Teacher Extraordinaire - Portfolio of a Teacher and Lifelong Learner

“ Math Math Baby” is a collaborative effort done by myself and three colleagues in teacher's college, that replaces the lyrics of Vanilla Ice’s Ice Ice Baby with concepts from the grade 6 math curriculum. Given the length of the song and necessity to create rhymes, we decided to focus on several concepts. These concepts included shapes (2D and 3D), measurement, graphing, operations, numeracy (fractions, decimals and whole numbers) and problem solving strategies. Each verse reviews two or three of these concepts. It is our hope that this song and performance would serve to convince students that math can be fun, and that any subject can come alive. The song could be played as a transition for math class or as part of a lesson to help us learn and remember the different units of grade 6 math. We felt that a rap would be an appealing medium of communication, and appropriate for an older elementary school audience. Many Grade 6 students are in the process of maturing, and sometime...

Literacy Centres are such a huge part of what I teach and how I teach at the moment! I was almost unsure of how to approach this broad topic but knew I had to include something about them in my portfolio. They are a firm and entrenched part of my reading program and English program. This is just to give some information about how my centres run (although you can also find some fantastic videos on youtube and curriculum.org as well as find out more on The Daily Five ) I do not propose to be an expert on literacy centres, and am in fact learning new things all the time from colleagues and other resources. My centers are essentially divided up as follows: Reading Raz-Kids Writing Guided Reading Handwriting Drama Spelling Pocket Chart Big Book Detective Sight Words Grammar   Special/Fun Reading, Writing, Guided Reading and Raz-Kids are constants. The other centers might be switched in and out week to week. Children are divided into groups based on reading level...

Earlier in the year, students had an opportunity to create their own setting from Dr. Seuss' The Lorax.  We were studying setting at that time, and at literacy centres they had one period to finish their diorammas. This was an opportunity for students to transfer their knowledge of the book, the story and the colors into a beautiful piece of art. Not to mention, students were given a certain amount of play dough and one piece of cardboard to mount it on per group, so they had to talk about what they wanted to do and compromise. All of them chose to do the more pretty/colorful settings, as opposed to The Onceler's House , which I think just speaks to the settings that appeal to them as young learners. If there was more time, we could have done paper theatre plays within the settings where the trees were upright. Of course the book also ties in beautifully to themes of environmentalism, and thus could be used in science or social studies units about the planet and impa...

At the end of my past two years of teaching, I've done fairy tale drama projects with the students. They are in grade two, and for some it's their first real exposure to acting by moving their bodies and manipulating props. They have however worked on voice projection, expression and eye contact before both in reading and during oral presentations. This project is always fun for the students, as they see how various oral and presentation skills can come together in a different way. Not to mention, the video is burned to a CD and it's a good memento for students at the end of the year. This year, we performed The Snow Queen . Last year it was Aladdin, Rapunzel and Jack and the Beanstalk. Students themselves get to choose the story they'd like to do, so they have a very vested interest. We will first brainstorm ideas, then choose one or several ideas. Afterwards they are put into groups, then cast into parts (with their input) and we brainstorm a list of props they can...

Back in January I attended a NESA (Near East South Asia Council of Overseas Schools) Conference in Oman. I went to go see Debbie Silver and her presentation about building resilience in children. One of the reasons I chose this, is that I feel it will be relevant to whenever or wherever I am teaching in my life. It's also a topic that interests me a lot. I wanted to know how to best help children to have a growth mindset (this concept was introduced to me in the conference) and not a fixed mindset. I wanted to know how to help them develop grit and to want to try again / try different methods. I also wanted them to be able to listen to descriptive feedback and respond to that with a "Can Do" attitude. While we can't change completely every child and every circumstance, she did give a lot of fantastic tips on what we as teachers can do. It was great food for thought, and we walked away with easy tips that would make our teaching and our students' responsiveness ...