Spring has sprung in Calgary. I am really looking forward to this last week of school before spring break. Although we only have 3 days with the kids this week, followed by two PD days, I have so many things I want to do with my students. In particular I want to take their learning outside as much as I can. Most of the snow has melted & I'm hoping that the grass is dry. I talked about taking my students on a sound walk a few weeks ago, this week I'm going to do another one but through the neighbourhood instead of just on the school grounds. It'll be interesting to see what similarities and differences the students notice in comparison to the other walk.
This past winter was a lot colder and I didn't take my students outside for learning as I would've liked to. My goal for after spring break is to set aside time to take our learning outside on a weekly basis, no matter what! I'm hoping that the activities we do this week will propel my goal of integrating the outdoors into our learning for the rest of the year. I'm also being a bit selfish since, the outdoors are really important to me but in turn I know how beneficial it is to learning and want to give my students a variety of learning experiences. Join me on this 31 day journey for the month of March with twowritingteachers.org and their 10th Annual Slice of Life Story Challenge. #sol17
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This one is short but sweet. Nothing like a day out & about with family. It is spring like in town & rain in the mountains. Hiking at a Provincial Park close to town full of families & dogs, traipsing in the water with rubber boots, slipping away on the icy/slushy snow. Now a nap before dinner out. Life is great.
I have been exhausted this week, I'd like to blame it on the time change but I have a feeling that it's more self-induced. I am a busy person who tends to schedule a lot into my life by choice. This week was no exception. However, on Wednesday, I recognized that I needed to relax and did so by watching the season finale This is Us, had a bath, read a bit and absolutely no work! We have a short school week next week, kids are only here Monday-Wednesday & as a staff we have PD on both Thursday and Friday. After that we are on Spring Break for a week. Spring Break is a weird time of year to go away in Canada, it's not quite spring & sometimes not quite winter.
Unfortunately this year, I haven't planned a vacation away. Thankfully, the weather in Calgary is absolutely gorgeous. We may go to the mountains for a few days & do some cross country skiing and snowshoeing if there is still snow out there. Maybe a staycation can be just as relaxing as going away. I hope to get together with some old colleagues of mine for much needed catch up, lunch with friends, hang out with family and hopefully relax. Join me on this 31 day journey for the month of March with twowritingteachers.org and their 10th Annual Slice of Life Story Challenge. #sol17 I often go to PD sessions where I learn new strategies to use in the classroom or am even reminded of things I used to do but for one reason or another haven't in awhile. However, often I write them down in my notebook and forget to implement them in my class.
Thanks to an ELL session I was at last night I had inspiration to do a placemat activity in Math. My grade 3 & 4 class have been doing multiplication for the last month or so. There is quite an array of learners & number sense in the classroom. Today I asked the students to write down all they know about multiplication using words, symbols, pictures and numbers in the placemat format. My students were absolutely silent working away in their own sections on the piece of paper. Some students even asked if they could look at their books to show examples of strategies that work for them. Others used the anchor charts in the classroom as inspiration. Afterwards we did a gallery walk and had a discussion on what they noticed about each other's work. One of the comments was that a lot of people used doubling. Someone else suggested that maybe doubling is a strategy that is easy for them. I hope that this activity gave voice to how my students think about multiplication as well as give them ideas of new ways to look at multiplication. Join me on this 31 day journey for the month of March with twowritingteachers.org and their 10th Annual Slice of Life Story Challenge. #sol17 Writing...one thing I've noticed about myself as a writer (not that I didn't know this before), is how much of a procrastinator I am. All through my academic life I've been one to get my best writing done at the last minute. Yet as an educator I want my students to plan, to write rough drafts, to revise, to edit, to rewrite and publish. Yes, I give them time to engage in writing on a regular basis on any topic of their choosing. But when it comes to the whole writing process, especially with the introduction of doing their final drafts on computers, the stamina in my classes writing tends to wane. One thing I've noticed on a writing project that we are finally wrapping up, is how many students did not even use their rough drafts to type up their final copies. Today I was typing for one of my students and she told me her story from her mind. It was fantastic! Interesting word choice, comical, suspenseful & just plain entertaining. Time was a constraint for this student. They had great ideas but tended to lose focus when transferring their ideas in written form. As for the use of technology, a lot of my students still need a lot of work on their typing skills. Which in turn hinders them from being efficient when working on the final stages of a writing project, hence the drop in stamina. This really made me recognize that I have to keep giving my students various entry points into their writing lives. I need to keep allowing them the freedom to write what they want to. As well as give them ample opportunities to write across the disciplines, introduce new forms of writing, peer writing, and word processing skills. Next year, I will be blogging with my students at the start of the school year and more importantly we will blog together as a part of the Slice of Life community. Join me on this 31 day journey for the month of March with twowritingteachers.org and their 10th Annual Slice of Life Story Challenge. #sol17 Living a Healthy lifestyle:
This whole work life balance can be daunting at times. At my old school we had bootcamp twice a week where a trainer came to the school with equipment and worked our butts off. I really miss having fellow colleagues as motivation, as well as the convenience of it. This year I’ve tried a few things to add to my workout repertoire but nothing seems to stick (row class, another bootcamp). When the snow finally melts, I’m going to attempt to ride my bike to school at least once a week this should be a bit of a challenge since it’s up hill both ways, haha. Next year I’m also going to try & start up a bootcamp at my school. Since I don’t seem to have much of a workout regime I’m making sure that I continue to eat healthy. Some of my go-to recipes are Tex Mex Spaghetti Squash, spiralized zucchini with loads of veggies, pesto & shrimp. I also bring a bag of snacks such as apples, dried fruit, olives, & cheese. What are your go-to healthy habits? Join me on this 31 day journey for the month of March with twowritingteachers.org and their 10th Annual Slice of Life Story Challenge. #sol17 Time slips away without you even realizing. Tonight I had a date night with my 11 year old niece. It seems just like yesterday when I took her & my nephew to a hip hop production at the local children's theatre. She was little enough to sit on my lap to get a better view. My dad has been known to be that guy who kind of heckles performers and embarrasses my mom & me. That afternoon, at the hip hop show, the performers were talking with the audience during their performance, not necessarily wanting a response. And there was my young niece, responding right back to them. I remember people in the audience turning around to look at us & my nephew remarking that she is just like Dido (grandpa in Ukrainian).
