I cannot relate completely to the Kindergarten Growing Success Addendum. Being in the J/I program it is my hope to teach the junior/ intermediate grades however there is some important information that all teachers can take away from reading the document.

The Kindergarten Addendum focuses on a play based inquiry design program since young children are curious and have a lot of potential to think. These are the important years for a child in their learning because it all depends on the teacher who teaches them all the important skills and thinking they need to know before I get them in my class. 

In relation to the Growing Success document I am still working to fully understanding it as a whole. I know I have a lot to learn and my associate teacher will help me to fully understand this document. What I have taken away from this document that I have used in almost every class this semester is the seven fundamental principals which help us student teachers help understand lesson planning and how to implement differentiated instruction. 

The 7 Fundamental Principals in Growing Success:

In order to ensure that assessment of/for/as, evaluation, and reporting are valid and reliable, and create practices and procedures that:

1)         are fair, transparent, and equitable for all students;

2)    support all students, including those with special education needs, those who are learning the language of instruction (English or French), and those who are First Nation, Métis, or Inuit;

3 ) are carefully planned to relate to the curriculum expectations and learning goals and, as much as possible, to the interests, learning styles and preferences, needs, and experiences of all students;

4)         are communicated clearly to students and parents at the beginning of the school year or course and at other appropriate points throughout the school year or course;

5)      are ongoing, varied in nature, and administered over a period of time to provide multiple opportunities for students to demonstrate the full range of their learning;

6)    provide ongoing descriptive feedback that is clear, specific, meaningful, and timely to support improved learning and achievement;

7)      develop students' self-assessment skills to enable them to assess their own learning, set specific goals, and plan next steps for their learning.

Growing Success (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2010, p. 6)

This week was an online class where we talked about Measurement! Out of all the strands, measurement was always the least stressful for me. I enjoyed it the most because I could visualize using this concept most in real life and the activities my teachers presented with their lessons were very kinesthetic.

For our setting the stage activity, she gave us a great resource called Math Scavenger Hunt. Students are given a sheet when objects that they must find outside. After they find the object they are to use that item and solve a small math problem assigned to it. They are given points based on difficulty. I love this resource because it gets students up and moving applying math skills they have learned in the class to real world situations.

Rebecca mentioned in her online presentation that there are 3 stages of teaching measurement.

The first is Definition/Comparison. Students learn to compare two things or objects to figure out which one has a bigger measurement. They can do this by investigating, experimenting or even estimating.

The second stage is Nonstandard units. Students learn to define measurement using cubes, scoops and objects of that nature.

The third stage is using standard units where we explore centimetres, grams, meters etc.

A tip Rebecca gave us was to never assume that students know how to measure things with a ruler or protractor for example. Go in with the assumption that students are working with a blank slate. I can remember working with a protractor where my teacher assumed that we didn’t have to have an in depth introduction to them because we should already know how to use them. What confused me most was how there was two sets of numbers and I could never understand which ones to use because no one took the time to sit down with me and explain the difference of why there is two sets of numbers and when to use which which is probably why I always looked like this:

A great tip Rebecca suggests is that we first should look at the angle and determine from looking at it whether we should be using the smaller numbers or the larger numbers on the protractor and work from there. It helps ease student anxiety and creates a safe space where they can ask questions and understand the concept of the tool.

Retieved from Flickr

I also got the opportunity to help Kursten and Casey with their learning activity presentations this week. Since this was an online class, the girls had to tape their presentations and some of us got to participate in the activity for them.

The two presentations were very well done. 

Casey covered a grade ¾ class and taught us about area and square centimeters. We were given a piece of centimeter and grid paper and were asked to trace our hands. Casey asked us to predict how many square centimeters our hands would be and then compare the two pieces of grid paper once we determined how many squares our hands took up.

Taken by me

For Kursten's presentation she covered a 4/5 class and talked about measuring area. We were asked to find five objects either square or rectangular in a magazine and cut them out for our activity. After we had found our objects we were given a ruler and asked to measure the pictures and order them from smallest to biggest once we found their measurements.  One thing I would have suggested was to not assume all students know how to use a ruler. I know it sounds silly but after Rebecca’s comment on her own presentation students might need a tiny refresher on how to use a ruler and what to look at when they are measuring.

