Teacher Extraordinaire - Portfolio of a Teacher and Lifelong Learner

The Unit of Inquiry for "How We Express Ourselves" in grade three was "Art Appreciation". Students always have a lot of fun producing and experiencing a variety of different art forms. They enjoy becoming artists themselves and trying to express emotions and ideas through their work. The Central Idea for this UOI was: People have different ideas, feelings and opinions which can be expressed through various art forms. The lines of inquiry were as follows: ● different art forms (form) ● perspectives on art (perspective) ● how people know what artists try to communicate (reflection) The first assignment students had in this Unit of Inquiry was to find examples of a variety of different art forms in ICT class on the internet. After they were aware of many different art forms, they had the opportunity to choose one that interested them and create a representation of that art form. Below are representations of a mosiac, architechture and henna. Students also h...

For "How The World Works" my grade three students were looking at weather for their Unit of Inquiry. The Central idea was: Understanding weather allows for predictions and responses. Lines of Inquiry were: ● Different types of weather (form) ● How people know what the weather will be (function) ● Why weather impacts life (causation) After students had an opportunity to explore one type of weather and engage in weather related experiments, they were told that they had an opportunity to design a weather measuring instrument. We did not show them the actual items used to measure the weather, as we wanted to see what students thought up. They had a choice of measuring precipitation, wind direction or wind speed. If a student had an idea for another type of weather model (for example one that measures humidity, pressure or temperature) they could also feel free to approach us with their idea. Students demonstrated a lot of creativity in their design and many of them we...

Last year I found out about an excellent program called Postcrossing . With Postcrossing, you sign up for an account and then can initially send up to 5 postcards. The addresses that you are given are random, and you must also write a code on the back of each postcard. Once the postcards arrive, they are registered by the person who receives them. After that your address goes into the random pool and you can receive a postcard from anyone doing the program, anywhere in the world. Students really enjoyed doing this last year, and it enabled us to learn a lot about the world around us, by finding connections with different places around the world. It made us all more global minded! Below is our Postcrossing board mid-year.

I really enjoy cooking with my students whenever possible, as it enables them to get real life practice with concepts such as volume, weight and fractions. This past year student table groups were each randomly given a different sweet treat to create a recipe for. Then they had to bring in ingredients to make enough for a small serving for everyone to enjoy. The categories were - fruit salad, parfait, drinks and baking free cookies/cake. Below are pictures of what the students made. Students were also required to bring pencil and paper to record any changes they might have to their recipe and were instructed that their recipe must contain at least one fraction, one instance of using volume and one instance of using weight. Students all enjoyed making and eating these sweet snacks.