Under the Sea: Classroom Transformation

So although it has been a while since I last posted here, I am happy to announce that my lack of posts has not been due to lack of inspiration or creativity but to the sheer fact that although I absolutely love my new job- it is exhausting! So here I am trying to play a quick catch up!

A few weeks ago, I was asked to sub in the Kindergarten class for an extended period of time. Although I knew it would pull me away from my small groups and one-on-ones with students, I was excited to get back into the classroom; especially with this group of boys! They are wild but I love them! During the time I was teaching kindergarten, the theme changed from Space to Oceans. The French teacher I was working with had orchestrated an amazing activity to introduce the new theme to the boys using their five senses. With a bare classroom surrounding them, the boys moved from station to station (five in total) where they listened, touched, smelled, tasted and saw clues all hinting to the fact that their next learning theme would be Oceans. As they moved around the classroom and gathered their clues, they were thrilled when they finally figured it out!

As the boys left my class for the day, it was up to me to transform their classroom into an underwater, tropical retreat.  I am a huge fan of having children’s art work on display in the classroom, so instead of hanging up posters of dolphins and lobsters, I decided to get the kids involved in the decorating process! The next day, I had the students help me paint a very large piece of paper which I turned into an octopus for the class bulletin board. I also had the boys trace their hands to create our very own school of fish! With a little glitter and a lot of paint; this is what we created!

Creating and transforming bulletin boards is one of my favorite parts of being a teacher! What’s your creative outlet?

An Update

Wow! It has been so long since I last posted on my blog, that I guess an explanation is in order. A lot has changed in my life over the past year, and I apologize that my blog was the first to suffer. Let me give you an update!

Since Graduating in May (finally!) I packed it all up and moved to the one province I never thought I would move-Quebec! Speaking a very limited amount of French, I knew the obstacles I would face would be numerous, yet I was hopeful this city would offer me more than my beloved Halifax could; career wise. I was right! Despite a long and trying month of bad reality television and feelings of desperation, I finally started getting called for some subbing work at a very nice private school. Although most of my calls were for subbing in Phys Ed (thankfully my boyfriend is a wonderful Phys Ed teacher who gave me a ton of great lesson plans-check him out at thephysicaleducator.com) I was happy to finally be ‘living the teacher dream’ and working! After about a month of working a few days a week, I got a call from another private school looking for an Integration Aide in their Kindergarten class. The child they wanted me to work with had some major behavioural issues. I knew this was my opportunity to get a full time job (even if it was just till Christmas) and hopefully work hard to make a name for myself. I took the job; no questions asked and started the next day.  I am happy to announce that it is now May and I am still working everyday! The position in Kindergarten lasted until February, and although I was terrified that with the position ending I would once again be looking for work, the school found me a position and asked me to stay on until the end of the year. I am now working in the Learning Strategy office; providing support and enrichment for individual students and small groups. I honestly love it! I am planning and creating amazing lessons, and working with some really amazing students!

This year has been a challenging one. With so many life changes, I have had to put myself out there and really question myself on who I am and what I want out of life. I can happily report that I am still figuring it out, but I know I am on the right path. Everything seems to be falling into place and I am excited for what life has in store for me next!

Teaching Economics to Second Graders

Unlike most new teachers, Social Studies is one of my favorite subjects to teach! I love the freedom and real life connections that are oh, so easy to make. Our last big unit of Social Studies was Economics, or as my kids like to call it MONEY! This was such a fun unit and so easy to link into every other subject area. After searching my entire school and scrounging up enough play money for a class set, I assigned each student a baggie full of their own money. This money became their responsibility and life line in our classroom for trips to the water fountain and eating lunch with a friend. I divided the money up into $5.00 increments, some students received a $5.00 bill, others received all change consisting of toonies, loonies, quarters, dimes, nickles and pennies. Their first challenge was to count their money and record it on the class chart. The kids were all pleased to find out they had received the same amount of money, even though everyone's denomination looked a bit different.

The next step was to set up all the students with a Money Sheet. This was just a small square sheet of paper taped to the corner of their desks where they were able to record the money that they earned within the classroom and the money spent within the classroom. Although I wanted the students to be responsible for their earning and spending, it ended up that I was the one who kept track of their money on my own record sheet, and then just copied it onto their desks. The students were still able to see their money tally and never failed to remind me when I owed them money, yet somehow mindlessly forgetting when they spent money! Regardless, the system worked out well!

On the Economics board, students were able to see the cost of items/tasks they could spend their money on, and in return; ways in which they could earn more money. With the students earning and spending their own money, they quickly learned what was worth spending money on and what was not. The most popular purchases were computer time and reading in the hall with a friend.