All in all they were great presentations and I learned a lot! 

I didn't get a chance to do the readings this week but I did read an article that Rebecca posted in her presentation which was very interesting. It touched on Assessment As, For & Of learning for the different math strands .This informative resource is something I will definitely have in my classroom as it is beneficial for me to pull questions from to help guide my students, and my students can see the learning goals and success criteria that they need to accomplish for each strand to help keep them on track. If you would like to see the info graphic, you can view it here.


I am feeling more confident with teaching math, but I am getting a little sad knowing that our class will be ending shortly! It's been such a great experience learning and having fun at the same time! 

 This week we focused on Geometry and Spatial Sense which translates into representing 2D and 3D shapes and looking at the relationships between points, lines and surfaces. This strand always confused me. When it comes to this strand I am a kinesthetic learner and I would always prefer to hold the 3D shapes in my hand to look at and learn from rather than visualizing them on paper. The chapter found in “Making Math Meaningful to Canadian Students K-8” focuses on exploring geometric properties, the relationship between geometric properties and the location/movement of shapes.

This week our teach set the stage with an activity called Coordinate Sheets.

We were given a list of points on the board and we were asked to plot the points onto our graph we had in front of us. If we plotted the points correctly, we would uncover an image! At first I forgot about the x and y coordinated on the graph paper so I did the first two backwards. After I realized what I was doing wrong, it was easy for me to plot the rest of them quickly. This would be a great refresher for students to complete for each holiday as you can easily change the coordinates to create a different picture. If we wanted to make this more difficult our teacher suggested we could give students a blank piece of graph paper and have them draw their own X and Y coordinates with a number scale.

We also had 3 more presentations this week which focused on different aspects from Geometry and Spatial Sense.  The presenters covered modelling shapes, rotating shapes on a coordinate grid and representing shapes. I really enjoyed Jacob’s presentation as he had lots of manipulative's to help those kinesthetic learners such as myself play around with the shapes to better understand the concept.  The presentations were very well done and I can’t wait to see what next week’s presenters come up with.

I am finding that the trend of reading for fun is slowly dying. As a child I loved to read and would sometimes go through 2 books a week. As I get older I don’t have much time to sit down and enjoy a book during the school months so I save all the books I want to read for the summer when I have time to relax and enjoy the novels.

I think it’s so important for students to fall in love with reading a book as we are so technology based in this day and age.  We need to create and explore new ways to show students how valuable books are and how they can help us with valuable skills we need in life such as summarizing, communication, and making connections.

I have found a great article that gives great ideas on ways we as teachers can motivate students to read and you can find it here 

Monkey see, Monkey Do

One strategy the article mentioned was to have students see you read. When students are working quietly or you have assigned them specific time to read, join them. If they see you doing something other than reading, chances are they won’t be interested because they aren’t seeing you do it. Pick up a book and relax with them. You can also talk about things you’ve read at home and bring it up in class for a discussion. Children love to hear about what teachers do on their free time, and if they hear  that you read at home, chances are they might go home and do the same.

Integrate Technology

Technology won’t be going away anytime soon, so it is evident that we need to incorporate technology into our reading strategies. Have students download an app such as Book Creator where students can create their own stories and use their imagination. You can have your class share their stories in partners and create dialogues of how the story made them feel, what they could add to make it more interesting etc..

Give them a choice

Sometimes students aren’t engaged with reading because the books are chosen for them. It doesn’t attract their attention therefore they do not want to read it. Have a conversation with your class about all the different types of literacy genres and give them a choice to pick their own book in the school library. Students will be more engaged if they have chosen something that is appealing to them.

If we promote active reading in the classroom we can inspire children to understand that reading is important. We can encourage healthy discussions in the classroom based on each students novel they've chosen and this could inspire other children in the class to read the same book and come up with their own opinion different from their peers. Students are allowed to disagree with others opinions and this could create more dialogue in the classroom. 

The author of this article, Janelle Cox also has a Twitter page which also gives teachers great ideas and resources in regards to empowering educators. Her Twitter page can be found here. 

I am curious to see when I receive my placement if silent reading, or novel studies are still part of the curriculum or even if my associate teacher has new ideas that I never even thought of yet.