I was so excited to plan my teaching year using themes to base my teaching and learning from. Yes, it is possible to teach this way in traditional schools, especially for Kindergarten and some elementary classrooms. However, it is a lot more difficult to reach all the curriculum goals in each subject once you start to teach Grade 1 and beyond.
0 Comments
To compliment our social studies and science curriculum this year, the kindergarten teacher and myself took our classes to the Calgary Zoo for our year end field trip. We had such a blast! The long bus ride to and from the zoo provided us time have fun together singing songs and reminiscing over over our activities of the past year. I coordinated that our school would experience the Edu-Trek: Eurasian Safari. It was such a fabulous experience learning about extra facts of the animals and their habitats that you would not normally get to learn on a self-guided tour. While on our Edu-Trek we also were fortunate enough to take in the Tiger Training session and experience the penguins getting fed. It was also amazing that with the exception of the hippopotamuses, we were able to see EVERY animal we visited. I thought that was exceptional, because often when visiting a zoo, some of the animals are hiding or in positions in their sanctuaries that is not visible to the public. What a better way to end off the year than with a camping themed unit! As the teaching year winds up and all my final assignments are finished that are report card worthy, I thought I'd end my year with some camping. With the help of a good friend, I transformed my classroom into a campsite in the woods!
I found some great ideas from Pintrest, and awesome teaching ideas from Teachers Pay Teachers. I've taken bits and pieces from each to teach in my classroom.
So, it's no big secret that I love to watch movies, especially Disney movies. One of my favourite thing to do after I've finished watching a DVD is going through all the special features. It may drive my husband bonkers, but that's just what I like to do. I'll get to the relevance of this information in a moment. This year I was assigned the task of teaching the Grades 7-9 Art. Another challenge for me. I laughed out loud when I heard I had to teach it, but I was up for the challenge. I'm afraid that my brother was gifted with artistic abilities, not myself, so this was going to be an interesting adventure. It is a whole other ball game teaching junior high art, as opposed to elementary Now, back to my beginning thoughts.. After viewing The Good Dinosaur, I, like always immersed myself into the special features, and Disney never is lacking in special features. Anyways, one of the extra features inspired an art project for my junior high class. Recyclosaurus. Because Earth Day was coming up, I thought, what an excellent project! We have all sorts of materials lying around the school that we could use. I put my idea in motion and unleashed the project. I set similar parameter, in that the students were only given one roll of duct tape and could use any of the items that we found around the school, or that they brought from home. It was difficult for some students to come up with ideas, but the final products where fantastic!
Our field trip to Police Point Park was a huge success and a great way to end our science unit! The weather was perfect, all of my little explorers were present, and we got more than we were hoping for on our safari. Our classroom was blessed with many extras on our excursion. There were two parts to our field trip. The first was our Bug Safari and the second was another little excursion where we ended the trail where we journaled what we saw and did. During our safari, we saw all types of little bugs. We found insects in all the different stages of growth from larva to adult. Along our trails we came across what we found out to be a rare discovery, especially around the park according to our guides. A couple of the students came upon a baby porcupine. It was so adorable and very well camouflaged, especially after it had entered into the thicker brush. The baby porcupine was definitely a highlight! I didn't think we would top the porcupine, but during our second excursion in a different area of a park we got a glimpse of large snake, which was most likely a rattle snake. It was sunning itself on the warm concrete, but quickly scurried away after the hearing and feeling the rumbles and squeals of our class! We were very vigilant after that. Not only that but we had one of our parents who came along found a jackpot of freshly shed snake skin. It was pretty cool. If that was not enough, while we were wrapping up our field trip, one of the other park workers came a cross a small garter snake in the parking lot and was gracious enough to bring it over to us to check it out. It was such a great day! It has been such a blast teaching the Grade 2 Science Unit - Small Crawling and Flying Animals! I love having the opportunity to take the students outside an experience science in the real time outside the classroom. We had a chance to explore our CCCA school yard looking for little critters.
Our classroom has also had the opportunity to enjoy some of the AMAZING resources available from the Praxis Society in Medicine Hat, AB. One of the kits from Praxis allowed to have a bug sanctuary in our classroom. The students loved watching the lady bugs they had caught as they made themselves a new temporary home. Another fun activity we had with to go along with our unit was to watch Painted Lady Butterflies go through their life-cycle. I was able to secure some larva from a colleague of mine who orders the larva from www.butterflyab.ca. Each morning we would take time to record any changes of development in our Butterfly Life Cycle Science Journal. Hopefully we will be able to witness all the different stages of development. *Fingers crossed* This is such a fun unit to teach. There is so much that one can do! I am really looking forward to our Bug Safari that we have planned at Police Point Park in Medicine Hat in June. I'm sure Mrs. Leafloor's bug explorers will have a great time and unique experience! One thing I've found significantly different in the schools in rural communities is that Health class topics can be significantly different. I don't ever remember having or learning about farm safety growing up in the city. We never got to go look at big farming equipment close up and personal. But here in Foremost, Bow Island and Burdett the students get to experience a whole entire day learning the ins and outs of farm safety; from germs to equipment safety to chemical safety and they get a loot bag to take home to boot! What kid doesn't like to take home a bag full of goodies?
Today, Gr. 1-6 from my school (CCCA) and Gr. 1-6 from Burdett School got to experience Farm Safety Day in the community of Burdett. The students learned a lot. I learned a lot. The volunteers were probably exhausted by the end of the day but in the end it was such a great experience and fun for all. Here's another great Art project find from Pinterest. All you need are coffee filters and bingo dabbers. The students loved this project and it was so simple and the results....STUNING!
While searching for an art project in the great world of Pinterest, I came upon a great pin. The pin lead me to That Artist Woman. The project turned out to be a great success with stunning pieces of art created by my students.
|
GaddzuksI am a dedicated wife and hockey mom, who wishes to educate young minds on the side! Archives
November 2016
Categories
All
|