The Beginning of a New Year!!!

How did it get here so quickly? I'm overwhelmed to say the least. The school year snuck up on me. I'm sitting here at my kitchen table reading my emails and realizing I have less that 48 hours left before work begins again. So I thought I might as well get the first blog entry of the year over and done with. That's right it's Saturday night, at the end of August and I'm blogging about work. You are allowed to shake your head and call me a geek. I don't mind.

I learned something interesting over the summer. I like most people believed that the summer school holidays were created to match the Victorian Era farming harvest. Well that's a myth. Check out this link to The Independent to find out about holiday myths. It turns out there are all kinds of reasons for the long break including pressure from the tourist industry and parents changed the school calendar to create a longer summertime break for the benefit of families. Other articles state that concerns for the spread of disease through insects in the summer heat may be behind the summer vacation. Read up about it. Here's another link.

So what did I do with my summer? Everyone says we have so much holiday time. They're right I do have holiday time. Technically, we're unemployed during the summer but that's not what's important. It's precious time. I didn't get into teaching for the summer. It was never even on the radar, it didn't occur to me that it would be a really great thing.  In fact the time didn't become special until I had kids. I am extremely lucky to get the time and I spend it with my kids. What a gift! I have two months to bond and share the world with my boys. It's a dream come true. I hope my kids realize how lucky they are, not every mother gets this kind of time with their kids.

I haven't really been clear about summer activities though so here goes.... I don't think I really stopped once and took a good long break. We took a bunch of day trips in and around Bruce and Grey county (mostly hiking and canoeing). My husband and I took a three day holiday where we backpacked and camped in Bruce Peninsula National Park. Nope sorry no grand world travels, just simple affordable little vacations in and around our lovely province. Oh, and I experimented with underwater photography!!! Finally, I also did an extraordinary amount of home renovation. You are now reading the words of a laminate flooring master. My kids are masters with a hammer after a summer of practice.




Summer also included reading a collection of books and book reviews so I can go shopping right at the beginning of the year and fill the library with some new titles for the kids. My son helped me with the reading, he's 12 this year so right smack in the middle of the RHL cohort. I read a great many articles on technology. Here's a link to just one of them. "Critical mistakes made with iPads". I spent a good amount of time running over my plans for both the library and our technology program.

I've spent part of the summer emailing ideas back and forth with our new Principal Mrs. Neela Zinn. I still need to work out some details but our technology should be more innovative than ever and well the RHL Library/Learning Commons will be even more dynamic than last year.

I also plan to add a photography club and an outdoor adventure club to the mix this year. What am I thinking, this sounds like an awful lot of work. The answer is it is but it will make my year fly by and I get to do things I love with a bunch of people I love being around, namely kids.

The Mansfield Trip

Here are a few photos from the Mansfield trip which by all accounts was a total success. Kids said they truly enjoyed the trip. We had cool weather and then brutally hot weather but fun was had by all. Some students slept outside on the final night on their porches. The stars were awesome that night. Thanks so much to the students for making it such a fun trip your laughter certainly brought me joy.

Investigating creatures at the pond

Searching the whole pond

Playing Instincts for Survival in the woods

Playing Hucklebuckle

Low Ropes Activities in the Barn

Getting Right in the Pond

Foot to Butt in Huckle Buckle

The Pond is filled with Tadpoles and Newts

Teachers were hunters during Instincts

Music Class on the iPads

Recently I have been working with Mrs. Caroline Singh on a music project that utilizes the app Garage Band.   We worked together to plan the project. We discussed timing and coordinating use of the iPads, along with how many periods students would need to complete their work. We also discussed the actual use of the iPads for making music.

Caroline and I decided that it would be best to stay simple for this first project. We decided to focus on teaching students how to use Garage Band rather than the actual musicality of their songs. The plan is to have them master the app itself and then next as a progression students will begin to focus on creating music that focuses on rhythm, chords, etc.
Students were very enthusiastic to learn about Garage Band. They were curious about all the different features available and spent a great deal of time experimenting with the app. They have  created some very short but interesting songs.
I've upload a few here.

Gen and Taylor song

Caroline's song

Matea's song

Nishaans song

Our plan is to take these songs and upload them into iMovie then students will utilize iMovie to edit and create music videos for their songs. The focus of the project is more on creativity and learning the apps then it is on the actual musicality of their work. We will upload some of the music videos once they are completed.

The Human Library!!!!

