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Students love role-playing and dramatic play, but many find the pressure of a performance overwhelming. Add some drama to your classroom by using drama circles, role-playing and storytelling in a low risk environment. Continue Reading
Sometimes students don’t understand how time is of the essence when doing research. They lack the skills to use text features, skim materials and find items quickly.
We’ve been working on this with our students and it’s a struggle year after year.
However, we have managed to find some activities that help students refine their research skills: scavenger hunts. It turns out that making research fun and game-like can have a positive impact on how students complete research. Continue Reading
We use interactive notebooks in our math class. We have found creating a reference book of concepts and procedures that students can refer to when working in math helps them build confidence and develop independence.
We’re not going to lie. They are a lot of work, but the working is meaningful. We found on average our math grades improved and students were able to retain more of their learning year over year.
Our notebooks are created using two pages for each concept. Continue Reading
When a colleague told me we should try interactive notebooks in math, we agreed and then went on our merry ways and did math the same old way for another year, so at the end of that school year, she approached us again and DEMANDED we buy this Interactive Math Journal by Jen Runde. We took a look, bought it and then went on summer vacation. Near the end of the summer I opened it up and it CHANGED MY WORLD. I will never teach math the same way again. That being said, there are a few things I learned and will change for the upcoming year to get the most of math journals.
Interactive math notebooks are an investment, but like all good investments they take time to show a good return. Patience is the key! They take time, but they result in deeper understanding, so here are some things you need to consider before starting your interactive math notebook journey.
Preparing for Remembrance Day commemorations are a great opportunity to talk not only about the sacrifices of the past but also to talk about our contributions to peace. Books are always a great way to introduce solemn topics while uplifting our students.
Although there are many books out there here is a list of our favourites. Continue Reading
Let’s be honest. Halloween is not one of the best days for teachers-even worse the day after. So unless the day lands on a weekend, chances are you’re going to be somehow involved. So, other than sitting and eating junk food while dressed in costumes, what other activities can a teacher do with their class while still celebrating Halloween? Continue Reading
What do you do when you want to challenge students, but you also want them to learn? We give them critical thinking challenges. Critical thing requires many skills-problem solving, collaboration, design thinking, and perseverance. When a critical thinking question is carefully crafted, you can get students to explore learning outcomes while having fun and being engaged in their learning at the same time. Continue Reading
Do your students suck at research? Do they just copy and paste? Can they find information on their own or do they all just end up at Wikipedia and cite Google Search as a source? Can they use text features or find an actual book? Continue Reading
Our curriculum is such that health is taught as part of our physical education lessons. We’re required to have thirty minutes of movement activity. This means health rarely happens for most teachers because it’s shoved aside for more meaningful lessons like reading, writing and math.
Really?
There are so many valuable lessons in health class that can actually help with reading, writing and math, so we wrote up an entire year (and then some) of lessons to try to integrate health into other lessons. You have to teach it anyway, so why not get more out of it? Continue Reading
We realized the importance of teaching critical thinking and fact checking one day on Facebook. One ninja-mother-in-law posted an article about an actor that had died-but the actor had died FIVE years earlier. Yet, there she was just a reposting like crazy. A dog with a piece of ham on its face was her next post and that when we started writing our digital citizenship product. Continue Reading