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Ninja Notes

Let us help you teach like a ninja!

Art Lessons

How to Bring Indigenous Culture into Art Lessons

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One way to show appreciation for Indigenous artists is to study their work as you would any great artist. We put together some of the ways we incorporate learning about Indigenous artists and other aspects of culture in Canada in one post. Come read more.

Incorporating the stories and culture of Indigenous people is important to us. It’s woven throughout our subject areas, but we often look for other places to provide opportunities to bring cultures together. We’ve had several students who share their Cree and Dene cultures with us. Other years we’ve had no one in our classroom with a direct connection to our Indigenous People. We want all of our students to feel connected to the history of our country and the people who were here first. One way we do this is by exploring the works of Indigenous artists in Canada.

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Heart Art Projects You’ll Love

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Heart art projects are great any time of year. We collected some of our favourite art projects that use basic materials like markers, pastels and crayons and put all the instructions in one blog post. Come see which one you can make with your upper elementary class for Valentine's Day, Pink Shirt Day or just to show how kind your students can be.

We love to create art projects that use simple shapes but teach students different techniques. Heart art projects are perfect around Valentine’s Day, but they are a universal symbol that can be done any time of year. These art projects are some of the favourites that we use year after year. Best of all, they mostly use common materials you can find in most schools.

Check out these heart art projects that you can use to decorate your classroom, make gifts or share the love.

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Resources to Celebrate Diwali in the Classroom

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Are you looking for resources to use to celebrate Diwali in the classroom? We put together a list of resources to learn all about the Festival of Lights including a book list, videos and art projects to celebrate. Come have a read!

Diwali is the Festival of Lights. It is also known as Dipawali and it is the most important festival of the year for the Hindi religion. Other religions like Buddists also celebrate Diwali. While it was traditionally celebrated by Hindus, now it is more widely celebrated by people around the world including by Buddists, Jains and Sikhs. Since this celebration is important to many different people around the world, it is very possible you will have students in your classroom who celebrate. To those students, Diwali is as important to them as Christmas is to Christians. Many school districts in Canada have added Diwali to their school calendars. Read on to find resources you can use to celebrate Diwali in the classroom.

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15 Free Activities for the First Month of School

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Are you looking for free activities you can use during the first month of school? We gathered up some of our favourite writing, math, reading, art and classroom community activities just for you. Best of all, they're all free! Come check it out!

The first month of school is filled with so many new adventures. There is so much to do regarding setting up classroom routines. We don’t start teaching content until a few weeks into the school year. Up until that time, we see what new our students can do. We generally assess reading and writing and review math. This is a great way to get to know your students so you can plan your lessons for their needs. Here are nine free activities we use for the first month of school.

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9 Easy Valentine’s Day Ideas for Upper Elementary

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Valentine's Day in upper elementary isn't quite the same as the little kids or the older ones. It's this weird time in a kid's life where they are too old to care about paper cards but also want to be included in getting paper cards. They are just starting to have crushes but the maturity level is all over the place. We've spent a lot of time watching our Valentine's Day ideas flop. Come read some of our students' approved Valentine's Day ideas.

Valentine’s Day in upper elementary isn’t quite the same as the little kids or the older ones. It’s this weird time in a kid’s life when they are too old to care about paper cards but also want to be included in getting paper cards. They are just starting to have crushes but their maturity level is all over the place. We’ve spent a lot of time watching our Valentine’s Day ideas flop. But not anymore!

Over the years, we’ve watched students in our Grade 4 and Grade 5 classes to see how they respond to different activities for Valentine’s Day and we’ve settled on focusing on friendship and kindness. Some of these activities can be done any time of year because they are not specific to Valentine’s Day. These are the best Valentine’s Day ideas that were approved by our students.

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Art Projects That Will Last All Year

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If you are an elementary teacher who has to teach their own art lessons, this is the post for you. It comes with a big list of things you need in your elementary classroom along with several free art lessons that don't require special materials. Come take a read to get your art lessons organized for the whole year. Best of all, these are art lessons designed for Canadian students.

Most Canadian elementary teachers teach their own art lessons and most do not have any formal training outside of what they learned while earning their Bachelor of Education. That training can vary from a semester of learning to techniques to an afternoon painting one watercolour painting. Don’t worry, ninjas, we got a collection of art projects that will last all year. No planning needed!

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