Week 3 Recap

Though this week was a short one because of the holiday, it still felt like it dragged! Nothing much to report on my end here, except that I finalized booking my trip to Vancouver!

I booked my flight and hotel about a week or two ago, but I didn't want to blog about it just yet. I'm doing a solo trip, without parents, planning on doing sight-seeing and experiencing their culture. (Also o escape Edmonton for a while!). I fly at the end of August, the day after my last day at the library!

I also watched Pitch Perfect 2 with a couple of volunteers from The Crookie Monsters. One word to sum up the movie? Best. I was dying at the most funniest parts and cracking up at the (in)appropriate jokes. Fat Amy, you're seriously my idol. Seriously, I want your humor. 

On a final note, I feel that I'll stop doing weekly recaps as I feel my life is too boring to share sometimes. Ha. I really like my highlighting of picture books so maybe instead of doing, Picture Book Fridays, I'll instead do Picture Book Publicity or PBPublicity. Hmm, just a thought! I'll see how I decide upon that later on. 

Picture Book Friday Presents: Little Blue Planet

I was roving at work until I saw the bold blue book that just struck right out of me. It's called Little Blue Planet by Jon Riggs. I read this quick read over my lunch hour, where I think preschoolers/Kinder's would enjoy this story the most!

I also think it's an awesome read-aloud for these young learners! The rhymes within this book are very articulate and imaginative -- much more than what I can do. I suck at rhyming and making poems. Gosh, no wonder why I'm still single. /sigh. Little Blue Planet is a quick short read about finding purpose in life and discovering what are you and why you are here. (Or maybe I'm just completely extrapolating this into a more philosophical interpretation!)

It's smart how Riggs uses the planets of the sun to relay this message. I don't want to give too much away, but here's a sample of a page inside!

With any picture book, they must be aesthetically pleasing to their readers. Little Blue Planet does this justice. The illustrations are very impressive and the facial expressions on the planets themselves are realistic as they can be! This book can also be a great introduction to space, planets and even what's beyond planet Earth. Any cross-curricular resource, not just books, I simply strive for! (I'm sure all teachers do!) 

You can find this book here at the SCL or order it on Amazon! 

Week 2 Recap

Week 2 at my summer job -- check! This week was slower on the training side, and more emphasis on me being independent and working on projects here and there. I worked my first evening shift [1-9] and my first Saturday shift too! Maybe because it was a long weekend or not, but it wasn't all that busy. I expect there to be more foot traffic come summer as the Summer Reading Games (for both children and adult!) start. Plus, there's going to be more programs for all ages in the summer at most libraries, not just at the one I'm at! 

Here's a 2nd reason why libraries are the bomb[dot]com. The SCL library has two floors, meaning not all of its resources could fit onto main! The library doesn't just have books, rather resources to help customers find what they are looking for. I think I've mentioned they have DVDs, magazines, CDs, etc, but there's also cool stuff too that's available! I learned this week that SCL has maps dating years and decades back of the county's area. There's resources to help newcomers to Canada with resume and career search. There's also resources to help new people learn about eBooks, Kobos, and other e-devices that are out there. (I can't keep up, there's too many!). I mean, they have it all! 

Picture Book Friday: Grace For President

Grace For President is written by Kelly DiPucchio and pictures created by LeUyen Pham.

First off, look at the cover! It shows hope, joy, happiness and ready for change. I mean, look at those children's faces! 

I've chosen this book because regardless of sex, religion, age, or gender (just like in this story), there should be nothing that is stopping you in achieving your dreams. A brief synopsis of the story is Grace, the protagonist, is shocked that there were no female presidents of the US. She is appalled by it, thus decides to run for President herself. Her teacher runs a presidential class debate between Grace and another candidate. Throughout this story, the two candidates put up posters, talk to other students, ultimately getting their classmates to vote for them. 

Here is my favorite picture from the book! Look at how hard Grace is working for those votes! 

This is a great story to read to Division 1 students, however it can work with any elementary grade, of course. Also, of course this wouldn't work best with USA references, but it can be a good introduction in the social studies curriculum. The author says this book can teach students about "the value of hard work, courage, and independent thought -- and offers an inspiring example of how to choose our leaders."

