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New link to our Everyday Classroom
Wondering where all the creativity has been!? In our classroom of course!
Check out all the great Multiple Intelligences-based activities each week on our Zoma Creative Classroom Blog: zomacreative.com
Sneak Peak at my New Curriculum
After spending the last few years trying out different approaches to teaching, I think I have finally found something amazing! This year I am going to combine personalized booklets with hands on activities and theme-based learning.
Math, Science, English… they are all complimenting each other throughout, so that in math we are looking at the history of shapes, the discovery of measurment and so forth. In English we are using math to look at the way our alphabet evolved to become what it is today.
The goal is to link the left brain’s rational, abstract and word/number based centred with the right’s creative, visual, and story based centres.
Here is a sneak peak. The whole packages will be available for purchase on TeachersPayTeachers soon!
Embarking on a New Adventure
It is time to take all my crazy ideas about education and put them into practice!
In January I opened my own “Learning Centre” to support homeschool families, provide tutoring and to offer curriculum orientated workshops, like Vikings, Volcanoes, Electricity, and… well, just about every subject under the sun. In the first six months we offered over 72 workshops!
I also started a Place-based Learning Program that moved away from the traditional community project model, and fairly organically evolved into a program that took homeschool teens on weekly field trips (museum, farm, Chinatown, Legislature Buildings, Grocery Store, Aviation Museum, etc) and then used class time to create inquiry projects around our weekly theme. Probably the most telling moment was after the students built a greenhouse on our farm and I asked “What does a 2×4 [lumber] stand for?” In response they looked at the wood and said.”2 inches wide and 4 inches tall, and the length could be anything else.”
This question has always stumped students in textbook examples. I even had one student working through a question on volume say, “Well I am going to ignore the textbook because it is clear that the width and the height are the same, even though they labelled them as different.”
The real world task provided the foundation for all the “book work” to come around 3-D shapes and volume. To this day, when I am tutoring, I always refer to this lesson and love to see the “ah ha” light bulb turn on for the student.
And so it was that one of the parents said, “Can you offer this program to our younger kids?”
After some thought I put together a Project Based Learning Program (ages 6-10), starting this Fall, that allows kids to totally immerse themselves in a themed world: whether a toy shop, a pioneer village, or outer space!
In our first unit, students will study early Canadian Pioneer Life. We will be working on a farm to recreate a pioneer village, with a garden and with some of the “old arts”, such as butter churning, spinning and woodworking. Students will dress the part and roll play, creating an authentic learning environment. The main idea is to let the learning happen naturally, and to form reflection times where we can ask questions that naturally arise from our experiments: what was the hardest part about this life? what were the pioneers forms of entertainment? I can almost guarantee that the students will be able to come up with deeper answers than if I was giving them a worksheet!
Our Teen Program will also continue this fall, with even more adventurous field-trips and with more projects.
Stay tuned for our new adventure!
Math is Everywhere: making your own “textbook”
Scott and I are making a book!
We flipped through the newspaper to find all the places math was being used and discovered it was… everywhere!
We decided to write a book. Our first step was to cut, cut, cut like crazy. Scott cut out some of the math we are used to seeing while I cut out more abstract concepts. Here is Phase One of our book:
Phase Two will be to glue concepts from our textbook to match the real world math. In other words, the theoretical to the practical.
Phase Three will be to write stories to talk about how the math is being used.
Stay tuned!
Human Body Lesson Plan
This is a lesson to really get kids excited about the human body!
Materials:
- I pack of plasticine (* divided vertically in three will give you enough for a small skeleton)
- skeleton (optional) *I found a pack of 4 for $1.50 at the dollar store in the Halloween section!
- anatomy diagrams/ placemat
- App (optional)
LESSON 1: HANDS-ON EXPLORATORY
- Jump right into the deep end by handing students a skeleton or by having them create their own.
- Ask students to give the skeleton organs using the guide.
- Now add blue and red veins.
- Now add pink muscle.
- Finally, add skin.
* If it’s possible, take a picture of students as they complete each step (delegate a classroom photographer if you have a student who words quickly)
 
LESSON 2: VOCAB
- Have students either play the App to test their knowledge and vocabulary or use flashcards.
- Students can work in pairs, playing “Memory Stack.” Students stack the flashcards in front of them and turn over one at a time. Whoever calls out the answer correctly gets to keep the card. The player with the most cards at the end of the stack wins.
LESSON 3: SELF CONTEXT
- Students will either create a life size body using long paper which they trace themselves on, or use blank white t-shirts (second hand ones are great for this!)
- Have students draw and label the organs on the t-shirt or body trace to demonstrate their understanding of where things go relative to their own bodies.
 STEP 3: REAL LIFE CONNECTIONS   Â
- Not everyone can dissect a baby pig or a rat. Luckily there are lots of Apps out there that do it for us!
- Dissect a frog: very lifelike, and uses medical “tools” to open and pull back layers .
- DK Human body: vivid images and games.
- Build a body
FOLLOW UP LESSONS:
Self Introduction Timelines
A came across these amazing timelines and thought I would share them. Students completed these at the beginning of a “Early Humans” unit. It is interesting to see the variety of outputs: from lots of information, photos and details to just the major highlights.
I will file this one under ‘logical-mathematical’ approach to self-introductions 🙂
 
Link to my Classroom website: MrsClementsClassroom.wordpress.com
Check out the website I created for my classroom last year. There are tons of lessons, website links, videos and photos. If you are interested in something you see, feel free to use it in your own classroom. I only ask that you provide some feedback on the site 🙂
Welcome back to school!
14 Day Countdown to the End of School
Place the following notes in balloons and hang from the ceiling. Each day, a student gets to pop a balloon and the class participate in the activity inside!
- Special visit from an animal
- Baking soda, vinegar and a balloon, oh my
- Write a thank you note to the school with sidewalk chalk
- No homework
- Play a game from Primary school out on the field
- Paper airplane contest
- Special visitor
- Play minute to win it
- Special treat
- Potluck
- Science experiment
- Story time
- Play “Police Sketch”
- Play “Virtue Shop”
|
Special visit from an animal |
Play a game from Primary school out on the field |
Special treat |
Play “Police Sketch” |
|
Baking soda, vinegar and a balloon, oh my |
Paper airplane contest |
Graduation party Potluck |
Play “Virtue Shop” |
|
Write a thank you note to the school with sidewalk chalk |
Special visitor |
Science experiment |
|
|
No homework |
Play minute to win it |
Story time |
|
I went to teach…
I went to teach a science lab on solvents and oil spills. I asked the kids to bring the materials from the classroom to the science lab and ON THE WAY they DROPPED the OIL. NOT the feathers. NOT the cotton balls. NOT the soap. NOT the cocoa. THE OIL. So the whoooooooooooole hallway was covered in oil. So what did we spend the lab doing? CLEANING UP AN OIL SPILL…. glaringly obvious irony.
Multiple Intelligences in the Everyday Classroom 