7 Apps for Teaching Children Coding Skills | Edutopia

7 Apps for Teaching Children Coding Skills | Edutopia:
Here's a great site which provides educators with a variety of options to include coding into their classroom.  These apps are free or low cost.  A brief description of each app provides educators with an overview of which age group the app is geared to and what students will be learning. Coding is important for children to learn as it teaches them problem-solving skills, creativity, spatial awareness and computational thinking skills.
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Mario Kart Multiplication Math Lesson

This lesson can be used as an introduction to multiplication or a reinforcement activity for multiplication in Grade 3.

Minds-On:  Ask students if they know who Mario and Luigi are.  What games are Mario and Luigi in?  Have you ever played Mario Kart?  What kind of vehicles are in Mario Kart?

Show students how to group counters into groups of 2, 3 and 4 (representing 2-wheeled vehicles, 3-wheeled vehicles and 4-wheeled vehicles) using Google Drawings pre-made template.  Ask students how we can count represent multiple groups of 2, 3 or 4.  Is there a faster way to add multiple groups?   Provide students with opportunities to come up to the Smart board to manipulate the counters and write addition & multiplication sentences.

Action:   

In partners or small groups, challenge students to build 8 karts for the characters in Mario Kart using 20 tires.  Students will show their work in Google Drawings using the counters provided to make groups of 2-wheeled vehicles, 3-wheeled vehicles and 4-wheeled vehicles or any combination of the vehicles.  Encourage students to make copies of the Google Drawings template in order to represent various combinations.  Remind students to include addition & multiplication sentences.
Once students have found various combinations for 20 tires, they can be challenged to use 50 tires.  

Guiding Questions:  Can you make another combination? What happens with left over tires, if any?

Consolidation:  Students can share their work with other students using the "Comment" feature on Google Drive.  Students can see how others created different combinations and are encouraged to comment on similarities/differences they observe.  Alternatively, their Google Drawings work can be copied and pasted into a shared Google Slides file where various students can create a collaborative file of all their findings in one place.

Extensions/Modifications:   Students can focus on only finding combinations for 2-wheeled vehicles and 3-wheeled vehicles.
Students can use counters and record their work on chart paper with markers.  Alternatively they can use counters and record their work on clear plastic Cling sheets attached to the wall with dry erase markers.

Integrating Mindfulness in Your Classroom Curriculum | Edutopia

Integrating Mindfulness in Your Classroom Curriculum | Edutopia:

This article describes four simple ways to incorporate mindfulness into the classroom through breathing, through sensory experiences, through guided imagery, and through movement.  Deep breathing helps to calm the body and mind, especially when facing a stressful situation.  Sensory experiences such as using playdough and creating glitter jars in the classroom are a few ways to help calm our students.  Guided imagery works well when students' eyes are closed and they are listening carefully to a calm story or a visual journey their mind is walking them through.  Movement such as yoga is another calming strategy that uses stretching and focuses on how the body moves/feels.

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What's in your mind?

Yoga can be done in the classroom!

Indigenous Education - People For EducationPeople for Education

Indigenous Education - People For EducationPeople for Education:

People for Education are an independent organization working to support public education in Ontario's English, French and Catholic schools.  This site provides educators with information and resources (books, videos, sites, reports) for understanding how to implement the education of indigenous peoples into the classroom.  It includes a link to the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation report.

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5 Technologies That Will Change Classroom Education - YouTube

5 Technologies That Will Change Classroom Education - YouTube:

Here are 5 interesting ways that technology will change the classroom and create digital learning spaces.  A few of the technologies that are discussed, such as using Virtual Reality and the Cloud are accessible at the elementary stage.  However, the majority of these technologies, such as using 3D printers, are geared towards secondary education.  It is still important for primary teachers to be aware of where our students are heading in order to prepare them for the future.

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Writer's Workshop Peer Editing through Google Docs

This lesson should occur after students have a collection of stories, at least 3 to choose from.  This lesson is relevant when your students are ready for the peer editing stage.  This lesson should be done over 2-3 days, in order to provide students with practice and understanding of the process of peer editing.

Minds-on:  Gather students and show them this video.

At the end of the video, discuss: What is a good peer review?
Tell students they are going to start with learning how to give compliments today.  They will learn how to share suggestions and support their peers with corrections another day.
Share this anchor chart with them.  You can also have extra copies printed to post in the classroom. Go over how to give compliments and then tell students to choose one piece of writing to share with a peer.

Action:  Provide students with the opportunity to choose one story they have written on Google Docs to share with a peer. Remind students to share with the "comment" option, as to avoid students directly editing another students' work.  Show students how to highlight their peers' writing, in order to directly comment on a specific area.  Encourage students to read each others' writing, then choose 2 parts of the story to compliment on.  Ask students to share their edited work with the teacher so you can directly see what students are doing on-line.

