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     During our New Teacher Orientation we were asked to start thinking about our Professional Growth Plans as we will be meeting with our individual principal's this week. As part of this, we were provided with forms to help us guide our goals (both personal and divisional).      As a new teacher, most of the times when I think of the school year my hopes are to simply survive through it! Student teaching is just a taste of what full-time teaching is like and I hope to just make it through the year while trying to balance lessons, differentiating instruction, keeping up-to-date with appropriate assessment of student understanding, being involved with extra-curricular, etc! With that being said, however, I have been able to identify some goals for my Professional Growth Plan. Goals : - The teacher will maintain a written weekly reflection regarding lessons,   classroom management, assessment, differentiation etc. - The teacher will incorpor...

     Yesterday was New Teacher Orientation in "T-Division"! My husband, myself, and four other new teachers met at our Division Office to get prepared for the new year and learn the ropes of the division. As you can probably tell from the fact that there are only 6 new employees, our division is quite small and our orientation was very laid back and welcoming.      In general, the information was a little bland but necessary. We discussed: - Our provincial union, Manitoba Teachers' Society (MTS) - Salaries - Life Insurance - Health Insurance - Divisional Calendar - Divisional Policies - Professional Development & Growth, etc      A wonderful surprise was that our Superintendent took us all out for lunch after orientation was completed! It gave me an opportunity to talk more with the 4 other new teachers (1 of which is at "S-School" with me). My husband and I are the only teachers that are fresh out of univer...

My classroom isn't ready for a full reveal quite yet, but I have finished up all of my bulletin boards (you know, the ones that were hiding behind the monster bookcase).  My favourite one, by far, is my Scientific Method bulletin board that is going to remain  permanent through the school year.  I modeled it after the amazing one that  Emily created over at The Science Life ! *BEFORE* The bulletin board I'm showing is the one on the North wall beneath the black star. *AFTER* The Scientific Method! Starting from the red rectangle: "Ask a Question", "Form A Hypothesis", "Create and Conduct an Experiment", "Observe and Record Data", "Analyze and Conclude", and "Communicate the Findings". Beneath the bulletin board, I have a hanging folder with photocopies of our class's  Scientific Method Lab Form  that students can grab and fill out anytime we have lab activities in class. I also plan to sporadically put up  QR code...

     It is here; my first week "working" as a teacher! Now, I put "working" in quotations because the teachers in our division aren't actually back until next Tuesday, but any new teaching staff starts their orientation this week (including both me and my fiance!). While I have been in my classroom sporadically over the past two weeks, I will now be there full-time when I am not in meetings with our divisional staff. I am very excited to get the final touches complete so that I can do a big reveal and be ready for students. As of right now... there are 10 days until students are back with us!      In the mean time, here are three great ed resources that you can utilize in your classroom(s). As always, I will be adding these to my lists of resources under the Fav Websites heading. 1 ) New Old Stock: Vintage Photographs - Curated by Cole Townsend, this website features vintage photographs   that are public domain and not licensed under any copyright rest...

     Here is the LAST resources post for my series of resources for the Grade 8 Science curriculum. With school starting right around the corner, I hope you can find these resources useful! If you missed my posts for the first three units of study, visit the following posts: - Cells & Systems - Optics - Fluid s Water Cycle Song. (2011). Uploaded to YouTube by Mr. Parr. Available online at:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3BVa7PH_JE      I really enjoyed planning out this unit for two reasons: I have a Geography minor and our province has experienced drastic flooding over the past few years. I love teaching about subjects that have direct ties to our community and have planned a few neat field trips for this unit. Intro to Water Systems Enduring Understanding: The global water system is essential for all life on Earth; from plant and animal life to geography and human relations. 8-4-01     Use appropriate vocabulary related to their ...

     I am now spending almost every day in my classroom getting organized and prepared for the upcoming school year. As you know, I've created quite a strong online presence for my classroom and I want to make sure that my students utilize these resources and have easy access to them. To address this, I've created an interactive Connect With Us  display at the entrance of my classroom!      This display includes 3 laptops featuring the information for our: - Classroom Website - Classroom Blog - Classroom YouTube Channel In addition to the written URL for each site, I also created specific QR codes that can be scanned to reach these resources quickly!      Along the left-hand side I also included the sign-up information for my Remind 101 accounts. Similar to the laptops, I put each unique sign-up code on the screen of an iPhone to highlight the text service!  - Both the laptop and iPhone clip art is available through www.openclipart...