We recently held a Human Library event here at R.H. Lagerquist. Inspiration for the event was taken from Human Library.org.

The Human Library is an innovative method designed to promote dialogue, reduce prejudices and encourage understanding.The main characteristics of the project are to be found in its simplicity and positive approach.

In its initial form the Human Library is a mobile library set up as a space for dialogue and interaction. Visitors to a Human Library are given the opportunity to speak informally with “people on loan”; this latter group being extremely varied in age, sex and cultural background.

The Human Library enables groups to break stereotypes by challenging the most common prejudices in a positive and humorous manner. It is a concrete, easily transferable and affordable way of promoting tolerance and understanding.

It is a “keep it simple”, “no-nonsense” contribution to social cohesion in multicultural societies. Read more about the history .

The aim of the day was to expose students to the varied and vast experiences of their teachers. We wanted to show the human side of people working in the building. The goal was to open students eyes to the fact that as teachers we do more than mark tests. The event stayed small with only 12 books and we had students loan out these books in groups of about 20. We had a whole variety of different books available. Some teachers discussed their travels to other countries, or childhood experiences, others discussed trying out for Canadian Idol. We had a very good mix of books available to students.
Ideally I would have liked to search for community members that could also participate in the Human Library but for our first attempt I kept the library small. It was successful students said they really enjoyed the event. I will definitely plan another library for next year. I had included some small sound clips in this entry to give you an idea of what the Human Library was like for the kids.

Education Week and The Activities here at Lagerquist!

Education Week is quickly approaching and I find myself rushing to put together this post. I want to inform everyone of all the different activities that will be occurring here at Lagerquist. There are a lot of staff who have worked very hard to put together a variety of different activities for our students.

We decided to go with the theme.

Explore!

Our Hope was to present students with lots of opportunities to Explore information they wouldn't normally be able to experience during a normal day at school. 

So here it is.... Our Education Week line up. 

Explore Birds of Prey-

The Canadian Raptor Conservancy will present in the gym on April 23rd (presentation takes place in the gym)

Explore the Past-

Guess which baby picture belongs to which teacher. Guess them correctly and win a prize (pictures are located in the downstairs hallway)

                                          Explore Music-

Monday April 22 the beatboxing string trio Infinitus will perform in the gym.

Explore Human Experience-

Discover the human side of your teachers! Hear fascinating stories!

 Learn about the variety of human life! (Human books will be read in the library. Students can sign up for different books)

                                                                                              

Explore Ideas-

Listen to your classmates present their thoughts during the speech competition (Speeches will be presented in the library)

Explore French- Listen to and look at French Speeches, Skits, and eBooks– all created by Lagerquist students! April 26th (find the cafe located upstairs in the library)

A Water Story using Waterlife and Storybird!

Recently, several classes of grade 8 students visited the library in order to research water. They were interested in topics like water pollution, water use, the water cycle and the belugas whales in the St. Lawrence River.
Mrs. G. Singh and myself first discussed the project approximately two months before students were to arrive in the library for research sessions. Last year we utilized a Web 2.0 tool called Storybird.  It's an easy and versatile site that can be used for all sorts of activities from creative writing to writing non-fiction picture books.
Mrs. Singh and I came up with a set of criteria for the kids and tried to build on the project from the previous year. This year we added some time to research water issues using the National Film Board site called "WaterLife" Students were given a graphic organizer called "A Gem of an Idea". I've Included an image of the organizer here along with the instructions for using it.

The students spent two classes searching through the website writing down interesting facts and sharing this information with their peers by creating graphic organizers about water. Here are some examples. 

Students were then instructed to come up with some ideas for writing a story that would explain what they had learned about their chosen water topic. We discussed main ideas and themes and then students wrote a short organizer and began creating their stories on Storybird. The paid version of Storybird allows you to print out the stories as PDFs. We utilized the free version of Storybird.





Here are some screen shots from their Stories. This first story is an example of some of the topics and images available on Storybird. The idea behind Storybird is to take inspiration from the pictures available. Part of our struggle is to show the kids that their story needs to evolve from the images. Some students do struggle with this. We are lenient in that in the case of the story below this is a killer whale image not a Beluga.

This story discussed Beluga whales. 

Here's a second example. Again I'm showing just the cover page and one page from inside the story. 

The students seemed to enjoy this project and gave us lots of good feedback. The advantage to this project was our ability to combine language skills with research for science. In the end it was an effective way to integrate subject matter. 

