Goodbye My Blogger Friends!

I have enjoyed the blogging experience, but mostly sharing ideas and seeing other creations by people in the class!

I attached a picture from my final year at University. It was our final home game as seniors. Which meant after the rest of our away games we were officially retired and must move onto bigger things!

I guess I was just reflecting that it is as if we are all seniors, we are in the home stretch and have 4 weeks of school left... till we move onto ... TEACHING!

Field Trip...

This is one of the 'how's' to art... how to integrate art into the classroom... FIELD TRIP! I really enjoyed the entire tour of the gallery. I think they are such a great resource for Prince George teachers. I hope you all staying in here will take your class there for rich field trips.

I loved the Nathalie Daoust photography and I sent my picture off to Trevor to get him pumped for our cruise! I had a picture of myself really excited and filled the back in with a Caribbean scene.

I think it would be a really neat idea to integrate into the classroom. I was thinking about that time we did the fantasy land pictures. It would be fun to use that idea during language arts and integrate art through the same type of layered pictures. Students could previously brainstorm and draw their fantasy land in their head. After that I would tell the students to strike a pose of someone in that land! You could then make up the pictures on transparency paper and have students create their land behind or in front of them! It would be so fun and students would love it, especially if we all did so much!

I think this field trip showed how myself how important it is for teachers to take themselves on field trips for great ideas!

Another idea could be to focus on black and white pictures like Nathalie Daoust did. I think black and white pictures are very rich and full of meaning. I have attached some pictures to share that myself or my friend Jessica has taken.

Santa Claus is Coming to Town!

Well, I have to say that I enjoyed the potluck...good food, good songs, and lots of laughs! Christmas really does bring people together through all of those factors. It was a lot of fun to dress up and have a little break from school. It is nice to hang out with people outside of the school setting, this is something we should remember once we are teaching! Get to know the staff outside of the school.

As for our potluck, I really enjoyed it. I think the recorder players and the drummers did very well! Rob and Mike did a fabulous job keeping us entertained. I enjoyed singing, Jingle Bell Rock with Linda, Alison, Carly, and Josie.... and of course everyone else backing us up!

Everyone brought tons of food and seemed to really enjoy themselves. I think it is a really nice idea because it gives us a chance to talk to the first year cohorts and think back at how time goes so fast...and tell them soon it will be them up entertaining! We only have 1 final semester:) The potluck was a great way to finish this semester off.

Art Integration Using Little Bear Vision Quest!

I thought since people in class are ordering the resource book, Little Bear Vision Quest, I thought I should write a blog about it. I did this lesson during my first practicum, which was in a grade two class. I read the first half of the story, which is about Little Bear being a bad friend and he gets sent to an isolated island by his Grandfather to think about his actions. At this point I stopped for the day and had the students brainstorm some ideas about what it looks like to not be a good friend. We wrote down ideas and then I had the students complete a connection to the story for language arts.
The next day we followed up with the rest of the story. The rest of the story is about Little Bear reflecting and realizing his actions hurt others. The whale comes and gets him to take him back home to his friends and family once he realizes how much he hurt other people. It is an amazing story! After this last half of the story I had the students brainstorm friendship. The flowers below are the outcome of that lesson! The students were in groups of 5 and I had each student write their meaning of friendship on a petal. The students then created flowers with their 5 petals with friendship words on them!
I'm a true believer that this resource has so much to offer in the way of neat lessons that integrate to any part of the art curriculum! Check out the pictures and that is one of many lessons!

Math Songs in the Classroom!

This is a copy of the cover of one of Ron Brown's CD's. Ron Brown used to be a teacher and now he writes math songs that can be used in the classroom. I think his songs are awesome and I have seen the success in the classroom.
I bought these long green, witch like fake fingers that actually come in a class set and can be used alongside the CD. I had the student's in my grade two practicum each put on a green finger and I gave them each a 100's chart. I then played some of Ron Brown's songs from this CD. The CD works on various skip counting. The students sang along, pointing to the numbers with their gruesomely fun fingers! They loved it and for the remainder of the day as they were doing work I could hear some of the students singing his skip counting songs! It definitely shows that integrating music into the classroom will help those musical learners. I'll attach a website with various math songs but you could always google his name if you are interested in buying a CD. It is a great way to make math fun!
My mom uses his CD as well and she is a grade 5 teacher. There are all sorts of fun songs like place value rap or the twelve times table and much more! Hope you all consider it and if you go to see Kim Sutton on a Pro D day one day you can buy his CD's there and the class set of long green fingers!
http://www.songsforteaching.com/mathsongs.htm

Lest We Forget

Remembrance Day is an important part of my life because I grew up listening to stories from my grandparents. I'm actually named after my Great Grandma, Sarah McAteer, who was a war bride from Ireland. She met my Great Gramps while he was in WWI over fighting and they got married Christmas day, 1918.

My grandpa now is a huge support of veterans and spends all his hours during November out in the malls raising money through poppy donations for war veterans. H can also be found in the classrooms showing Elementary students his WWI trench battle sword that he inherited from his God-father.

I grew up listening to stories and the importance that we take a moment on November 11th, to remember those who fought in wars and are still fighting today. I actually e-mailed my gramps to say enjoy Remembrance Day and he sent me an e-mail back.

During WWII he was too young to go fight but he had several brothers who went over and fought, as well as two sisters who were nurses. Part of his e-mail said, "There are so many individual adventures and war stories/events that the big brothers were able to tell when they were safely returned in 1945. They all agreed that WAR is terrible and should be avoided at all costs but when dictators, oligarchists and terrorists strike innocent countries and peoples, the free world must step in and help. They believed in ORDER and good government."

That is my Remembrance Day story for now and I believe it is an extremely important part of culture and who we are.

Art in the Classroom and the Art Show

Firstly, I'll start by saying I loved teaching art in the classroom. The day we made Inuksuk's I was curious as to whether my predictions were correct with timing. Turns out the students loved working with the rocks to create their very own Inuksuk. I had planned well by bringing in a volunteer from the community to help by having an extra hand for the hot glue gun...thank you Mrs. Cutler! She came to the class and I had Susan Aglukark who is from Nunavut, playing in the background. We all sang, danced, and built our Inuksuk. The Inuksuk ended up being a hit in the school that they are going to be sold at the school's Art Auction in December!

Second, our Children's Art Show was amazing and very enjoyable. All the students really enjoyed coming. Since I was assessing students to show a willingness to work with the materials during my art lesson, it was hard to chose only 5 students to attend. I ended up inviting students who tend to not get recognized in the classroom. I felt by doing this it allowed those students to gain confidence in their abilities and even become more interested in art. All 5 of my students ended up coming and they all enjoyed themselves. They walked around and checked out all the art pieces and came back to me with suggested art projects they would like to do! It is such a great way to celebrate and bring creative ideas to everyone involved.

Overall, I feel the Art Show was well worth while. Everyone in EY-07 seemed to really enjoyed themselves and pitched in where they could to make it a success!