      At the beginning of the summer (oh geez, was that already 2 months ago!?) I shared my Summer #EdTech To-Do List inspired by a blog post by Anthony Vonbank . For the last five summers I have always worked two jobs to pay for the upcoming year's school tuition, so I always considered myself very busy. This is my first summer since Grade 8 that I haven't worked at all during the summer! I thought that this would mean that I wouldn't be busy and was actually worried that I might be bored! HAHA! With the wedding, honeymoon, and planning for my first classroom, I've been more busy this summer. Technology is a given. (2013). Uploaded by Scott McLeod to Flickr. Available online at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mcleod/8399337241/       As school starts up again, I wanted to revisit my original post to see how I did in regards to accomplishing the items on my #EdTech To-Do List . How did you make out with your list? ONLINE PRESENCE - Create/upda...

     I am both excited and nervous as I write this post as it is my LAST Resources To Start Off Your Week post before I am back at school. Next week I begin my new teacher orientation although students will not return to classes until September 5th. When I first started these posts in January of 2011 I never thought that I'd still be doing them when I was preparing my first classroom! As always, I will be adding these to my ever-growing list of resources under the Fav Websites heading. 1 ) Math is Fun - This website is a one-stop-shop for your math class. It features   online lessons, practice questions, games and more! - I've linked to this website in quite a few of my math units   because their online lessons are a great resource for students to   review at home for extra practice or if they missed the in-class   lesson. -  http://www.mathsisfun.com/ 2 ) Wonderground - This "modern day treasure hunt" allows users to explore various   Ame...

     Our school has an iPad cart that teachers can book to use with their students for a variety of purposes. While our elementary wing (K-4) has a laptop cart that can be brought into the classroom, Grades 5 and up only have certain periods where they have access to the traditional computer lab. As such, the iPads are a good mobile tech option for us. During my student teaching placement I used our iPads for: - QR scavenger hunts - Interactive options during centers - Research stations - Virtual labs - Taking photos - Recording audio reflections, etc      One problem that I did run into, however, is that Safari doesn't run Flash websites. Through my online curation I have found so many amazing resources for students to explore and I wasn't able to use a lot of them on the iPads!      Well the issue has now been resolved as I've learnt how to run Flash websites on the iPad. I'm not sure if this is well known, but I didn't know about it so I t...

     This post is the third in my series of resources that align with the Grade 8 Science curriculum. (Previously in the summer, I posted a similar series for the Grade 7 Science curriculum.) Each post shares the resources I compiled for a particular unit that I will be covering throughout the year. If you missed my first two posts in the Grade 8 Science series, you can find them at: - Cells & Systems Resources - Optics Resources Easy Hydraulic Machines Screenshot. (2012). Uploaded to Instructables by Lance from Workshop for Young Engineers. Available online at: http://www.instructables.com/id/Easy-Hydraulic-Machines/      My unit on Fluids spans the course of 7 weeks and will take place in late winter (approximately January-February). I specifically planned for this unit to take place during the winter months to allow for us to be outside in the spring during our following unit of Water Systems, which discusses flooding. I've built in quite a few lab...

     On the weekend I read a post by Justin Tarte called The Truth About Homework in Schools in which he lists his thoughts on the "homework debate". Being a new teacher I began thinking about where I fall in this often controversial discussion and what my thoughts are about having my students complete homework. I follow many education blogs from around the world and have seen teachers discuss all different types of homework ideologies, from those who are completely against it to those who have assigned homework every single night.      I don't really remember having homework in Elementary or Middle School and while that doesn't mean that we didn't have homework... it means that I certainly wasn't traumatized by it or spending hours each night working on it (which I'm sure I would remember). Even in High School I can't think of one class where we had nightly assigned homework, with the exception of keeping up with our reading of "Lord of the Fli...

      In July I shared with you the  first official pictures  of my classroom. Since then I haven't done  too  much in regards to decorating, as I've been more focused on my curriculum planning, but I did spend an entire day their today! While I did begin to rearrange some furniture (I'm still playing with layouts) my primary focus was the GIGANTIC bookcase that was previously blocking the rooms bulletin boards. * Before * This bookcase was screwed into the wall, the floor, and covered all of the bulletin boards in my room! *After* The bookcase is now dismantled & my bulletin boards have been freed! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------      Thanks to our school's wonderful custodians, my bookcase is officially dismantled and moved into the hallway to await beautification! Unfortunately, the bookcases on the far left (with the cupboard doors) didn't make the move and had it be trashed but ...