Joy and Laughter: Why I Became a Teacher

Posted on May 21, 2013 by canteach

I’ve been working on this post for a while now… actually, since coming home after spending the day with George Couros and fellow educators in my district… Yes, that was about a month ago! We worked through the day sharing and being inspired to foster innovation in our district. George ended the day with a request for bloggers in the district to write about why we became teachers.

Well, this was a harder task than I expected it to be, so I chewed on it for a while. Then I attended Tedx West Vancouver and received the final push I needed! The inspiration resulted from Dean Shareski’s talk, Whatever Happened to the Joy in Education?.

I became a teacher because of the joy I experienced when I was in school. I was joyed when my school supplies were purchased, when we opened new textbooks, when we watched celebrations in the gym, when my teachers would ask ME to share my ideas, and when I passed by the staffroom and the smell of coffee and the sounds of laughter spilled out into the halls. I also felt joy at one time events like finding a perfectly intact butterfly to add to my insect project in grade five; making my teacher laugh hysterically at the story of me running down the hill through a forest on the way to school and losing control of my feet, then losing my shoes and lunch bag and laughing so hard while watching my sister do the same; spending a whole lazy June day with my grade six class walking around in the bush for no reason, but just because, and stumbling upon a cow’s skull; and finally being able to show everyone that I could moon walk in the main hall of the school, which was open often for kids to play games in, dance, and/or just talk at lunch and recess. I could go on and on, school was a joyful place!

Now, I didn’t go through school completely with rose coloured glasses! Try being one of the few minorities in a cautious small town of 1,500. Try being placed in the lowest reading group and knowing it. Try navigating this world as the eldest daughter to immigrant parents who want the best for their child, but are in conflict with what the best in Canada means. Despite it all, I just had great people at school who supported me. I had teachers and administrators who helped me see the joy in everything.

I laugh when others typically laugh, but I also laugh at the joy I get from all the absurdity that happens in this world. I laugh when things aren’t going as planned and I laugh when things go as planned. Yes, I actually was laughing at my friend’s father’s funeral, but my mother was so embarrassed that she violently folded my body in half and rubbed my back to make people think that I was crying. But, to defend myself… We were singing a very sad hymn, and there was a lady next to me singing her heart out to a completely different hymn. I just lost it, it was absurd that at such a serious, sorrowful event, this was occurring beside me.

As Dean Shareski often shares, there is a lot in this world to laugh about. Sometimes we need to laugh so that we are not overcome by all that isn’t good in this world. It is no surprise to me that when things get really stressful at school, I end up laughing a lot. It doesn’t mean that I do not treat things seriously, far from it, but laughing and finding the joy is a way of coping and seeing the light.

I became a teacher, for purely selfish reasons… because school makes ME joyful! It always has and it always will. I also want to share that with everyone. School often takes itself too seriously. We get bogged down through debating what’s best four our students, recording every single thing to use as “data”, believing that if we take a break kids will fail and not become good citizens of our world. What school needs to do is change out of its three piece suit and put on some pajamas! Schools need to be a source of joy for everyone!

So This Happened: Kindergarten Boy 1 Mud Puddle 0

Posted on April 21, 2013 by canteach

After teaching a crazy Friday morning in K and trying to juggle too many balls in the air at the office, this happened…

and this happened…

and this happened!

As the supervisor brought him in after lunch, I just didn’t know whether I wanted to laugh or cry. My two K teacher colleagues got a sense of this and whisked him away. Photos were taken, an interview was done, and this is the result. Sometimes, you just have to shake your head, smile and be grateful for parents who send a change of clothing right down to socks and shoes!

Teacher: Was the mud fun?

Boy: “Yeah, SO MUCH FUN! We were playing a game, we had to cover the mud with rocks and the ground where the sand was, but NO woodchips! Eight of us, we didn’t cover all the mud, though we’ll finish on MONDAY!”

Not sure about that!

Thank you to my dear colleagues who rescued me from going over the edge!

Yes, Genius Hour in Kindergarten!