I won't say I highly recommend you check out this book because all my selected books for Picture Book Fridays are ones I hope you guys will check it out.

To end off PBF, I'll always link it up for you in places you can check out this book. Click here for the Amazon link and here to check it out at SCL! 

PBF Posts Starting Tomorrow

What could PBF mean?! Well, I have this brilliant idea that starting tomorrow (Friday), for the rest of the summer I'll be posting Picture Book Fridays. What this entails is I'll showcase, an excellent book, in my opinion, to read to or with children, or even use in the classroom for whatever reason. I believe that reading and early literacy are essential skills to introduce to children at the early stages of life. Using picture books as a transition to love reading are the best tools out there -- especially at libraries (since they're free)!

I have booklists made via the EPL website, so you can check them out at the top of my page. However, there are beautiful and amazing picture books that not a lot of people are aware. With PBF Posts starting tomorrow (hopefully), I'll be able to shine some light on children's literature that isn't as widely recognized. Plus, this also gives me an opportunity to explore more books at my giant summer workplace. To end of, be on the look-out for that and a Weekly Recap 2! 

Summer! + Week 1 Recap

What a week last week was! I started my full time job with the Strathcona County Library in Sherwood Park! Living in Edmonton, the drive is at least 30 minutes, sometimes can range up to an hour depending on weather. I'm one of the few summer students there working in the Youth Services Department! (Mind you there's 6 major departments in this large library!) 

I think instead of blogging every day or so, I'll think I'll do weekly recaps of my summer job. I plan in recapping about my week, things I learned and things I'm looking forward too. Let's start with week 1!

One word to sum it all up: training. We started training the second our first shift started and continued until Friday. There are other summer students working in other departments, so we stayed together, similarly like a "cohort." We learned SO much from this week, from meeting the CEO, management, to getting tours about the library and what makes this library, so unique in its programming and outreach. If you haven't heard or been to this library, click here to see what it can offer for you! Long story short, I love libraries because there is always something for someone. Anyone can find something they like within a library whether it's a DVD, book, program or class, you name it!

Lastly, s u m m e r for University students has officially started last week! Wait, that's a lie -- unless you're FT working like me, Uni students could also be taking spring/summer courses (which would be very challenging especially in sunny weather like this!). With that said, I'll be blogging about my job, things in the summer I'm looking forward to and continuing to add resources for other educators. Though I'm not teaching or volunteering this summer, I always will have something to share with you readers! :) 

I Guess That's It!

I guess it is it! I should maybe start blogging about other things, other than my practicum because that's been about 2 weeks ago! Move on Mr. Fabia is what you're wondering I bet.

The purpose of starting this blog in general was to share my experiences and help out my fellow educators when necessary. Whether we're face to face friends, facebook friends, legit friends or just avid readers -- I want something that you guys can look forward too! 

I feel that I've been dragging my experiences and posts about my IFX too, however, in the future I want the opportunity to look back, read them and have those memories present. For some people, they take pictures or make Instagram/Tumblr posts. I guess blogging has helped me in ways to express my experiences to the Web. It's also a great conversation starter too at pubs & restaurants!

For now, I'm not sure what I'll be blogging about! This week I started my new job with the Strathcona County Library where I'll be there working for the summer. For sure I'll blog about that. In addition, I look forward to share more book lists, educational resources and stories with all of you lovely people! 

So, for now, don't expect me to blog more about my IFX, as that chapter of my life is complete. My grade 6's happen to love quotes, which is one thing we have in common! To end off, I'll finish with this typical (and cheeeeeeesy) Dr. Seuss quote. 

Subject 5 (and final) - Religion

The last subject I taught was Religion! If you've been reading my blogs (which I hope you have!) then you would know that Easter Mass was during my last week of my practicum! I taught my class certain bible passages that were Easter related.

If you haven't read my blog post about the school's Easter Mass celebration, you can read it here! I listed in that post the two hymns that were played throughout the mass. These songs are on my repeat YouTube playlist without a doubt!

