One Teacher's Adventures

Teaching systems of government has never been my favourite subject to cover in the Social Studies curriculum. It tends to be a dry topic with very little student engagement. To try and make it more engaging and interesting for our students, a colleague and I came up with a game to introduce the idea of different systems of government. Materials You'll Need: 10 pieces of paper 10 glue sticks 10 pairs of scissors government cards, downloadable here Overview: Students are arranged into 5 different groups. Each group represents a different country with a different system of government. The teacher will distribute a red government card to each group. Each card represents a different system of government. They are: anarchy, dictatorship, direct democracy, republic, and constitutional monarchy. Each group follows the rules on their card to make the longest paper chain possible with just one piece of paper. After each group has begun, there will be a coup in ...

This summer, I'm back in school as a student.  I'm participating in a Personalized Learning Summer Institute at the University of Victoria as some summer Professional Development.  Our first assignment was to create an Augmented Selfie. We had a lot of freedom over how we wanted to put it together, we just had to make sure that it introduced who we are, what we are interested in, and our strengths. Some ideas were to create a collage, a video, or a photo essay. I decided to create a word cloud for mine. I used words to describe my character, interests, and important people in my life. The whole time I was creating this, I thought about how I was going to use it as one of my first activities this fall with my new Grade 6 students! What do you think? I can't wait to have a display in my classroom with all my new students' augmented selfies!

Classroom management is probably the most difficult part of teaching middle schoolers. Having 28-35 pre-teens in one room, all at different academic levels with hormones coursing through their veins leads to a lot of behavioural challenges.  I’ve tried many different incentive programs to help my kids to focus and follow expectations, including awarding points, good behaviour tickets, and offering prizes for good behaviour. What I found was that each new management technique worked for a short time, but them fizzled out. After reflecting on my classroom management rewards strategies, these are some realizations I came to: I’ve never liked the idea of pointing out undesirable behaviours (by putting student names on the board, for example). To me, it equates to a public shaming, and I’ve never seen it actually help anyone to change course in their behaviour. It seems, more than anything, to reinforce a belief in students that they are “bad” and have no chance to do better. Th...

This is my third year at my current school, and my third different classroom!  I feel cautiously optimistic that this will be my last move, so I'm making the room my own. This is my Grade 7 classroom: I asked for tables instead of desks to encourage collaboration and team work . Since my students don't have desks, they each have a drawer in the drawer carts to hold their supplies. Drawers in use. The pages next to my homework board are cover sheets that list all assignments and due dates for the term. If students are absent, they can check the cover sheets to see what they missed.   Extra assignments are kept by subject folder in the crate. The red baskets are my hand-in baskets. Students are not allowed to hand in assignments to me directly, it all has to go into the bin. Extra assignments crate.     My classroom library is organized by genre. Each different genre has a different coloured sticker on the spine so the kids ...

I don't know about your students, but mine don't especially love taking down notes!  I don't love notes, either, but they can be a great tool for studying and review if they are set up in a user-friendly way.   For French vocabulary review, I like to set up the notes as a French-English dictionary.  The students use a notebook and dedicate one page for each letter of the alphabet.  I like Hilroy 32-page exercise books because I can pick them up at Walmart the week before school starts for only $0.05 each!  To jazz up the booklets, you can glue on a simple cover. I spend the first class setting up the book with my students.  I use three columns:  ENGLISH WORD   I set the alphabet by English word, as it makes it easier for the students to find what they are looking for. FRENCH WORD I have my students include an article for all nouns to help them remember the gender of the noun. WORD TYPE  I ask my students...

I'm excited to share two free Core French projects that align with the new BC Curriculum for Grade 6-8! Francophone Communities Across Canada Project The first fits in with Grade 6 and Grade 7.  It is a Francophone Communities Across Canada Research Project.   Grade 6 BC Curriculum Connections: Big Idea Learning about Francophone communities helps us develop cultural awareness. Content Students are expected to know the following: There are many Francophone and Francophone Métis communities across Canada Basic information about a Francophone or Francophone Métis community in Canada Curricular Competencies Students  are expected to be able to do the following: Demonstrate awareness of Francophone and Francophone Métis communities across Canada Recognize that some Francophone communities are connected to First Peoples communities Identify and share information about a Francophone community in Canada Grad...

I've created a new clip art set all about hobbies!  In the set, I've included: fishing playing cards reading gardening odd jobs shopping sewing cooking hiking playing on a computer Click on the picture to see how you can download the images. What do you think?  What other hobbies would you like to see?  Let me know in the comments below!