Back in April, my two student teachers were planning and teaching our unit on Lights and Shadows. They introduced me to the fascinating world of light sensitive paper. Waiting for what seemed like endlessly for a sunny day, the students selected three items and ventured outside with their light sensitive paper in hand. They placed …
Yesterday, my class ventured downtown to the Glenbow Museum for the day. During the afternoon, we participated in the program called Nitsitapiisinni: Our Way of Life, which was lead by a Blackfoot man, who we called Skip. He began the program by providing us with some background information about the Blackfoot People and some events …
Prior to spring break, I registered my class for a free micro:bit workshop offered by Kids Code Jeunesse . Without really knowing what to expect, our facilitator Zoe, led my students through an interactive demonstration of coding and connecting the codes to microbits. Instantly excited, engaged, and eager to try out these new pieces of …
One day, while perusing the world of twitter, I came across a post from @Makerspaces_com about kits for making these creatures called Bristolbots. The kits to purchase contained all the supplies necessary, but having the teacher lifestyle, were out of my price range. I decided to put the message out to world and asked if …
Today was the second day of grade 4 this year, and my eagerness to learn even more about my students led me to turn to technology. I gave my students a quick low down on Comic Life, and then let them explore, play, and create a comic of themselves. Their only requirement needed was to …
Each year, before the official day of classes, our school has set the day aside for student orientations. We meet the parents and students individually to get to know them, and for them to know their teacher prior to the first day of school. Not only does this help to relieve the stress and anxiety …
At the beginning of January, my students wrote an All About Me Book, only this book was in Spanish. They discussed their name, described themselves, and talked about some of their favourite things. As a way to make this activity more interactive, we decided to create an electronic, bilingual book. The students used the app …
During the last year, I had a class filled of readers. Any chance they got, they were delved into a novel, picture book, fact book, anything that they could get their hands on. As I watched them riffle through our class library, I became aware that it wasn’t as user-friendly as I had once anticipated. …
As part of our school initiative on literacy this year, we dove into examining the book Reading in the Wild by Donalyn Miller and Susan Kelley, as it’s purpose is to instil lifelong reading habits in our students. The book is filled with tips, strategies, and stories about the ways in which the goal of …
On the first day of school, I wanted to start the afternoon off by showing my students an inspirational child in which they could relate to, and who better than Kid President? While playing the video below, bursts of laughter and quiet conversations emerged, as the students listened attentively to the message being delivered. At …
Out With Erin 