An activity I led in class which summed up the religion topics, was to make a greeting card for grade 2/3 students preparing for their First Holy Communion. This is legit straight from my lesson plan:

"Explain how First Communion is considered one of the holiest and most important occasions in a Roman Catholic person's life. It is the first time that a person receives the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, which is the consuming the bread and wine (body and blood). Catholics believe these to be the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Most Catholic children receive their First Communion when they're 7 or 8 years old."

Here are some examples of their greeting cards!

I emphasized the purpose of this activity was to use what they have learned in the previous classes, and explain why and how Jesus is important to all of us. I told them not to put their name on it, as this was anonymous. These grade 2's/3's would be thrilled for their First Holy Communion preparation to be started with a caring, 6th grader making them a card! Here is the template I provided for them. Of course, they were expected to add more! 

Dear Student, 

Jesus is important to everyone because… 

Jesus will always remind me of love, power and forgiveness because… 

Jesus is a part of me… 

Yours, 

A 6th Grade Student

My favorite part about this activity was I gave the students just one block to do and finish it. This block actually happened to be before recess. Once the bell rang, I believe about 8 or 9 kids stayed in, during their recess, to make it more colorful and more meaningful for the students. How thoughtful is that?! It definitely is, shows how caring these students are for younger ones!

Subject 4 - Health (or the elementary version of CALM class)

Health and Religion were interesting classes to teach, because there's no Alberta Program of Studies (POS) available online. However, my MT had certain objectives, similar to the POS that she has. She listed the outcomes I must focus on, thus my lesson revolved around that.

Here is an example of one of the objectives: R6.8 The students will analyze the influence of groups, cliques and alliances on self and others; e.g. at home, in school, in the community.

I introduced this class with a movie trailer and transitioned into a class discussion about cliques vs. group. I had to use examples and some kids even asked me "Mr. Fabia, were you a nerd?" I told them the truth. ;)

Here's the trailer I showed! They seemed to enjoy it, somewhat, maybe?

Teaching health was pretty cool, and I don't mind teaching it more! I also focused about community and forming relationships with older people. The outcomes were straight forward, it's the matter of using modern (and easy to assess) activities to use in class.

PS - Instead of playing the trailer above, I was going to play Mean Girls. However, the trailer was not appropriate for a Gr. 6 Catholic school class. Good thing I switched it last minute!

Subject 3 - Physical Education or "The Best Class Ever" According to Some

During Spring Break, I did a vast amount of prep work, which included lesson planning for gym. The PE teacher at the school (who, by the way is such a gem) and my MT decided I'll be teaching the line dancing unit for my grade 6 class and a grade 7 co-ed class. First though in my mind was Grade 7, whaaaat? 

This is such a given, but grade 7's are just one grade older than grade 6's! Only difference is the elementary/junior high division. Truthfully, I had so much fun teaching the line dancing unit because it wasn't in a classroom, and I was able to incorporate a range of music too!

My best friend gladly helped me out in how to teach dance. I have never taught dance, let alone know how to do it, so I called in reinforcements. She has danced (and taught dance) for practically her whole life, that it was amazing to see the breakdown of step-by-step dancing. Did I also mention she teaches ZUMBA?! Uhm, yeah. You the bomb.com!

The four dances I taught were Electric Slide, Cadillac Ranch, Cha Cha Slide and Cotton Eyed Joe! I didn't want to do partner or "social" dance at all, strictly line dancing. For the Electric Slide, there's not a specific "song" that goes with it, unlike the other 3, so I introduced 3 different songs with varying pace to dance with. Check them out!

Average Speed

Average Speed 

Faster Speed 

And finally! The last two days on my practicum, I had supervision outside before school started. Some students asked if I could play the songs from the line dancing unit from my phone. Without hesitation, I quickly grabbed my speakers from my car, connected it to my phone and was now a walking, supervising, DJ. By the end of it, there was about 15 students just dancing along, remembering the steps I taught them all. How proud was I at that moment? Very! 

