, inquiry and educational technology. M.Ed. grad from #ulethedtech with the best cohort ever. I have learned that students have the ability to know and understand what kind of learners they are, as well as what they need in order to be successful learners. They can advocate for their learning and be part of the planning process that individualizes and specializes learning in the classroom for them as individuals. As a teacher, it’s important to take a step back and facilitate students in getting to know themselves as learners. I have tried this approach in my teaching this year and it has shown me that giving my students the opportunity to have a voice and an opinion in their learning has improved the overall learning process in our classroom. Including my students as part of the team that designs their learning helps to make the process of achieving individualized learning, as seamless as possible. Once I have delivered a lesson, each student knows what they require to accommodate their learning. They naturally use the tools or the spaces that work best for them and this helps them to stay focused and on task. As their accommodations need alterations/additions, they sometimes come to me and make suggestions that would work better for them. With the proper support, I believe this approach can work at any age level/grade. Observing my students and seeing their ability to adapt and create a successful learning experience for themselves has taught me that sometimes there is more to be learned from our students, regardless of their age or level, than we ever could have imagined. Salimah Kassam is in her second year of teaching (elementary). This year she teaches grade 2. She is a Starbucks, BBQ & sunshine enthusiast. Willow Park School is a school that encourages students to learn through the arts. In our Career Technology Foundation (CTF) class, grade nines had the 7th Annual Math and Science Speculative Arts Festival. When the project started, we got to hear from several speakers about their careers and how it includes art to inspire us as we were looking at topics. The project asks us students to choose any science or math concept and represent it in an art style. I chose the concepts of crystal systems which uses polyhedrons to show the shape of the crystal molecules. Polyhedrons are geometric 3D shapes and I created the shapes with pipe cleaners then used the borax crystal experiment which makes crystals form on the pipe cleaners. Alongside it, I did a painting which I overlapped the nets of the shapes in order to hide them in the painting. There were also many other projects, ones which personified planets or hazard symbols. People created drama performances or dances as well. It's a good way to let students choose a science or math topic that they are interested in and expand their knowledge. Some students explored supernatural topics like ghosts and six senses. In the end, it lets students go with their strengths and interests to create cool projects. All grades came by to look at our projects and got to learn something new. Sarah H attends Willow Park Middle School in Grade Nine. She thinks fezzes are cool and enjoys watching anime in free time. 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. I had an amazing math lesson planned. Engaging, linked to Friday’s work, kicking off a great classroom discussion. And five minutes into class, I threw my plan out. Why? Because of a lesson that I already knew, but was retaught today – my student’s know what they need and will show me, through their actions if not their words, as long as I just pay attention. Class started with a few division questions –to get them thinking while I got other activities set up. I had intended for this to last for about five minutes, but my students had other ideas. Realizing that working independently wasn’t working, some went to classmates for help. Others discovered their inner teacher and started running mini-lessons for friends. I turned around to remind them all that they should be working quietly but stopped in my tracks when I overheard one student say, “Not quite. Come to the easel and we can go step by step.” I paused, trying to focus in on other conversations and heard, “I know you have that one wrong because the remainder can’t be bigger than the divisor. Can you tell me why that’s true?” Fantastic lesson or not, they weren’t ready to move on. They needed more time to explore… talk… work things through. Instead of my lesson, I spent the next 40 minutes walking around my room, listening for my student’s voices telling me, in oh so many ways, just what it was that they needed to learn. Allison Smeltzer teaches grade four at Brentwood TLC I work with all the students in our school, mostly by coming in to support special projects. The grade 5 students are currently embroiled in an inquiry project, “Why do we dream?”
Their teacher asked me to come in today to help the students gain some focus to share their work. We talked a little bit about what they’ve learned already, one sandy haired boy put up his hand and said “Uh.. I read that different smells can cause different dreams”. “What?” He started to perk up a little bit, “Yeah! Like if you smell rotten eggs before you go to sleep you might have a nightmare” This caused an uproar in the class, with all the students imagining what dreams different types of smells would produce. “All right, all right, we don’t even know if this is true!” I shouted over the cacophony. “Why don’t we all do it?” the sandy haired boy said. Everyone stopped talking at once, and their eyes all latched onto mine expectantly. I looked around the room and smiled. “Okay, why don’t you all find the most horrible or most wonderful smell you can find and take a big whiff before you go to sleep. Then write down your dreams as soon as you wake up. Bring them in and we’ll compare dreams tomorrow.” The excitement in the room was palpable. It was one of those moments that makes what we do really mean something. Jeff Thompson is the Learning Commons and CTF Learning leader at Samuel W. Shaw middle school. He is an avid internet addict and dabbler in gadgetry. Today I learned that one of our students is struggling a lot more than any of us realized before. We all know the student who is bubbly and happy to help and lend a hand to anyone who asks. Recently her classroom teacher has noticed some slightly different social behaviour and he and I met to discuss his concerns. I decided to make some phone calls and check into things a little. It turns out that this little girl is actually living under some pretty difficult circumstances at the moment. Because she comes to school every day with a smile on her face we had no idea things had gotten this serious for her. Of course this helped us to change our plan and provide more appropriate supports for her to provide the very best experience for her during the school day. Incidents like these are why I became a teacher. I wanted to be that soft place where young people could fall when they needed to. I want to make sure that all young people feel important and cared for in all that they do. That's not to say that situations like this are not heartbreaking, they are. We often can't "fix" the root issue for these young people, we can try but it's often so much bigger than one person. Teaching is so much more than the curriculum and in many ways this is our real work; making sure that students are cared for on many levels. Rachel (@TechmoRachel) is a middle school resource teacher who loves computers, math, quilting, cycling and her dogs. |
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