Grade 7 Leadership Program

At the end of April 50 of our grade 7's will be participating in the R. H. Lagerquist Leadership Learning Program. This fun and engaging program selects students in grade 7 who have displayed strong leadership skills or the potential to be strong leaders and gives them an opportunity to attend a unique Outdoor Experiential Leadership Program. We will be taking a group of students Finlayson Outdoor Centre to participate in the Challenge Ropes Course. Finlayson is a Peel District School Board alternative learning site. All staff are certified teachers and hold specialist certifications in running a challenge course. The activities are fully insured and safety inspected each year.

The Challenge Ropes Course is an exciting, dynamic way to introduce or strengthen the concepts of team work, cooperation, goal setting and many other personal growth goals which students will identify in a preliminary session here at school. Finlayson uses the Challenge by Choice approach which enables each participant to experience their own success in the context of their own aspirations. On the ropes course, the greatest gains are rarely measured in terms of the number of feet climbed. And that in all the team building adventures, everyone has a role to play. The high ropes elements are up in the trees so the perceived risk is high, but actual risk is low. Participants walk across cable bridges, or negotiate giant ladders through the trees as they overcome personal fears and develop new self confidence.

The students will spend part of their morning discussing why they are there and what they hope to accomplish, then it's into the climbing gear and up to the Course they  go.  The Challenge Ropes Course has 10 high element challenge activities set in the forest overlooking the property.  Challenge activities will be based on the group goals.  It is an excellent experience for adventure seekers or the timid, shy student. This is an extremely unique opportunity which will enrich a students understanding of their strengths and areas in which they can improve their leadership skills. 

The cost of trip is 20$ to students. The trip has been subsidized by the school bringing the overall price down by 50%. The cost of busing for this trip was very high due to the extended day but we believe in the value of an opportunity like this and felt that this was an effective item to spend some of the school's money on. We will certainly update people on the student's progress and the outcomes of the trip. 

Grade 8 Cell Projects

Three classes of grade 8's recently visited the library in order to complete a research project for science class. They were learning about various types of cells. Students were expected to work with a partner to research a particular type of cell and then create a presentation which would explain their learning to other students in their class.

Mr. Warr and I worked to coordinate class time for students to complete the projects. I then helped Mr. Warr to introduce the project. We discussed with the students the importance of taking good jot notes so that the information would be easy to utilize when creating their presentations. Students were given several options for creating their presentations. Some utilized PowerPoint or the free version of PowerPoint called Open Office. Most decided to utilize PowerPoint. Students were required to completed a project in which they researched the life cycle, and the anatomy of a particular cell.

They utilized our digital library, print resources from our non-fiction collection and also other websites from the internet. For this project Mr. Warr and myself decided to use the mobile WiFi cart. We learned a great deal during the implementation of this project about the use of our mobile cart. Here at Lagerquist our mobile WiFi cart contains 12 iPads and 12 Netbooks. Students can access and use the cart in their classrooms. At first the use of the cart for research was difficult to master. Mr. Warr is admittedly not tech savvy and required a considerable amount of assistance with in utilizing the cart for the completion of their projects. The iPads were more awkward to use because the could not utilize PowerPoint on the iPads so we had to coordinate who was using which device. Also, the Prezi app on the iPad did not have many of the capabilities of the desktop version of Prezi so this made it difficult for students to utilize. However the students and myself worked around these limitations and overall the projects were very successful. We have learned that there are limitations to the usefulness of the iPads. The Netbooks are certainly useful for certain types of assignments and the iPads have their place in the creative realm for producing things like music, videos, photography and certainly surfing the web. The most effective projects were completed using Prezi. I've included a link to this Web 2.0 tool here. I've also added this little YouTube video that explains how Prezi works. It's a fantastic tool.

Used Book Sale in Support of Southern Ontario Animal Rescue

It's been a while since anything was last posted here. We've been extremely busy and the time has flown by. So much has happened and every time I planned to sit down and write a post I found myself interrupted. So now sitting in the quiet of my living room I have found the time to report on our goings on.

Today we held a used book sale in the library. The sale was arranged by a group of grade 6 students who wished to raise money for SOAR, which is an animal rescue association. The students, with the help of their teacher, Mrs. Camarda made announcements about the upcoming sale and also collected used books. Mrs. Camarda and I picked a date for the sale and we helped the students make signs and set up the books for sale. I helped to supervise the students while Mrs. Camarda made a schedule for classes to visit the library. The money and sales were handled solely by the students. Mrs. Camarda and I were simply there to assist. The kids did a fantastic job with the sale. They were very responsible they set up the books and also cleaned up after the sale was complete. They were an excellent set of workers.

