Many of us learn by watching others do something and then we try the "something" on our own with greater independence. Learning to write is no different. Sometimes writing mentors are the authors of the books we read. Sometimes writing... Continue Reading →
In this post I am sharing the series of 15 sequential lessons I created for teaching our grade 2 poetry unit in a "virtual" format while we were learning from home during the spring of 2021. The scope and sequence... Continue Reading →
Disclaimer: this was not my original idea - somewhere on Twitter but not sure who to give the credit to anymore. Basically though the purpose of this single Google slide is that it is "live" and has all the info... Continue Reading →
One of the challenges I face when teaching my students online is providing accurate, useful and timely feedback. Our school uses Seesaw as the primary online learning platform and recently I have started experimenting with editing student posts directly as... Continue Reading →
This post is part 3 in a three part series on re-thinking how I teach personal narratives. Part 1 about a new way that I tried to generate small moment ideas worth writing (ie. the "plan"), and Part 2 about stretching small moment stories with details (ie. the "do") are linked at the bottom of... Continue Reading →
One of the battles I have been fighting throughout my teaching career is how not to lose mentor texts. I know right! I want to use high quality texts, and I love it when my students want to read and learn from them. However ... the books would always go walkabout and every time I... Continue Reading →
This post is part 2 in a three part series on re-thinking how I teach personal narratives. Part 1, about a new way that I tried to generate small moment ideas worth writing about is linked at the bottom of this post (ie. the "plan"). The focus of this post is on the "do" part... Continue Reading →
In grade 2 the start of a new school year eventually leads to writing personal narratives. Even this year! Amid all the other changes happening in and around school due to Covid-19. Reflecting on how I taught this unit in the past, I knew I could do better and decided on a few changes that... Continue Reading →
Seeing as I always gather great ideas from others online, I thought it only fair to share this "virtual book series" reading unit for grade 2 that my co-teacher Ms. Yuka and I recently completed. The lessons are listed via image thumbnails in the sequential order that the lessons were taught - in our minds... Continue Reading →
