When I first received my position at “S-School” in 2013 I was over-the-moon excited to get a permanent position in a small rural school that was only a ten minute drive from our home. Although my schedule didn’t exactly match my teachable background I was told that my schedule would eventually included those classes as the years went on. Here we are three years later and I am THRILLED to share that my principal has definitely spoiled me and I will be going back to work in the fall to my dream teaching schedule 🙂 I… Read More
First Steps in Math – Day 1
Today I began the First Steps in Math program with four other educators from our division. Several years ago our division sent one of our colleagues to the First Steps in Math training program and he has now spent time each year educating other teachers in our division and was actually trained by David McKillop, who I saw last year in Brandon. My new books (provided by our division): the First Steps in Math Number Sense course book & work book. First Steps in Math was developed in Australia in the early 1990’s as a means… Read More
How Much Time Is Enough?
In Manitoba students will be back in the classroom in approximately three weeks… three seemingly-short weeks… and I am beginning to plan out how those crucial first few hours, days, and then weeks, will play out in my classroom. When I look back at the beginning of last year, my first year in the classroom, I strongly feel like everything went as smooth as it could have been. I had over planned to compensate for my lack of experience, nervousness, and excitement… the students were reserved while they got used to the new setting and were pretty accommodating… Read More
Canada Day Blog Hop!
Happy (early) Canada Day! I’m linking up with Desiree at Reading with Mrs. D to participate in her Canada Day Blog Hop (and sale). Unfortunately, I don’t have a TPT store to participate in the sale portion of the event, but I can offer up some freebies from my classroom! (Click on the links to access the files via Dropbox) ________________________________________________ Editable Math Poster Set – Rainbow These posters outline criteria for mathematical thinking and were inspired by ones created by Sidney at Teaching is a Gift! What Makes A Good Blog Post – Student Blogging Outline A close-up view of my “What Makes… Read More
2014-2015 Teaching Schedule
It feels like I am in a time-warp, as I vividly remember writing this post last year when I got my teaching schedule for my VERY FIRST year as a teacher. Somehow, it has been over a year since that time… oh, where did the time go!? I am now almost finished up my first year at “S-School” and I have gotten my teaching schedule for next year. I am happy to announce that I will get to remain as the Grade 8 homeroom teacher (although I will still have classes ranging from Grade 8 to Grade… Read More
No Notes? No Problem!
This year I’ve struggled with my Grade 9 Math class, a concern that I’ve mentioned a few times during my embarrassingly infrequent 2 Stars & A Wish posts. While there is no note-worthy behavioural challenges, this particular group of students is incredibly diverse in their foundational math skills & we have everything from Middle School to post-High School levels. Furthermore, there are still a few students who are still adjusting to the different requirements of High School compared to Middle School (although this transition is fairly smooth being in a K-12 school). I have been trying my best to differentiate… Read More
End of Term One Reflections & A Room Revamp
Thursday marked the last day of semester one in our division and it is pretty crazy to think that I have already completed HALF of my first year of teaching. When I look back at it I feel like I did A LOT but I also feel like it went by really, REALLY quickly. Friday was an administration day that we utilized to work on marking exams and completing report cards. Lucky for me, I marked ALL of my exams on the day they were written (Wednesday) so I was able to work on report card comments and… Read More
Dropping The Beat: Power Laws in The House!
In Grade 9 math we have been discussing Powers, more specifically, the six major Power Laws: – Power of a Power – Zero Exponent Law – Product of Powers – Quotient of Powers – Power of a Product – Power of a Quotient After being introduced to each of these laws (over the course of four classes) and having time to practice applying them (over the course of four classes), my Grade 9 students are now creating songs about each of these laws! In groups of 4-6, students were assigned a specific Power Law to base their song… Read More
#MTBoS Mission 7 – A Day In A Life
At the start of October I signed up to participate in #MTBoS as a way to connect with more math educators and learn about different strategies/activities that could help me as a first year math teacher. I’m not exactly sure what I did wrong, but I signed up to get the weekly challenges emailed to me and added their wordpress blog to my Feedly account and for some reason I never got any updates! 8 weeks later… I noticed that a few of the bloggers that I follow have jumped on the #MTBoS wagon and are blogging about week… Read More
Stanley the Koosh Ball!
This post is for all of you that have a SMART Board or other brand of Interactive Whiteboard in your classroom. Did you know that you can use a “Koosh Ball” to activate your board and, thus, create a kinesthetic learning opportunity for your students? Before I graduated with my B.Ed I spent a lot of time substitute teaching in a Kindergarten class near our home. As part of their morning calendar time, students reviewed months/days/years by activating review prompts on their SMART Board with a “Koosh Ball”. These rubbery balls are the perfect sensory tools if you have… Read More