Another fantastic week!

Started a social studies unit on exploration (which I am tying it to literacy! I told the students we are developing our ability to pull information from readings (the learning intention). We will be working on a large summative assessment poster, which I will be co-developing criteria with

them based on the paper strips idea in Anne Davies book (new resources!) Today I shared some personal exploration stories and showed them pictures from my travels, connecting the idea that people still explore and the reasons we do this! This also connected to our science lessons on Mars Rover and how exploration is happening in space now! Lots of great cross curricular discussions!

Gym – started to teach soccer because the students have been very interested in it at recess. Starting with mini games and developing skills before building up to mini matches.

Pink Shirt day was great – I did a lot of work with my students about anti bullying, but dug deeper and explored why people bully and how we can break the cycle. We had a lot of really good discussions and explored gender stereotypes and I shared a lot of my own experiences with bullying. I am starting to bring myself into my lessons more, which is really strengthening my relationships with my students.

I continued to connect with other educators in the building and I set up observations in another classroom during my PREP/library time; it was a K/1 class and I learned a lot from the different perspective of the teacher!

My coaching teacher was pulled into other classes a few times this week, to help out with coverage, so I taught solo a lot of this week. This was really beneficial because it allowed me to gain confidence and independence in my personal teaching style! The principal thanked me for being strong enough to allow this to happen. This felt great to know I seen as a dependable member of the staff!

I attended 2 professional developments:

1). Using Assessment to Move Learning Forward in Intermediate Math Classrooms with Nikki Lineham

2). Land as Our Teacher: Changing Engagement for Indigenous Learners (Middle Year Gr. 4-9) Storytelling, Land and Identity

I got Quails eggs and put them in an incubator this week. Students are very excited and we have been learning about what happens inside the eggs and how the quails are developing. There are so many exciting lesson ideas I can connect to this!