Guiding Questions:  How can you be more specific in your compliments?

Consolidation:  Students can write positive, detailed feedback they either wrote or received on post-it notes and add this to the anchor chart.  Students can read others' posts and get ideas.

Extensions/Modifications:  Have students work in partners.  Give students a post-it note and have them come up with possible feedback they could provide a peer.  Collect post-it-notes and sort them by positive, detailed feedback or not very focused, descriptive feedback.  This could also be done using Padlet instead of post-it notes.

My Classroom Google Site

Feel free to check out my classroom website here.  Please note the site is still a work in progress.

Community Building Activities Elementary

Always looking for great classroom strategies to help build trust, communication and collaboration amongst students using their problem-solving skills.  Here's a great website with 10 team building games.  Here's another link to 6 classroom games that promote cooperation and teamwork.  This article provides the rationale behind implementing community building activities in your classroom and shares some great read alouds.

Growth Mindset Video - You Failed!

Here's a great video to encourage a positive growth mindset in students.  The focus is on never giving up and how through failure, we can become successful.  It's important to teach our students to be risk takers and keep trying to find alternate solutions to problems.  Making mistakes should help us reflect on what we can change next time.  A wise person once told me, if I keep doing the same thing over and over again, I will continue to get the same results. I need to make changes in order to see different results.

Lesson Plan - Gender Based Stereotypes

Minds-On: Gather students and show them different objects and have them identify whether it is a girl object or boy object.  For example, hold up a football and ask them which box the football should be placed in - "Boy" or "Girl".  (Other objects can include a doll, a stuffed animal, a dress, a shirt, knitting needles, etc.)
Students decide which box objects are placed in, they may realize objects can go in both boxes, where you can introduce a third box labelled "Both" and then you can go back through objects placed in the boy/girl boxes and discuss whether objects placed there could be moved to both.
Ask students to provide a rationale for their responses to open up the discussion on gender based stereotypes and why certain objects are geared towards different sexes.

Action:  In small groups (2-3 students), encourage students to create a list (words/pictures) of objects, activities or interests that are promoted for "Girls", "Boys" and "Both Genders" using a shared Google Doc.
Once they have generated and shared ideas, ask students to create a poster using Google Draw or a slideshow using Google Slides that would help students feel included in all spaces regardless of their interests.
Guiding Questions:  How can they show students feeling happy about wanting to play soccer or dance or any other activity regardless of their gender?  What symbols can they incorporate into their poster/slideshow that would represent acceptance of others? How can they change stereotypical views?

Consolidation:  Students share their posters/slideshows to another group of students.  Encourage students to comment on 2 positive aspects of each others' work, such as "I liked the way you used the symbol... because..." or "Your poster/slideshow makes me feel included because..."

Modifications/Extensions:  For the Minds-On, create a quiz on Kahoot to get individual student responses that are more discreet.  Quiz questions can include:  Who plays football?  Boy, Girl, Both;  Who practices gymnastics?  Boy, Girl, Both;  Who drives a truck?  Boy, Girl, Both;  Who dresses dolls?  Boy, Girl, Both
More lesson plans/resources/booklists that promote inclusive school environments can be found here.

Gender Identity

Many students struggle with gender identity and fitting in with social expectations.  There's pressure at school to fit in with their peers.  There's pressure within the family to follow expectations set out by parents or other members.  There's pressure within society, for example shopping in boys' sections or girls' sections and when participating in activities primarily considered boy-centered (i.e, hockey, football) or girl-centered (i.e, gymnastics, going to the spa).

This powerful video depicts the difficulties a young individual faces when understanding their own identity and how they fit into their own communities.


How do we, teachers and parents, work together to help develop a healthy sense of being in our students who struggle with gender identity?

We need to be sensitive to not only presenting our students with culturally relevant, up-to-date resources, but also to gender identity and the stereotypes that young children are learning about.
A few great children's books that promote positive body image are:

William's Doll
Ballerino Nate
Morris Micklewhite and the Tangerine Dress

This resource supports transgender and transsexual students in the education system from K-12.  The story on page 17 describes the difficulties a student has in focusing on school and becoming withdrawn from activities when they are worried about fitting in with their peer groups.  It also describes how parents and educators can support a student to accept their own feelings and encompass their bodies with a positive mindset.

Elementary Science Symbaloo

Zones of Regulation

Here is a great video which shows how to understand the different zones of regulation explained through the simple point of view of a child.  There are excellent kid-friendly examples from short TV or movie clips, which depict each zone.  
Students can watch this video as an introduction to how feelings can be represented by these four zones.  The four colours represented by each zone make it easy for students to identify their feelings visually.