Posted on March 10, 2013 by canteach

I have been reading a lot about Genius Hour and have been inspired by my own district’s Gallit Zvi and her journey with integrating it in her classroom. The teacher of our Grade Five buddy class went to a workshop that Gallit ironically spoke at and decided to integrate it into her class. Wow, am I ever lucky that our classes are buddies! Her Grade Fives have been doing amazing work during their genius hour time.

So, as January came to a close and we noticed that the kindies in my class were becoming more independent and fully capable of using iPads, we set them to work with their buddies in our first Kindergarten Genius Hour project. Because this was our first time, we had to put some parameters around it. I know, I know, less direction the better when it comes to Genius Hour… but you have to give us some credit for loosening most of the strings!

Our kindies thought of something that they would like to learn about and brainstormed some questions about the topic. The topics and questions that my kindies, yes FIVE year olds, were thinking of were beyond my imagination. They were vibrating with excitement at the possiblity of actually controlling what they were going to learn about. Some of the topics that were decided on were cowboys, cars, dresses, birds, and owls.

Then the magic happened. The Grade Fives paired up with their Kindergarten buddies and off they went. Engagement, conversation, collaboration, and critical thinking just happened… and we, the teachers, were minimally involved. After meeting every Friday morning for a few weeks, the kids were ready to present their finding in a Keynote presentation. I was so proud! Our kindies confidently presented with their big buddies beside them helping them along the way.

I am excited to further explore Genius Hour more in our class, with the assistance of our big buddies. We will now be changing the name of “big buddies time” to “Genius Hour”! I also can’t wait to show the parents how much we are learning, once agian, from playing around in Kindergarten!

If you would like more information on Genius Hour, Gallit Zvi has some excellent posts on her blog here: Integrating Technology: My Journey

Below is a sample of some slides from a priceless presentation on Ninja Turtles.

Your School’s Online Presence

Posted on March 5, 2013 by canteach

I recently read a blog post written titled Apparently My School Sucks where Greg Miller writes how his school fared on the Fraser Institute rankings based on their Provincial Achievement Tests that are given to their Grades 3 and 6 students. As the title hints, you can guess that they didn’t do so well! At the end of his post, Miller links to a great video about his school and the wonderful initiatives they are taking part in, showing that his school is a much better place than what the Fraser Institute presented.

This got me thinking about the current online presence of our school. I hope it is not simply a Fraser Institute ranking. When people are Googling our school, what are they seeing?

Almost two years ago, when I was told the name of the school where I was to be the new Vice Principal, the first thing I did was look at our district website. Here, I was able to see the school’s student enrolment, address, teachers, and presentation of self through a dull boring photo of mostly a parking lot (yawn). Then, I went to Google. Here I found a video of a girl (presumably a student at my school) running around our field screaming (woo hoo some excitement), some old pictures on Facebook that ex students had posted (future blackmailing possibilities), AND the Fraser Institute ranking…

A parent last year told me during Kindergarten interviews that she and her husband moved from another province with no ties to the community and decided on living in the north area of our district because it was close to her husband’s work. Before they bought a house, they looked online and found that the Fraser Institute ranked our school as one of the highest scored school in the area (which isn’t that high, believe me!). So, they proceeded to buy a house near our school and register their children here. That’s it!. (Boo hoo to all the other schools in the north who lost out on a great family just because the only info this family could find online was the Fraser Institute’s!). I was shocked that they made their decision as a result of one source. But, as she explained, they knew no one, they had never been here and had no idea of how to find more information. They wanted their children to start school in September and were on a tight schedule, so there you go.

Where can people look for the other valuable information that we like to hold up high? Where can people find how dedicated our staff is; how happy, engaged, and safe our students feel; and how we celebrate successes and overcome difficulties?…

I believe that we are on our way to providing a more rich online presence now that we have blogs, a class website, photos of our celebrations, and our school plan easily found through our district’s website, but I can’t help feeling that we need to do more.

A new set of Kindergarten parents are trickling in to register their children at our school for September. This is such a great opportunity to put our best foot forward, not only in person but online. I don’t want parents to rely on the Fraser Institute results to help them decide what school to send their children to. I want them to see that we are more successful than that!