In all the students raised 83$ for SOAR. They were very proud of themselves and we were extremely excited to see them work so independently on something that has such a positive effect. Well done kids!!

A Fall Report on our Library

I just wanted to write up a little progress report on the activities occurring here in the library over the fall term. There’s been a lot and I’ve learned a lot. We have a lot to do still to keep building this place into a learning commons.

My Goal to build this library!!!

1. A welcoming, service-oriented, tech-rich environment that is open on a regular basis and that invites students in to find resources and services that support their work.
2. Comfortable reading areas that attract students to books and to developing the lifelong habit of reading.
3. Comfortable working areas that enable different groupings of students to work, from independent learners, to pairs and small groups to whole-class instruction.
4. 24/7 access to digital resources as well as a collection of dynamic print resources all supporting curriculum and reading.
5. An area that would invite teachers, and guests to work with a class or group, with the support of the teacher-librarian to present multimedia or other performances.
6. A place that would provide students and teachers with opportunities to learn more advanced technology skills and create more complex digital products.
7. A place that is available for teachers to work in groups in workshops/lunch n’ learns to build new skills or collaboratively develop new resources, tools, etc.
8. provide a multitude of literacy initiatives and reading programs

Total number of Forest of Reading Books - 160
Total number of students participating in Forest Voting - 194 signed up
Activities for Forest of Reading

• Book Club
• Award Design Contest
• Talks with Expert Teachers
• Voting
• Imovie for the blog

Library Helpers
Currently 17 students come to the library regularly to shelve and restock books and help with maintaining the library

Study Hall
This runs Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday - 99% of the time I’m full and have to turn people away


Total number of checkouts to date - 2971
grade 6 total = 567
grade 7 total = 847
grade 8 total = 784

Total new items purchased by year
2011 - 503
2012 - 788

Total number of items in the library
Books - 2594
easy read/picture - 246
Graphic novel - 210
Magazine subscriptions - 8
Prof reference - 334
encyclopedias/reference - 180

Age of Books
Average age of books is 11 years old by publication year
2004 - 1111 total books published this year these are fiction and non-fiction
2001 - 887 total books published this year these are fiction and non-fiction
2008 - 442 total books published this year these are fiction and non-fiction

Graph Age of books by Dewey system

Teacher Research/Collaboration

• grade 6 research for Biodiversity - students researched and created presentations using poster board or prezi or powerpoint
• group research on Aboriginal peoples - students created a presentation for class on a specific group of native people
• completed Dare Arts cards
• research for grade 8’s completed Island City project
• grade 7 french project to create comics using Bitstrips
• utilized Tumble books
• website creation with live reenactment utilizing twitter for confederation
• recording radio advertisements in french for restaurants
• utilizing ipads and screenchomp for explaining websites for a charity “Shattered” novel study
• utilize computers to work on gizmos for science
• utilizing Imovie to create TV ads for a French Restaurant
• utilizing Ipads to film skit for french
• research project on mixtures and solutions end product was powerpoint or prezi
• research project with students on Canadian Artists
• research project on famous musicians students create a presentation for the class, like Prezi, powerpoint, frames 4, or jeopardy
• research project for migration students are creating photo essays on push and pull factors
• robotics project
• collaborating with me to train students on premier

Upcoming Projects/Plans

• using both the cart in class and the lab students will do research for cells
• will use Imovie to create trailers for the book the Twits - we will split the class and do storyboards then alternate filming times
• students will research water then create children’s stories about water utilizing Storybird
• utilizing audacity to make podcasts in music

6 Teachers bring their classes for regular book exchange

Fundraising

• Book Fair - 250$ - store credit
• Chapter’s night - 400$ - gift card
• Dare Arts - 95$ - cash
• Adopt a School - 500$ - gift card

Major Expenses for library budget

• Purchasing Fiction titles appropriate for grade 6’s - 1500
• Purchasing Graphic novels - 500
• Purchasing replacement book tape - 150$
• Repair books - 195$
• Magazine subscriptions 275$
• Incidentals like barcodes, magazine racks and board games took up the rest

