Graduation and Achievement Certificates

If you would like to give students a certificate of achievement for something they have completed, check out this website.  Print off quality custom certificates right from home or the classroom.

Here's the link:

123Certificates

Web-based Games that Support JK Reading Skills

Check out these websites to for web-based opportunities for children to gain pre-reading and reading skills.

If you have other web-based games that support pre-reading then please leave them in the comments section. I'd be happy to add them.

 

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In the Classroom:

Please click here to access an easy-to-use portal webpage that you can leave on open on the class computer or iPad for children to access these games.  Children will need to know to press the "Close" button if they wish to switch games or when finished.  Many of these websites are from TVO.

Click here if you would like access to a teaching website containing lesson series focused on JK/SK Language Skills.

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Magic Mailbox   (Sound Required)                                                         

Overview:

Children click on the mailbox and out pops a letter. Children will hear the letter name. Click again and the mailbox closes.  Kids gain exposure to letters and their names, and also developes basic computer skills including moving a mouse or pressing the screen if on an iPad.      


Letterella (Sound Required)






Overview:
Beginner level asks the child to press a letter key on the computer keyboard. Letter name is given and a word that and a word that begins with that letter is shown accompanied with a picture. The word is then sounded out and the letters are highlighted as they are sounded out.  The pro level gives an auditory prompt for the child to press a specific letter.  If correct, the letter name is given, a word that begins with that letter is shown with a corresponding picture, and the word is sounded out.  If incorrect after the 3rd try, the answer is given and the correct response is given in full (letter, word, picture, and sounded out).



SignMatch (Sound Recommended)

Overview:

Instructions are verbally given when site is first visited.  Child presses play and 8 cards are face down.  Child tries to find a match for the signs.  Each sign is named when it is turned over, and it is stated for the child whether or not their is a match.  Incorrect matches are automatically turned back over and the child can try again.  When all matches are found the matches are highlighted and renamed for the child.

 

Out of Order (Sound Recommended)



Overview:

Child is prompted to open a box containing 3 pictures of art by clicking on it.  Child is then prompted to put the 3 pieces of art in order onto an art board.  After the 3rd incorrect response the first picture will be placed for the child and the child needs to place the second and third correctly.  Child is prompted to open a new box when complete.

 

Gisele's Big Backyard Book Club
(Sound Required)



Overview:

 Children can select from a number of different books to be read to them.  Stories are stopped at appropriate times to ask questions which support comprehension, and stories are recapped and summarized from time to time, also aiding comprehension.  If the video is watched on a full screen, the escape button on the keyboard will have to be pressed to get back to the home screen.

 

 



Your Options When Hands-On Learning is Overwhelming and Focussed Practice is Required

Today's mathematics is hands-on. This approach to teaching math puts math in context, makes it relevant, promotes problem-solving, creativity, co-operartion, analytical skills, and so much more.

It's wonderful to see such a dynamcic approach to mathematics, but to a student who is struggling specific skills, concepts, and processes, it can be overwhelming to be working on an activity that draws upon so many skills simultaneously.  Sometimes, focussed practice and practical application is what is needed.

If as student does not have a handle on a specific skill, it can make tackling other more encompassing projects frustrating and overwhelming.  Unfortunately, finding quality resources to practice these skills can be difficult. 

Some teachers rely on worksheets found as a result of a google search of the concept or skill, but they are often poorly designed.  The space to complete the work can be insufficient, they tend to be visually unappealing, and rarely include any application questions.

I have created many of my own resources and worksheets to practice specific skills, but I also use the Spectrum Math Series.   It's well-organized making it easy for teachers to pick out pages that cover the specific skills they would like to see a student practice, and builds on that practice with application questions that tie-in very well to the practice pages; there are no surprises for the student when they tackle the application questions.

The Spectrum Math Series covers all elementary grades from K to grade 8, and includes practice on skills such as addition, subtraction, multiplication and division of whole numbers, fractions, and decimals, percent, geometry, volume, statistics and probability, and more.  Each topic has a pretest followed by progressive excersizes with ample practice, and problem-solving/application questions. 

It's a great resource to have on hand to use as needed when extra practice is needed, reinforcement, or review.

