Introducing the School Year Curriculum: a student-centered approach

Although the teacher’s are on strike, many parents are trying to get their children into the school routine. After helping two young boys today, I realized that the way that I introduced the ideas they would cover in the school year was a really fun new twist on the ol’ KWL chart.

First I looked at the curriculum and created a visual document that had pictures to represent various aspects of grade 4 and 5 curriculum. In social studies 4, for example, I placed a picture of a map of Canada, an image of a man gold panning and so forth for math, science and language arts.

Once I had these documents I printed them. I handed out the document to each student and told them to look it over and come up with some ideas about what they thought the pictures represented.

Next I asked one brother to explain to his brother what he thought he would be learning this year. They were so excited. They both got a turn reading a page before the other person was able to chime in and suggest their own ideas about what the pictures meant.

What was really telling about the whole interaction is that I gave very little prompting and that they were helping each other reach really deep conclusions. For example, instead of saying “that’s a picture of a chart and money,” one boy said, “this is probably about currency and stats and maybe even about making profits in a business.” If I had given them a word document that said Mathematics: data analysis (which is what the picture represented in my adult mind), we would not have come up with such interesting connections!

Another great connection was the picture of Captain Cook. The boys said, “That’s Abraham Lincoln” and the other said, “No, cause he is American and you have a picture of Canada, so it is a Canadian guy…”

I learned two things: firstly, a picture tells a thousand words, while words are finite in their meaning. Secondly, when you place the conversation in children’s hands they come up with more than you could have planned for or anticipated.

The boys wrote down their ideas and then we discussed them and they added more detail. In the end they had a self-created syllabus that gave an overview of the school year, as well as accessing information that they already knew. What a confidence booster!

Feel free to check out the document I put together for these student, and to add your own ideas about introducing a unit in a student-centered way:

CURRICULUM document with visuals

PLO’s   with Curriculum targets

Organizing Your Classroom Day, Week, and Term

One of the first questions I had as a new teacher was about how to organize my days. How was I going to fit in every precious lesson, every field trip, every silent reading break, every test, every activity? Moreover, why didn’t they teach this to me in University!!

Over the years I have borrowed some great ideas for day , weekly  and term planners. If you have an idea of your own, please post it in the comments below, or direct readers to you own helpful resources.

Happy Planning!

DAILY PLANNERS:

–  schedule on one side and the lesson plan notes/ behaviour notes on the other. One the right side, for example, write the goal of the lesson: “expository lesson 1/4”. On the other side of the paper, write down notes on how the lesson will unfold: “introduce new essay style, brainstorm as a class, pick topics out of a hat, begin planning stages, assign due dates for rough draft. NOTE: book computer lab for final copy type up.”

– Use coloured pens, highlighters, etc: highlight meetings, important lessons/ tests, etc.

– only use information that you will need to avoid unnecessary clutter/ added work. Pre-fab planners may not be as useful as your own templates for this simple reason.

– Detailed daily notes have the added bonus of being ready-to-go for SUB teachers

 

WEEKLY PLANNERS:

– not a replication of the daily planner (ie, your own notes). Make a plan at the beginning of the term. This is the planner that you give to parents/students, admin, as well as post in the classroom so that everyone knows what is expected on each day.

– PLAN silent reading time, tech time, library visits, etc. If they don’t make it onto the class schedule, they likely won’t happen at all 😉

– if you are a teacher who has more flexibility when planning your schedule, you probably wonder how many hours of each class you should fit into each week. As a rule, math and language arts are given the most time allotment. For math, it is especially helpful to plan in a “comprehension skills” day, devoted specifically to drills and new skills. Stagger lessons: plan for science on Monday afternoon and Thursday morning, for example.  Student’s have different energy levels at different times of the day, as well as the fact that classroom interruptions will not impact a staggered schedule as much as a regular schedule.

– On Monday morning, include a 30 minute “high light/low light of the weekend” share time. Students LOVE sharing about their weekend (they have 30 seconds to share). This activity is great for building classroom culture.

–  Post the daily version of this schedule on the whiteboard/ at the front of the room.

– Homework days can also be assigned on this schedule. For example, Monday and Thursday Math and Science

– Try to plan one-on-one time with each student. I know teachers who use silent reading time to go over assignments with students, listen to them read, or check in with them.

TERM PLANNERS:

– map out field trips, unit tests, guest speakers, projects, meetings, report cards, etc

– try to fit everything on to one page, on a week-by-week schedule

– SCHEDULE IN MAKE UP TIME. Whether it is for projects or falling behind in the schedule, plan a week or days here and there that can be used as “flex days”

Check out the following websites for more information on Lesson Planning:

New Teacher Survival Guide: Planning

Planning with Mandi

DIT homeschool plan

ErinCondron.com

Additional tips:

– Keep all your notes and schedules in ONE binder. This includes classroom/ behaviour notes, project outlines, check lists for assignments handed in, grades, important dates, etc.

Happy Planning!