What is your school’s online presence?

Hello Spring!

Posted on April 14, 2012 by canteach

Hello springy sights, sounds, smells, and feelings! I am glad you are finally creeping into our classroom.

After the much needed rest during spring break and Easter, we have hit the ground running yet again. Literacy centres and guided reading are still generating shouts as though it was announced it was an inside recess day. I’ve now brought in the iPad to reach those kids need some extra TLC and for those who believe they are the next Mark Zuckerberg. In particular we have been playing with the “Smarty Pants School” app. It is so perfect for the classroom. You can upload different students and after an assessment, each of them can play at their own pace through letter recognition, phonemic awareness, and site word games. Fabulous app!

One of our learning outcomes is to be able to identify characteristics of the different seasons. When fall changes to winter and when winter changes to fall, I always sing the goodbye season song (in the Spring songs and poems section in CanTeach, see the link below). We sang goodbye to all things winter and then hello to all things spring. After singing it and reading enough books about the coming season to become experts, it was time to assess. I created this sheet for my firsties to record characteristics of winter and characteristics of spring. Yes I could have just asked them, but then I wouldn’t have a nice piece of work to show off! Here is a printable of the “Goodbye Winter Hello Spring” sheet.

Many of you are studying eggs and chicks right now since the Easter season has just passed. This is a favourite activity of mine that I love doing every year. It is a spin off activity from an oldie but a goodie book, “The Golden Egg Book” by Margaret Wise Brown. There are a few different versions of illustrations of this book out there. I don’t know maybe Little Golden Books was trying to keep up with the times, but this version is THE BEST. My mom bought it for me at a garage sale when I was in the teacher education program and I fell in love with it as soon as I saw the cover. It’s so beautifully illustrated and this bunny compared to the other ones is the sweetest by far! So, if you come across this version, buy it!

Okay, on to the activity. I read up to the part where the bunny falls asleep beside the egg after trying hard to break it and find out what’s inside. Then I ask the kids what they think is inside the egg. OMG, you will be surprised at the kind of answers you get. Yes, you’ll get every bird imaginable, but year after year I always get someone who thinks that there is a chocolate bunny inside. I guess that’s what they would hope is inside if they came across an egg. My favourite this year was “I think a burping chicken is in the egg.” Ummm, okay, but I’m surprised that he didn’t say that it was a farting chicken.

Here is a printable for everyone to record their prediction of what’s inside.

And… you can’t celebrate spring without looking at cherry blossoms and emphasizing that it is not a good idea to throw handfuls of rocks at them just so you can bathe in the petals (we had several injuries the other day). Let mother nature take its course and wait for a windy day.

I have to credit my grade one teaching buddy for this one. I’ve done the boring tissue paper cherry blossoms and this was a nice change. Make foamy paint by mixing equal parts shaving cream and white glue, then add food colouring, and voila. Gorgeous and fun to use!

Finally, here are some spring songs and poems related to the months of April and May as well.

Happy Teaching!
Iram

Why Can’t we all Just be Friends?

Posted on March 18, 2012 by canteach

It’s been ages since my last post. At this time our province and teachers are in the middle of emotionally charged contract negotiations. So, it has been a little melancholic around here lately, which has made it really hard to write. Time to share, though, I can’t let another week go by without gushing about my Firsties!

As I have gone on about in other posts, my class is a tough group. It’s the kind of class that makes you seriously rethink your teaching career and run for the hills so you can live in a small cabin with no chance of a child interrupting your solitude; however, as the past few weeks have proven, they are also extremely kind and caring. We have had two students leave our class family within one week and the reponse their classmates had was… well, let’s say very surprising to me. I honestly didn’t think they’d really notice and that they’d be able to move on.