Grade 3
Grade 6

Teaching Empathy: Thoughts and Ideas

Teaching empathy and sympathy is not something that can be taught from textbooks.  

That said, they remain qualities that teachers foster in their students... 

...when given the time and opportunity, that is. 

Often the focus in the classroom is on curriculum:  Math, science, reading, and writing.  Rarely does a teacher include in her daily plans time set aside for the practice of empathy.  (Whether it should be part of the daily plans is another debate entirely!).  That said, fostering empathy within our students likely happens incidentally several times a day.

In fact, we are doing it whether we want to or not; in the way we handle conflicts between students, handle a descrepnancy between performance and expectation, or even simply by the way we listen to our students when they share news or their thoughts on something. 
I am a strong believer that when it comes to fostering traits and qualities such as empathy, sympathy, compassion, and others, my role is secondary to that of parents.  

Opportunities within the classroom, however, can give further practice, additional challenges and pressures in applying those traits and qualities, and possibly a different perspective should a classmate or teacher practice the trait differently, apply it differently, or place a different value on it. 

Like the vast majority of teachers, I never included the practice of empathy as part of any lesson plan.  However, if given the opportunity, I would go beyond the incidental learning opportunities and allow my students ample, diliberate, and conscious practice of empathy and other traits and virtues.

By this I mean that I would make an attempt to point out and label empathetic behaviour in myself and in my students during the regular goings-on within the classroom and my students' day.  I might also open a discussion on what "empathy" means, what it looks like, and what it feels like to give and recieve it.  I might find a children's book in which empathy is a theme and read it to my class. 

And finally, I might give them homework to find an example of empathy being practiced in their own lives outside of the classroom walls, or to identifiy or create their own opportunity to practice empathy in their own homes or other community of which they are a part. 

Opportunities to Practice Empathy

One such opportunity might be for the children to write encouraging letters to children their own age who are fighting cancer (see KidsUniteToFight).  This is an initiative of C.O.L.E's foundation; an organization started by Moireen and Aaron Ruotsala after their 3-year-old son died of a rare form of cancer as a means of providing much-needed outreach and support for children and families facing a similar battle. 

Managing Your Inbox

Teaching is a juggling act and there is bound to be a ball or two that get dropped.  For me, the one thing that always got neglected was my e-mail inbox. 

Rarely did I have a chance to check it, and rarer still did I have a chance to act on the e-mails.  Newsletters from various organizations piled up unread, questions from parents got answered if they were able to catch up with me before or after school, and requests and to do's from my Director seemed to get lost somewhere in the shuffle.

An article I read recently has completely revamped how I handle e-mail, and it's made me more productive and less stressed.  I am a visual person and it was incredibly overwhelming to open my inbox to find a 100 messages there.  That amounts to 100 things I was supposed act on that I knew I was going to be able to get to.

Now that I am consistently putting into practice the tips in this article I do not have an inbox with an overwhelming number of messages, and I've been able to prioritize better, filing newsletters away in folders with subject lines that accurately describe the contents so that I can access it when I need it, rather than feeling like I had to read it now, relevant or not. 

If you are overwhelmed by your inbox here is the article that helped me:  Is it time for an inbox detox? 

Other resources include:

Inbox Detox E-Book

E-mail Assessment Quiz

Carlisle Resident Nathan Tidridge Publishes Book on Monarchy

Waterdown highschool teacher Nathan Tidridge has published a book on Canada's relationship with the Crown called Canada's Constitutional Monarchy.  Mr. Tidridge wrote the text in response to the lack of accurate resources on the role of the monarchy in our country.

The book is available at Pickwick Books in Waterdown.  Read the article featured in the Flamborough Review here.

Access his website http://www.canadiancrown.com/ to find information which compliments the book.  You will find information on the author, additional interesting details about the Canadian Crown.

Waterdown's Own Gord Anderson has Book Published on War of 1812

Gord Anderson, an accountant from Waterdown, Ontario, has published a book called Beyond the Great War.  The book, a historical fiction based on facts, is a novel for teens and highschool readers about the War of 1812. 

You can purchase the book at Pickwick Books in Waterdown Ontario.  Read the recent article in the Flamborough Review here.