Lessons learned from this year so far

• I can’t let teachers book regular weekly periods for computer use. There isn’t enough flexibility to schedule around them in 4 period day
• I needed to purchase more than 8 copies of Red Maple for Forest - they’re very popular
• The cart is a huge maintenance issue - reliable students should be trained in September to help with upkeep
• Cell phones are too small for BYOD to be useful awkward for kids to read
• The cart needs to monitored every period to ensure everything is back
• If Ipads are constantly plugged in to charge the battery dies
• Netbooks must be shut down with each new user or you can’t get on the network
• Each Wi Fi hub has 30 logins
• The cart is heavy
• Not everyone knows that you can sign out books from the library
• Not everyone knows that they can bring kids to the library to do research and collaborate/team teach with me
• Many teachers aren’t aware of the need to scaffold research so students of all levels are successful
• I have a lot to learn :))))

Forest of Reading - An Update!!!

There's so much going on at school right now. The library has been booked solid for the last three weeks.  The Forest of Reading has been incredibly successful. I ordered a total of 80 books for just the Red Maple category of the Forest of Reading and right now all 80 books are checked out. In total I purchased 170 titles for the Forest of Reading. I have kids requesting copies left right and centre. I've included a link to the Forest of Reading brochure. People can access and see all the categories and all the titles in Forest of Reading. If anyone were to donate some of these titles particularly the Red Maple category, that would be fantastic:))

The Forest of Reading has been very popular this year. I currently have 176 students signed up to participate in the voting, for the winning books. This is a huge number. I certainly didn't anticipate having this many students interested in the program and am feeling a little overwhelmed by their enthusiasm.

Students can participate in the Forest of Reading in a number of ways. My goal was to make the program accessible to everyone and make it easy and fun to participate. I would like to see every student in the school pick up a Forest of Reading book sometime during this year and enjoy reading it. If students do this then I will consider the program to have been a success. Of course this isn't the only thing going on students have the following options for participation.

1. Read any of the books for enjoyment.
2. Read any of the books for enjoyment then speak to one of the participating teachers about what they have read.
3. Read any of the books and come to book club on Tuesdays or Thursdays. 
4. Write a message on the Graffiti board. 
5. Rehearse and discuss their book while I film them for our Forest of Reading video.
6. Read 5 books from one of the categories and document their reading on a passport, then participate in the voting at the end of April. 

I want students enthusiastic about reading and enjoying what they read. I believe that literacy is best promoted through positive encouragement.Students all read at different levels so it is important to make the books and success accessible to all. Hopefully, the variety of options that I have presented to students will encourage them to keep reading and above all enjoy it.  

Bitstrips for Schools and Learning French!

Part of my job here at Lagerquist is to work as a resource person for other teachers. Part of my job is to have a fairly wide base of knowledge about technology, curriculum, and teaching strategies. Hopefully, I have fulfilled this role by helping Mrs. Albrecht to plan and learn how to use Bitstrips for Schools. Bitstrips for Schools is a fantastic little resource which allows teachers to create virtual classrooms and structure assignments for students in which students create comic strips to display their learning. Mrs. Albrecht has chosen to have students create a comic strip for her grade 7 french class.

Here's a link to a video about Bitstrips. Bitstrips on Vimeo


Mrs. Albrecht came to see me in December to discuss the project. She wanted to try and add a technology component to her french program. She admits to not having a strong knowledge of technology but very much wanted to try a new activity and to learn some more about technology. I took her to the Bitstrips website and showed her all the features available on the site. We talked about setting up an account for each students. This is a fairly daunting task as Mrs. Albrecht has 6 french classes and it was a going to take a fair amount of time to set up individual accounts for approximately 150 students. She was committed to the project however and seemed very eager to start setting up the virtual classroom. Mrs. Albrecht was fantastic she was open to suggestions and really wanted to learn. We discussed the length of time it would take to introduce the program to the kids, get them set up and then an appropriate amount of class time for the project. We booked the students into the library computer lab for 3 periods for each class. It was refreshing to discuss a french project with her as most activities I work on are science, history or language based.

The assignment required students to use their reading comprehension skills to read a collection of sentences and choose 15 sentences to order into a cohesive story. Students were then brought to the library and I instructed students on how to use Bitstrips. Students were given the option to create an electronic comic or a hand drawn version. Most students chose the electronic option. Bitstrips is fantastic because students can also access their virtual classroom from home. This means that most students can complete their work here at school or at home. For those with limited Internet access Study Hall provides that extra time to work on computers.