By the end of the unit, some of my super savers had over $9.00 to spend at a little shop I set up in an empty classroom across the hall. Sadly, some of my more elaborate spenders had spent all of their earnings before it was even time to go shopping. The shop consisted of books, small toys, homemade cookies and coupons all for a very inflated price. The students loved it and I think they really learned the value of saving and earning money.

Community

As part of the grade two curriculum, students are expected to gain a sense of community and their place within the world. To me this sounded like a complex concept for my students to grasp. I debated for a long time about how to best go about teaching such an important concept, in a way that would be easy to understand and fun for my kiddos!


I started off the unit by breaking down the idea of `community` into the concept of our school community, a place, feeling and group of people my students were all familiar with. We talked about rules and how rules keep members of our community safe, and why it is important to follow these rules. We came up with this hands on activity aimed at helping my students understand that they all play an important part in being an active member of the school community. Each student worked with a partner to trace each other`s hands. Then they came up with a school rule that they pledged to follow and copied it down on their hand, this is what we came up with!

Happy 100th Day of School

It’s hard to believe that it is already the middle of February, and I have been in my placement for more than 2 months. The way the practicum placements work with my University in Nova Scotia is that student teachers are placed in their cooperating schools for the first week of September. After an exciting and incredibly tempting week, they drag us back to University classes until December, and then we return to our placement classrooms, eager to dive back into teaching.  So I have been back in the classroom since the middle of December and the time has flown by!

It was recently the 100^th Day of School, and the kids were getting pretty excited. Every day, after the helper of the day is chosen, we add another straw to the daily count (a great way to learn about place value with real world connections). On the 88^th Day of School one of my students ran up to me to tell me there were only 12 more days until the ‘big move’. I was a little taken back, and slightly confused so I asked him what he meant by the ‘big move’.  He proceeded to tell me that on the 100^th Day of School grade two was all over and that they were all moving over to the grade three classroom! After a quick giggle and a hint of sadness that he was so excited to leave grade two, I reminded him that the 100^th Day of School did not mean the end of the school year, rather a day to celebrate being 100 days smarter!

Gotta Love Grade Two!

To celebrate the 100^th Day of School, I decided to give my students a writing activity with a visual arts component. The writing piece was simple; When I am 100...I wanted my students to think about the number 100 and write about what they think their lives would be like at 100 years old. Their thoughts, ideas and aspirations for their future elderly selves were hilarious! Then they were asked to create a portrait of themselves at 100 years old; with glasses, wrinkles and grey hair to boot!

The kids thought their portraits were too funny, and they were so excited to share with one another. It was a great way to finish off our 100^th Day of School Party.

How did you celebrate the 100^th Day of School? 

Chocolate Overload

I am happy to say I survived my first Valentine's Day party in grade two!

My student's were so excited for Valentine's Day that they could hardly focus their attention on anything else. In the morning they created and decorated their own Valentine's Day pockets made out of felt, and in the afternoon we handed out cards, treats, chocolate and juice while the kids watched Charlie Brown Valentine. It was a really wonderful day filled with laughter, excitement and of course love.

Begging, borrowing and stealing from my favorite teaching blog: The Teacher Wife, I found this fantastic idea for Valentines. Knowing my students would be on chocolate and sugar over load, I didn't want to give them any more sugar, glow sticks were the obvious choice. Glow sticks are a super fun and creative way to celebrate this very special day! The kids were thrilled, and happy kids make me a happy teacher!

Excuse me...Ms...

I don’t know how everyone else feels about tattle tales, but nothing is more time consuming or annoying than kids who take it upon themselves to solve alllllll of the playground quarrels. I applaud students who know right from wrong and want to be treated with respect, but tattle tales have become a huge issue in my classroom. 

Every day after recess and lunch it takes about ten minutes just for the kids to calm down and tell me everything that happened on the playground. Sure if something exciting happened, or if someone is hurt, I need to know these things. But when Susie tells Mary that she isn’t her BFF anymore or Ben tells the whole class that Mark is in love with Josie, these issues can cause a real interruption to my teaching time.  

Duh Duh Duh Daaaa.....the Tattle Tale Monster moves into my classroom and saves us all from wasted time!

I got this fantastic idea from a picture I found on Pinterest (my new obsession which consumes far too much of my day)! The Tattle Tale Monster is a great way to talk to your students about what a real problem is (like someone who is hurt) and what is a tattle tale and can be worked out on its own. The idea is that the Tattle Tale Monster sits on a table in our classroom where students can write their tattle tale onto a piece of paper and then feed it to the Monster. If, at the end of the day, this is still an issue they need to talk to me about, we can talk about it after school. My hope is that the kids will discover that their tattle tale is not really worth the effort it will take to write it down and talk to me about. Perhaps it will motivate students to work it out amongst themselves.

I introduced our new classmate Tattle Tale Monster to my class yesterday and the kids loved him! So far he has been a hit and has been well feed. We will see if he is still as popular by the end of the week!