We knew about one of the students ahead of time so we made her a little book about things that we would miss with her leaving. Now this little girl (by little, I really mean little, she’s a tiny thing) is spunky, funny, and very caring. My students, not missing on an opportunity to be silly wrote about the following things that they would miss with her leaving:

I will miss when _____ barks and whines like a dog.
I will miss _____ nibbling on my shirt at story time.
I will miss picking _____ up and carry her around on the playground.
I will miss _____ jumping and spinning around.
I will miss _____ playing with my hair.
I will miss _____ hanging off my arm.
I will miss how _____ makes cards for me.

Not your traditional good bye book, but these came straight from their hearts. It’s a given that they will miss their fellow classmate because she is kind, caring, and fun… but these reasons are what makes their friendship unique and irreplaceable

Right before spring break began we had another student move suddenly. We found out at recess and had to pack up all of his things for him to leave by the end of the day. Despite it being the last day of school before spring break, having two performance groups to watch in the gym and crazy fun time in between, they were all sad. I eavesdropped on a number of private conversations that kids who I thought hated him were having with him. They were filled with just as much care as they had put in the good bye book they made earlier in the week.

My students will move on, new friendships will be made, but I hope that they will remember for the rest of their lives how much people that they met in school do actually care about them.

Not surprisingly, this theme area was a great one for my students to do. I think our friendship unit has been one of the most engaging themes I have done all year. In a past post I shared a friendship interview sheet. LOOK at my students, they are actually working!!! I had NO behaviour issues through this and they were so proud to share what they learned about their friend.

I have to do this again, so here is part two of the friendship interview.

This is a great book by Nancy Carlson for your friendship unit. I use it every year.

How to Lose All Your Friends book thumbnail

After reading this book, we worked through qualities of friendship that are valued and behaviours that prevent friendships and the students recorded their thoughts on this sheet.

… and here is a booklet students can make to go along with the friendship poem “I Have a Friend”.

Happy Teaching!
Iram

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Happy Valentine’s Day!

Posted on February 13, 2012 by canteach

I’m so glad Valentine’s day is here, my class has been desperately waiting for a day to indulge themselves in candy, chocolates, and craftiness. Christmas and Valentine’s Day, the two holidays when glitter bombs the classroom. As soon as the Valentine themed calendar display went up, the kids have been counting down!

I read this headline in the newspaper today: “There’s No Gift Problem Chocolate Can’t Solve”. Yep, that about sums it all for me. Honestly, I’d take chocolate over jewellery any day! Last year, I made myself some chocolate covered strawberries for the first time. They were so much easier to make than I expected and oh so good! You just have to melt chocolate chips and dip the strawberries in it. Yes, that easy! “What is that? Oh yes I’ll have another, don’t mind if I do”.

Okay enough about chocolate, let’s go to the classroom. Like I said, glitter glitter all around. Here’s a decoration we made to hang in the room. It was very simple, we just cut out hearts and then finger painted with the brightest pinks, reds, and whites we could find. Finger painting is so good for those kids who can’t control themselves. They go nuts with the paint… which in the end makes their project look so beautiful!

I also printed out x’s and o’s on which they glittered any which way they wanted. Another great thing for the kids who can’t control themselves, but not good for you or your custodian as glitter gets into every corner of the room and every orifice on your body. Watch your kids when they glue the letters on, we got a few gluing “ox” instead of “xo”! Here’s an XO template you can print off. This was harder than I thought it would be to find on the internet, so I just made up one myself (which probably took less time than the time I spent Googling and Pinteresting!).

In our literacy centres I included the following activity. This was the first time my class did a words around the room job. I thought it would be chaos, but the groups worked well together and enjoyed the challenge of finding as many words as they could.

Enjoy Valentine’s Day and the love and friendship around you!

Happy Teaching,
Iram

Love Is In the Air!

Posted on February 2, 2012 by canteach

crayon heart

Valentine’s Day is approaching and my firsties are getting flirtatious. I know, I know, Grade One, gasp… but it is so funny. One girl today received a beautiful portrait of her and a special paper crown made with hearts and written on it was “I love you.” (complete sentence upper case letter, period, perfect!). Anyway, the receiver was not too pleased at all. She was embarrassed and… can a six year old be offended?! She was offended.