It's been a lot of fun working with Mrs. Albrecht and her 6 classes of french. I look forward to another partnership in the near future and will certainly post some of the students comics as they complete them.

Getting Back into the Swing of Things

The holidays are coming to a close and it's time to start fresh with new energy and enthusiasm for the New Year. Despite the current political climate I'm looking forward to seeing the kids and hearing about their holidays. Many of them will have some pretty silly stories to tell and I will share a little of my holiday with them. It will be good to touch base again and see them smile as they walk through the library door. That's one good thing about all this. We adults will get caught up in the money and the politics, the kids will stay kids regardless. The reality is they just want to have fun and learn. I plan on focusing on that. What else can you do?

So what exactly did I do with my holidays? Well......

1.  I took a bunch of days and just had fun with my own kids. (They don't call it holidays for nothing)
2. I hosted Christmas dinner for 28 family members. ;))
3. Just before the holidays we purchased several apps for our iPads. I brought home one of the iPads and spent several days teaching myself how to use the apps. Using resources from YouTube, the web and of course my own kids. I taught myself how to use Garage Band, Book Creator, and I movie. It was a lot of fun. We created some pretty silly books, movies and music. 
4. I created a schedule and sent emails to colleagues about scheduling classes into the library space for their introduction to the Forest of Reading.
5. I read several blogs on technology and teaching. Just hoping to stay up to date. 
6. Enrolled in a photography course and set up a photo website.
7. Sketched out my photo ideas for an upcoming cover I'm going to shoot for the Library Association's Teacher/Librarian magazine. 
8. I read three books for our upcoming Forest of Reading program.

To date I have finished....
 The Tiffin - a story set in Bombay, India which chronicles the quest of one young man to find his mother and his family.











All Good Children  - is a dystopia story about a boy living in New Middleton with his mother and sister. In this story kids are being given drugs that make them behave. No nagging, whining, etc. kids are perfect. It's a parents utopia, no more disobeying. (Sounds good right!!)







This Dark Endeavour - is a remake of the Frankenstein story, sort of. This novel tells the story of Victor Frankenstein as a young man. In essence it's a prequel to Mary Shelley's story.








I really tried to balance school work with pleasure. Yes the books were for work but I do love reading so it's a double whammy of sorts. Several other teachers also took home books from the Forest of Reading. These teachers will be available throughout the next few months to talk to kids about the different books, to hear their opinions about the various books. It will be a lot of fun and kids really do enjoy talking to us on a sort of social level.
Playing around with the various apps was also a lot of fun. We made some pretty silly movies with the app and I'm tempted to post the movie here but it really is just absolute nonsense and I'm not sure that everyone will enjoy watching as much as we did making the movies.


Hopefully, everyone has a had a great holiday and enjoyed their time at home. I look forward to a lot of great experiences here in 2013. :)))

Finished Aboriginal Projects

I would like to display some of our finished projects from the grade 6 aboriginal peoples unit. Please see the blog entry entitled The Actual Assignment Pages to refresh your memory as to what the assignment entailed. Students were very enthusiastic about the assignment. They worked hard to complete the assignment and worked well together. Mrs. Camarda and myself worked hard to have to students conference with each other in order to ensure that each part of the assignment was completed. I have included samples of the students work below.

1. The Cree - this is a power point presentation which has been uploaded to a Google drive file. 
2. The following images display the models of traditional aboriginal wigwams, teepees, longhouses, etc.

Wigwam

A Salish house

A Longhouse

A teepee

Salish Longhouse

A Wigwam

The whole collection

The following images show some of the display boards that students created for their presentations.

A Story board for an Iroquois Creation Story

A presentation board on the Blackfoot

All about the Iroquois

A drawing of a teepee that explains different parts of the structure

All about the Salish

Mrs. Camarda and I consider the project to have been quite successful. The students have learned a great deal. They were able to be creative and  appeared to enjoy the work. They were enthusiastic and confident when they presented to their classmates. This is the first time that we have run this particular project with the students and Mrs. Camarda and I will discuss some things that we plan on changing in the future. This however is what teaching is all about. We learn just as much as the kids do each time we prepare and present a unit. Sometimes the manner in which a project is introduced is changed or the order in which the background information is changed. Each time a unit is taught there are always little changes or tweaks for the better. Teachers analyze and assess the effectiveness of a given unit and then work towards building it into something better each time it is taught.