Subject 2 - Language Arts

While teaching language arts, my MT gave me the responsibility to teach and assist with newspaper writing. I assigned, I think 3 or 4 different ones and marked them individually, giving each student a score and constructive criticism for their future writing!

I'm such an elementary teacher, I gave stickers (of either stars or happy faces) with their comments. A happy face described something I liked and a star is an area I suggested they could improve upon. At grade 6, they still love receiving stickers. I swear I'm going to be using them everywhere and still be finding an excuse to use them in whatever. I think it's because they're cheap, I can get a lot for so little money, and anyone under age 12 will do anything for one. Win-win-win. Ha. 

I didn't just give out the assignments and let them write their article. Instead, after each one I read them all over that evening and decided, where as a class we can spend the next lesson on. I remember doing a lesson about closing paragraphs, as most were just not finishing their article as strong as they could be! I also pulled out student examples of strong paragraphs, and discovered that students got that "aha!" moment from realizing what their peers have written!

Click here to find PAT examples under the Alberta curriculum. I used these examples during my instruction too! 

Subject 1 - Science (Rules!)

Teaching Science 6 was the first subject I taught! Pretty exciting and overwhelming, I must say, especially since this grade has Provincial Achievement Tests in June. I love elementary science because it's not as boring as high school. High school I remember taking physics and chemistry, not the most exciting topics out there. 

I taught not just my homeroom grade 6 class, but all the grade 6 classes science. Also take into the account that each class had approximately 27 children. So if I do my math right 3 x 27 = 81 children's names to know within the first two weeks. Ha. Welcome to my life. On top of learning their names, I also struggled with learning classroom management skills, teaching the science topics and assessing their learning. Of course all those improved significantly for me! #proudteacher

The science topics I taught was from the science unit Evidence & Investigation where the students learned about fingerprinting, forgery and analyzing crime scenes. How wicked is that!? The topics I specifically taught included chromatography, fabric samples and soil samples. All these lessons included discovery learning and varying experiment trials. It was pretty neat to watch the kids learn like this!

For these weeks, I essentially had to create one lesson plan, because it was the same for the three classes. At first, I didn't like doing the same lesson 3 times a day as it was tiring and repetitive for me, however it was the best opportunity to improve my teaching skills with different classes! I was able to see where my weaknesses were and change it for the next class right after. The only downfall with this was... there were SO many of them! I mean 81 names to know within the first week? Tough. Now I know that in the future, is to create my own seating plans! (Which I did during Spring Break)

Since I taught science with using science experiments, I remember getting the materials the night before. I was scrambling around West Edmonton for soil and fabrics because I needed the right, and I mean the right materials for my lessons. Then, I had to go home and test it. Those were long prep days, but totally worth it! 

Soil Samples

Soil Samples 

Did You Guess My 5?

Before I reflect back on the 5 subjects I taught during my practicum, I went to first off say two things:

1. It's M A Y, how is this possible!? I feel that 2015 is just soaring on by and can't believe it's already May. I hope it'll be beautiful weather until October and as I'm honestly tired of seeing rain/snow/snow/rain/snow/rain/snow. You know what I mean.

2. I finished wrapping up my volunteering with an elementary school that I started back in October! I had this week completely off until I start FT work next week. Soo this past Monday, Wednesday and this morning I was at that school individually reading with the students. Specifically, with the higher grades! Despite the lengthy drive, I love going there because the kids are wonderful, the staff are great to be around the my coordinator is an amazing mentor to learn from!

My very last kid I read with this morning, absolutely loves Minecraft. It's his (healthy) addiction! And so, I was hoping that we would minimize the conversation of Minecraft and more towards the books we were reading. With about 7 minutes left in his time slot, he didn't want to read another book. Instead, I asked him "could you draw on the board what your favorite part was from the book?" This is what he drew:

The book we read was about 2 mice -- a city mouse and a country mouse becoming friends and enjoying each other's company. I'm sure this picture depicted that exact message. ;)

Starting the weekend I'll blog about each subject I taught and will describe my favorite thing about it! Oh, get out your list -- let's see who's right!

In alphabetical order, I taught health, language arts, physical education (gym), religion, science. Were you right!? Doubt it..