Off I went to find out who the admirer was; the receiver would not let up. Clues included paper scraps, a glue with no lid on it, and crayons stashed in the corner between my desk and shelf. Soon enough some “friends” came to rat one of their own out. I was not convinced that it was the boy they were naming, though… this boy can barely write his own name legibly let alone write a full sentence! But, I did my due diligence, pulled him aside and asked him if he was the admirer. He fessed up right away. After praising him on writing so well, he admitted that he convinced another boy to write it out for him because, “Mrs, Khan, I can’t write.” (with the emphasis on the “I” meaning, “well duh, of course I had to get someone else to write it!”). He also asked one of our grade 7 lunch monitors to draw a picture of his love (it was also suspiciously a little too stylized). He then said with a sigh, “I love ____, she’s sooo beautiful.” Here’s a pic of the remnants of his present. Oh boy, he’s got it bad!

I returned it to the girl and she proceeded to rip it up. Thankfully her admirer was off smashing puzzle pieces. Of course then after school I dug through the recycling bin because I just had to share the story with you!

Now this event got me going on revisiting my cut and paste centre (I don’t know why I call it that, it’s a place where kids can do arts and crafts, draw, write stories, etc…), I’m going to put in some materials to make Valentine cards and write Valentine stories with including some words on card stock that they can use to help them write (no anonymity allowed!). Here’s a printable of some fancy Valentine words for you.

As many of you do, I use this time of year to talk about friendship and the qualities of a good friend. One of my favourite activities is this friend interview. I pair up students who usually do not play or sit together and get them to interview each other. It’s a great way to practice listening and patience (ahhh, great qualities in a friend!).

And last but not least, here are some Valentine and friendship songs and poems that are on CanTeach:

Happy Teaching,
Iram

Snowballed!

Posted on January 26, 2012 by canteach

Ahhh, guided reading / literacy centres, I love you and I hate you. I love that I can cram a whole bunch of skills practice into my students through you, but managing you strains my limits every year.

Last summer when I started to wrap my brain around teaching grade one again (you know when you go on maternity leave your school brain, the brain that deals with lesson planning, assessments, and all the formalities of teaching falls out of your head as you are saying your last goodbyes), I discovered Daily 5. Everyone was talking about it, so I Facebooked, Googled, and Pinterested it. Wow, Daily 5 was like my knight in shining armour, galloping on his trusty stead to save me from guided reading chaos. I was amazed at how simple Daily 5 is and why the heck I didn’t think of it before! So, I read the book, made some cute posters, and began to plan some lessons to build my students’ “stamina”.

Now this is why when you go to school to become a teacher they emphasize “get to know your students BEFORE you plan”. We all think “uh, yeah, but I want to plan, I want to get things done ahead of time! Get me teaching!” As I have mentioned in a past post, my students ended up being a very challenging group. They needed a lot of maturing.

I began guided reading and literacy centres during the second week of school after Christmas holidays. I don’t think I’ll be doing Daily 5 until we build our stamina for it and I’m HOPING that will be by spring break. In the meantime, literacy centres it will be and I will be wining and dining my photocopier so that it will be nice to me and not jam in the middle of photocopying the hundreds of pages of booklets and game boards I need.

It’s a fine balance you need to go through to create literacy centres. I’m always asking myself if it is all worth it? Will my firsties really learn anything from them? Well, it depends. I’m learning that this group of kids love games and hands on activities. But, booklets, fill in the blanks to a story?… not so much. I love it when I hit a home run with a literacy centre and when my students all can’t wait until it is their turn to go through it. I also love it when they cheer when I introduce new literacy centres every week. This is what keeps me going with them; although, I have a feeling they will also love Daily 5, when the time comes.

Here are two stations that I have set up.

Snowball Alphabet

This is so simple and occupies a group for all the time you need to get through guided reading with another group.

