Bieber Fever!

Our group did our Canadian Artist Presentation on Justin Bieber! Yes I know Justin Bieber, you are probably gagging a little bit... but there was a motive behind it! All of us mentioned that we have heard Justin Bieber's name in our practicum classrooms, and he is a very popular Canadian artist so it seemed perfect. If you are not making some sort of connection to your students when you teach... why are you doing it? As new teachers, we cannot drive our students a certain direction, so why not embrace where they are going?? We have all said it a million times... meaningful learning will be much more successful. If Justin Bieber is important to our students and his music will help them in their academics, why not include it into lessons? We will not always get to choose what we teach, and there will be times where we do not like it, or are uncomfortable teaching it but we must keep the students' learning at the top of our priority list. 

Not a creature was stirring…. not even a mouse!

Christmas is my favourite time of year and I cannot wait to teach during the holidays! I hope to bring as many elements of Christmas and the season into my classroom as I can. The Grinch is a common story that most of your students will be familiar with, and what a great idea to post this little poem by your desk for the students. Every student will have those days where they are grumpy, and giving them the okay to feel that way if a good way to build rapport. I think I would ensure to take a Grinch Pill (green tic tac) every now and then too so my students were comfortable with going to grab one when they felt grumpy themselves! 

Two Rivers Gallery

I really enjoyed our visit to the Two Rivers Art Gallery last Thursday. We went in our first year as well, although this time the lesson planning component was really neat! I liked going in our first year, but it was hard to imagine it being really useful because it was in our first couple weeks and we were all pretty oblivious I think... It is much more effective going later in the Education program because we have all had a chance to teach art and can get a better idea for what each grade level is capable of. 

I worked at CNC during the summer with international students and took them to the Art Gallery for a field trip. It was really cool to see how the students reacted to the art. My students were Korean, so there was a big language barrier, but art has its own language that doesn't necessarily need to be verbal which is great! The lady that took us through the gallery for our tour mentioned this too, that the artwork can be displayed for any grade level. If the real meaning behind the artwork is a little vulgar or aggressive for a younger audience, you don't need to go into the nitty gritty detail. 

I think field trips can be so beneficial if they are planned and organized well. There are many companies and organizations around Prince George who are more than willing to do tours with students. 

Just Dance!

While I was on my practicum I got ahold of a really great resource! One of the teachers in my school had the entire Just Dance game on a USB stick. Just Dance is a dancing video game where you are meant to mimic the dancing moves on the TV. I took my class along with the grade 1 and 2 classes to the gym and put the video up on the big screen so everyone could see it easily. I would turn off the lights and ask the kids to spread out to make sure they could dance with all the space they needed! It was a great PE activity to keep them all engaged and it ended up being a great work out for them! It was easy to tell when the students were getting anxious or losing interest, we usually lasted for about 5 or 6 songs maximum. I was a little uneasy using the game at first because of the clothing and dancing moves in the videos, but the other teachers informed me this is what these kids have grown up around and it is what they know. 

Below is a link for one of the many songs I used:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkc62sOdmDk

Delilah the Spider!

Here is my sample I created to show my students for one of our Halloween art projects, Delilah the Spider. Prior to doing the lesson with my class, I cut out the circle templates for the body and strips of paper for the legs for each student. The skills I wanted the students to work on for this lesson was folding, colouring and glueing so it was not necessary for them to create the templates themselves... and there would not be enough time in a day for that in a kindergarten class! I gave the students the freedom to put however many legs and eyes they wanted on their spider, it was really neat to see the individuality come out in each students' final project. Before I sent the students out on their own with the task, I modelled how to fold the legs because it was a new skill for the class. They picked up on it very quickly and I only had to help a couple students as I walked around the room during their independent work. 

We Will Always Remember

The Art Show was a great success! There were so many wonderful art projects created by the entire cohort, with a variety of ideas. I was in a kindergarten class for practicum and I was unable to get a whole class set of art projects due to the little time given with the permission forms, so my teacher and I decided it was the best to do a collaborative sample as a class and submit that for the Art Show. We created a poppy and named it We Will Always Remember to honour all the people who fought in the war for Canada. I introduced the idea of Remembrance Day with a child-friendly book and a class discussion to see where my students' understanding was, and it turned into a great discussion with complete engagement and lots of questions. The actual poppy was created with the use of crepe paper, construction paper and water. It was age-appropriate and I would do it in another kindergarten class if the opportunity arose. In my original art lesson plans I had it as a finger painting activity, although my CT and I decided that the students weren't at the skill level to use the paint so crepe paper was used as an alternative.

Importance of Remembrance Day

Remembrance Day is a very significant day in my home. My brother is currently in the military, my dad was in the RCMP for 35 years and my uncle was in the Navy for 22 years. Each year on Remembrance Day our family attends the ceremony and march that happens in downtown Prince George. My dad is retired from the RCMP as of this year and no longer marches in the parade, but he did every year previous. My brother used to march in it along with my dad before he moved to Ontario to join the Royal Military College for a career as a fighter pilot. I think it's really important that we all take the time to respect the people who fought in the war for Canada, as well as respect the people who are currently in the military. It is a little closer to home attending the ceremony each year now, knowing that my little brother could potentially have to go overseas one day himself. There are a few small elements of art included in the ceremony and march each year such as the musical instruments played, poetry and letters read, traditional dances and the march itself. 

