The other day in class, my students were completing a word association noun and verb activity. Several nouns were provided to them, and they needed to add an interesting verb that would fit nicely with the noun. For example, one noun was lion, and several ideas for the verbs were pounce, roar, and stalk. As …
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 …
Each school year, as I begin planning my days and units I am amazed at the changes and progression of technology. Last year, I was excited to use iPads, really focus on blogging with my students, and begin our Twitter classroom account. The connections made and sharing abilities proved to be successful, and provided ample …
A couple of weeks ago, a colleague sent me an article from Upworthy about a new kind of kindergarten design at a school in Tokyo (link to full article). The premise of the design is that it takes into accounts kids natural impulses and allows them the freedom that they need to experience risks and …
In one of my master’s courses, we were given the task to create an online learning project. My group decide to create a blog where we share our learning experiences, and also planned to organize a Twitter chat focusing on authentic learning. Our chat was a great success as we were able to share and …
As part of my master’s course, my group is conducting an online project to learn more about authentic learning and what it means. As such, we have create a blog as a tool to share our thoughts and the things that we are learning along the way. The blog will act as a site that …
Last week during class, I was working through a Rachel’s Challenge lesson with my students that was all about goal setting. We discussed goals they have set in the past, long term and short term goals they might have now, and the things that constitute a good goal. Then I asked them the following question: …
“We live in a world that is changing more rapidly than ever before. Today’s children will face a continual stream of new issues and unexpected challenges in the future. Many things that they learn today will be obsolete tomorrow. To thrive, they must learn to design innovative solutions to the unexpected problems that will undoubtedly …
Out With Erin 