What you Need:

copies of game board
enough gloves or mittens for each student in the group
bingo dabbers (preferably blue)
26 small styrofoam balls with an upper case letter of the alphabet written on each one.
a toque or a bag to put all the balls in

How to Play:
Each student gets their own game board and puts on a pair of gloves or mittens. Each student then takes turns to draw one ball out of the toque and dabs with the bingo dabber the lower case letter that matches what they pulled out. After dabbing, put the ball back in the toque and the next student goes. If the letter has already been dabbed on the student’s game board they return the ball to the toque without dabbing any letter. Keep playing until a set time or until the whole game board is filled.

Note:

Students need to know how to take turns, yes a novel concept in grade one but this is VERY important or you will have a lot of hitting, screaming and grabbing… not a good quiet environment for guided reading!
Students need to know that a bingo dabber is closed for a reason and that ripping the spongy part of it makes a giant mess (as my carpet at my last school can attest to, sorry to whoever is in there now).
Students need to know not to dab the ink onto their gloves and then proceed to rub their faces, it takes a whole lot of scrubbing to come off and you will have to walk around for the next two days looking like you have bruises all over your face (this happened to one of my kiddos last week).

Challenge:
And you ask, “what about those students who know their letters of the alphabet and will be bored by this game”? One, no one gets bored by this game… okay, well if it goes on and on it does get kind of boring! Two, well, here you go. Write sight words or winter words on the balls and your game board.
Both versions are ready for you to print above.

Every week I try to scramble a poem that we have learned the week before. Students cut out the words and glue them back in the right order. You can also print these out on card stock and laminate them. Students can then race to put them in order on their tables. Here is a scrambled up version of The Snowman and they Bunny by Pearl H. Watts.

Throughout the next few weeks I will share literacy centres that have worked with my firsties, maybe they will work with yours!

Happy teaching!
Iram

Snow Has Arrived in the Greater Vancouver Area!

Posted on January 9, 2012 by canteach

Once a year we go through this. The city may as well shut down as a result of a few centimeters of snow. It is a miracle that anything gets done when there is snow. This is especially true at school, because come on, can you concentrate on learning that “the magic ‘e’ makes the ‘a’ say it’s own name” when there is wonderful, untouched, glistening snow calling you? So, I’m not going to get too hung up if my firsties do not give themselves over 100% to guided reading, ten frames, or learning about magnetic properties. Yawn! While I’m teaching I know that what they will be thinking about is the snowball fight they are going to have (yes, the making and throwing of snowballs is banned at my school but the kids seem to not know that), how much air time they can get while sliding down our mini hill using just their pants (because no one around here owns appropriate gear for sledding), and what kind of manpower is needed to make a snowman as tall as the school.

I am not a snow person. I love having snow outside as I stay indoors to wear my snuggly (I am proud to own a snuggly, it is awesome!), watch movies and drink hot chocolate. I don’t snowboard, ski, toboggan, or build snowmen. But, now I have a 4 year old and a 1 year old. I have to get over it…. and there’s one thing that trumps my discomfort with being out in the snow, it’s the whining and whimpering from a 4 and 1 year old!

Well, I guess I can get my butt out there and enjoy the excitement that is generated when snow meet children. But, inside, you can guarantee that there will be a lot of snowmen and snowflakes being drawn and made using every craft supply readily available.

This is a darling snowman craft I do every year. It takes a lot of work and nimble fingers to tie all that string (I would suggest getting some helpers to do this), but the kids love doing it and it is a nice way to decorate your classroom. Another bonus, you can keep it up until spring!

If you would like to try this, here is a template for you that includes the circles for the body, arms, scarf and boots. I get the kids to make their own hats and noses and then they decorate the snowmen however they want. Some years, depending on the amount of help I have in the classroom, I have just trace this on white cardstock for every child and they just have to cut and decorate. If your students are okay with tracing on their own, you can just photocopy these on cardstock and use them as tracers for them to use on their own.

I’m also going to do this. I found it on Pinterest, originally from the Random Thoughts of a Supermom blog. I know it calls for unopened juice boxes, which is a great idea for a winter party, but we gather enough juice boxes each week to fill a trailer truck. I may as well try to use some for a craft. So cute and easy!

If you need some poems and songs related to snow, winter, and January, here are some we have gathered on CanTeach.

Happy Teaching!
Iram

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