Barn Wedding!

My sister is getting married next summer, and this is the barn she is getting married in! It looks a little rough and non-wedding appropriate right now, but it will be beautiful once we clean it out and decorate it for the big day. Her fiancé's grandparents have a gorgeous property out in Beaverly where the ceremony and reception will take place. I am the maid of honour in the wedding, so there is a little bit of pressure to make sure it all works out! Her theme is 'country chic' and the colour scheme is pastel pink and grey. Most of the decor consists of burlap, lace, pink fabrics and hay bails! We are doing all the decorating ourselves... it will be tons of work amoungst the friends and family helping out, but well worth it! I love the idea of a simple, casual country wedding. People are beginning to go crazy with weddings now and putting themselves into a ridiculous amount of debt for one day!! 

Magic School Bus

In our first year science course, we were instructed to create a dramatized science lesson in groups. Our group (Myself, Jordan, Jesslyn, Evan, Ida-Mae) decided to create a lesson about the solar system, using the Magic School Bus as inspiration! Everything you see in the picture, we made from scratch!! The lesson was intended to be approximately an hour, so we had to be really creative in the activities we did. We all took on the identity of one of the students in Ms. Frizzle's class and did a skit at the beginning to mimick the TV show episode that went along with it. After we did the skit and some minor explanation, we had the class create their own planets with art supplies we brought for everyone. The class was instructed to be as creative and open minded as they could! The lesson worked out really well because we had the resources and space to make it work! It might not be that realistic for a real classrom due to the prep work and space required. It may be a neat activity to do with a few classes and do in a gym. 

Kenny Chesney in Vegassss!

Last year I went to Las Vegas in April with my mom and sister once we were done school for the semester. We all loveeeee country music and we were lucky enough to see Kenny Chesney in concert while we were there! It was in a really small venue and felt really intimate because there weren't too many people in the audience. He's such a great performer and did a great job of connecting with everyone in the building. I have been to several concerts, but this was one of my favourites because it was in such a small venue; it is easier to connect with the performer when there aren't as many people. Singing is such a neat talent, kudos for Kenny figuring it out because I definitely haven't figured it out yet!

Taz the Raz

I liked this activity we did in class following along with Willow's drawing, although my Taz looks nothing like hers did! I remember doing this in one of my intermediate classes using a grid to copy the image in small pieces, and even then my image still never looked the same as the original! I am not a fan of drawing, I have never been very good at it and therefore don't enjoy it all that much. I took this as a 'copying' activity more than a 'drawing' activity. This would be a neat activity to do at any age, you could easily adapt the complexity of the drawing. This may inhabit more interest for all learners in the class, including those who may not really LOVE drawing like myself!

Botswana Traditional Dance

When I travelled to Africa in 2012, I camped for the majority of my trip. I made a stop in a really small village in rural Botswana where I was invited to watch a traditional ceremony to celebrate the birth of a child in the village. It was really neat to see the dance, because everyone in the village participated. This photo doesn't include everyone, although there were women, children and men involved. They were singing and dancing, speaking Afrikaans in their songs. The young boys seemed to run the ceremony, with the women and young girls worshipping the elderly men. Although I didn't understand it all due to language and cultural barriers, it was a really neat experience and only made me love Africa more!

Capetown, South Africa

This is a picture taken on a beach in Capetown, South Africa. I took part in a Geography Field School to South Africa in the spring of 2012, Michelle Reid was on the trip too! During our field school we had very little 'free time' because we were all really busy doing research on the Food and Wine of South Africa. This particular afternoon the three of us went to the beach for a couple hours and drank hot chocolate in a little cafe. This photo took us about half an hour to take, because we kept trying to get the 3 of us in mid-air! We had the camera set up on the hood of the car, so it's impressive we ended up getting it at all. 

Placemat Activity

For our Aboriginal Education course we are to do a chapter presentation on our textbook. Since the beginning of the program, it is obvious that presentations with an activity of some sort is more interesting. Our group has decided to do a placemat activity to get everyone engaged in the content. We created these placemats for the class to use during the presentation. They look very basic, and they are, although it is time consuming to create something like this for an entire class! The colours represent the 4 seasons of the year and different forms of spirituality. Once we present the material, I will post another photo of one of the placemats filled out by the class!

Dance Performance

Over the weekend I had a surprise 30th birthday party. There were quite a few young kids at the party, and their present to their dad was a dance performance they had arranged to the song Gangham Style! It was a neat performance and the kids absolutely loved being on the stage infront of everyone. The youngest guy was 3yrs old, and the oldest girls were 12yr old twins. The girls ran the show for the most part, but all of them were just as involved, it was really cute! I remember doing this same thing, although mostly just for fun rather than as a performance infront of a bunch of people.

Halloween Play

I am a huge fan of Halloween and everything that goes with it. I got wind of some exciting news the other day. There is a scary movie called Evil Dead that came out sometime last year, and the Prince Gerorge Playhouse is hosting a musical version of Evil Dead. I am usually not a huge fan of musical plays, although I am a huge fan of scary movies and Halloween, so I really hope to get tickets to this play. It will be really cool to see the makeup, stage set up and costumes that the directors and producers come up with. There will be many different forms of art included in the creation of the play, which will take all sorts of talent and organization. This play may spark a different crowd due to the genre, which I think is a good thing to diversify the audience for future plays as well.