Fast forward 5ish years later, I am trying to be a good aunt and take her on dates. Tonight we went to the Old Spaghetti Factory for dinner (a first for me). It was so incredible to have dinner, just with her, usually my mom joins us on our dates. We had incredible conversations about art, social media, being 11, teachers, and skiing. She took numerous photos of art & architectural elements such as mirrors, stained glass, and the bathroom that she thought was really cool. Afterwards we went to National Geographic Live lecture on parasites, the lifecycle of the honeybee & hummingbirds. Remarkable! Seeing the world through an 11 year olds eyes allowed me to step back and just be happy. A lot of the things that she is going through I do not understand, nor do I pretend to but spending quality time with her will stay with me for years to come. #collectingmomentsnotthings is a mantra that I stole from a dear friend of mine & I aspire to do so in all aspects of my life. I look forward to strengthening my relationship with my niece with more consistent dates & experiences. The best part of the evening was her gratitude, she thanked me numerous times throughout the evening which touched my heart. It always amazes me how beautiful and moving theatre can be. Tonight I went to Theatre Calgary's production of Khaled Hosseini's, A Thousand Splendid Suns. The production was simple, elegant and moving. One of the things that struck me was that they had a musician in a booth that was lighted up to the side of the stage. This is unusual for Theatre Calgary's productions. It was interesting to see the unique instruments he was playing to set the sombre mood of the play. A Calgarian actor named Haysam Kadri, played the part of Rasheed Talib, he is one of my favourite Calgarian actors and whenever I see him on the playbill I know I will not be disappointed. This was a powerful, solemn play which moved me and made me recognize how resilient human beings are. I am lucky to have season tickets to Theatre Calgary but often think about how to incorporate more theatre, music, arts into my school and classroom. One of the things that I am working toward is building partnerships with the local University that is walking distance from our school. I'm hoping to foster relationships to introduce students to various disciplines such as the arts, science, math, etc. I think that it will be interesting to demonstrate all of the different avenues one can take as a career/interest. I know that this will take some time to achieve but I think one of the first steps will be to explore the campus and see what questions and things interest my students. From there we will compile our ideas and write emails to particular departments asking them questions and starting conversations. I know that I've said it before in my blog posts but The Arts stirs a curiosity in me making me feel alive and wanting more from life. Join me on this 31 day journey for the month of March with twowritingteachers.org and their 10th Annual Slice of Life Story Challenge. #sol17 Today was a busy day where I didn't put aside time to blog. I'm a bit disappointed in myself. Yet I find it interesting that during the school week I have more time. I'm excited to see where I go with the rest of my posts. At first I didn't think that I'd have enough ideas to talk about & even have a list of things to write about. However, I find inspiration in so many things. Well that is all for tonight.
PD
Last night I was at an event called the Walrus Talks, designed to create conversations. It follows a format where a group of speakers who have seven minutes to discuss an aspect of a certain topic. This particular events topic was Next Generation and focused on the questions: What kind of leadership do we need to succeed in the next 50 years? How can we be competitive? How can we prepare our next generation? There were speakers from various fields such as an entrepreneur, UNICEF Ambassador, youth program developer, professor from the university, artistic director of a local theatre group, as well as a 13 year old founder of Robots Are Fun. The whole evening, I was thinking that my staff should be here, that they would get a lot of of the speakers & their ideas. I had such a great time at this event, that I started to think about PD as a general idea, more specifically PD as a staff meeting. A lot in school PD, is within the school walls, usually in the library and sessions tend to be led by administration, teachers or learning leaders within the school. At times there are guest speakers. Some Principles try to put a modern twist on the idea of PD. For instance, my last school had talks similar to TED talks but from people who were recommended by the staff (parents, former staff, and professionals in various fields). Most of these talks may not have completely had anything to do with our teaching path but all had the commonality of inspiration, lessons to learn, and ideas that as humanity are of interest. Some things that I'm wondering are:
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AuthorI am a grade 3/4 teacher in Calgary, AB, Canada. This is a space for my reflections as an educator. ArchivesCategories |