One of my professional goals for this school year was to make design thinking a more integral part of the curriculum, but not as a stand-alone activity, rather purposefully integrated. The whole "less is more concept," especially since there never... Continue Reading →
It all started by accident really. Just before recess. On Friday. Out of a need to recognize and give a voice to those students who were consistently acting as role models for the others in the class. I pulled the... Continue Reading →
Completed 13 hours of professional development to receive the MAPA Certification.
The impetus behind this idea came from constantly reading over the Grade 2 Common Core standard CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.2.6 which basically states that students should, "with guidance and support from adults, use a variety of digital tools to produce and publish writing, including in... Continue Reading →
Eventually the time will come when we ask our students to self-reflect and/or assess their writing. Sometimes in the form of a rubric - sometimes in the form of a checklist - two stars and a wish, whatever you want... Continue Reading →
Born out of lack of success in having students independently use their class word wall, high frequency word lists, or personal spelling dictionaries to edit their writing my co-teacher @YYteach and I decided to give the Don't and Do spelling strategy... Continue Reading →
One of the key components of any writing mini-lesson is modelling what we expect of our students. Often this takes the form of "guided" writing. However, over the years I have found that this wasn't always as effective as it... Continue Reading →
My conundrum is that in the classroom I use my computer to take anecdotal notes, look at student data on the fly, etc (especially during conferring for reading/writing). Oftentimes however my computer is connected to the projector cable and so... Continue Reading →
This year in conjunction with our TCRWP Poetry Unit we launched "World Poetry Cafe." The idea behind it is simple. Solicit other members of the school/broader community to come and share a poem they love. It can be from their... Continue Reading →
