What We Did in April

April was a busy month of learning! Here's an outline of what we did.

Math

Convince Me That: This is from High Yield Routines for Grades K-8, which includes instructional math routines that the teachers at my school are implementing throughout the year.

Each day in April, I shared a math statement with the students and asked them to show on their small whiteboards the evidence that the statement is true.

Examples: Convince me that 24 can be divided into equal groups.

Convince me that there are at least five ways to add up to 100.

Convince me that 99-66=33.

I gave students three minutes to "Convince me that" on their whiteboards. Then, I called students up to the board to share their thinking with the class. The students really enjoyed this routine!

If you are planning to implement this, one thing I'd recommend is taking time at the beginning to establish clear procudures and expectations around materials (how are whiteboards and markers handed out and collected? Students are not allowed to draw random pictures etc. on the whiteboards. They are not allowed to spin their whiteboards on the table, etc.).

Here is a good YouTube video about this routine.

Grade 3 Math

With my Grade 3 math group, I worked on many skills this month!

I assessed students' fact fluency within 20 and sent home practice sheets for students who still don't know these facts fluently. In retrospect, I wish that I had done this assessment earlier in the year. Something to note for the future!

We worked on double-digit subtraction without and then with regrouping mostly through rote practice (yes, we did worksheets!). I taught this quite quickly; at this point in the year, I'm feeling the pressure to get through everything we are supposed to cover before the end of June. Upon reflection, in the future, I'll probably slow this unit down and spend more time on it.

We worked on multiplication using three strategies: arrays; equal groups; and repeated addition. I used this resource. We also learned about division through equal grouping (this resource is free!) and repeated subtraction. These concepts actually seemed pretty easy for most of the students to grasp. And they seemed to enjoy these mini-units!

At the end of the month, we worked on one-step addition and subtraction equations within 20 with an unknown number (e.g., 20-n=10). This is getting our brains ready to learn algebra in the years to come!

As an early finisher activity, I had students complete the Proud to be Primary 2nd Grade math mats (the resource is aligned with American curriculum, so, although it says 2nd Grade, most of the work is Grade 3 level in BC). Components of the sheets that include skills I've taught the students are "must dos", while components that include skills I haven't taught yet (e.g., money) or won't teach at all (e.g., reading the analog clock - this is not expected in Grade 3 in BC) are "may dos". I found that this resource was a helpful way to cyclically review the skills we've covered throughout the year.

Strong Readers

I love Strong Nations Publishing! They sell so many great books and other resources for educators. Our school has some sets of the Strong Nations Strong Readers books, which are designed for Primary students, and we rotate the sets between our K-3 classrooms. I wanted to make sure that our students are engaging with these books and they're not just sitting on the shelf, so for the first couple weeks back after spring break, I planned a few lessons connected to our Strong Readers books.

We Go For a Hike inspired us to make animal tracks using play dough! I bought the play dough using PAC funds. Each student now has their own little container that they keep in their box of materials. Playing with play dough is one of the options for early finishers (the other options are reading, drawing, and catch up). The students have really enjoyed using the play dough!
We read An Egg Count and did an Adrienne Gear visualizing worksheet. This book also has some great math connections!
Students engaged in a readers theater experience based on The Pine Forest Community. Readers theatre is such a great way to build reading fluency, and students LOVE it!
The book Loons Are Amazing lists ten amazing things about loons. I asked students to think of something they find amazing and write a list of ten reasons why in their journal - e.g., ten amazing things about hockey; ten amazing things about my family; ten amazing things about Pokemon; etc. This was a fun way to mix up our usual writing routine!

First Nations Principles of Learning

In British Columbia, the First Nations Principles of Learning guide our teaching practice. One of my goals is to focus on these principles more intentionally, so that students are really connecting with the ideas and the principles are not just a poster on the wall. This month, I planned some activities connected to some of the principles:

Learning ultimately supports the well-being of the self, the family, the community, the land, the spirits, and the ancestors. I had students work on an art project connected to this lesson. Here are the slides if you'd like to use them.

The text on the slides was written by Microsoft Copilot. Also, I asked Copilot for suggestions as to what the students could draw for the Spirits and Ancestors circles. The suggestions for the Spirits circle were: an animal the student has a connection to; stars; a feather; a heart; a medicine wheel. The suggestions for the Ancestors circle were: a tree to represent the family tree; a hand to represent the helping hands of the ancestors; any image that represents the students' familial/cultural heritage.

I had the students write and draw in pencil, trace in fineliner, then colour with pencil crayon.

Here is the link for the circles template for $1 on TPT: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/6-Concentric-Circles-Blank-Template-Printable-8878005 (You could probably also find one for free on Google)

I copied the template on standard size printer paper. If I do this project again in the future, I'll probably use bigger paper so that the students have more room to write and draw.

Learning recognizes the role of indigenous knowledge.

At Upstart and Crow bookstore on Granville Island, I found the book The Land Knows Me: A nature walk exploring indigenous wisdom. I shared this book with my class, then we explored the natural environment of our school playground and students recorded what they notice (e.g., "The cherry blossoms are blooming!") and what they wonder (e.g., "What animals live underground?"). This book is now one of my favourites and I hope to share it with many more classes in the future.

Learning is embedded in memory, history, and story.

We created a timeline to represent the memories, history, and story of our class this year! Students brainstormed important events that have taken place in our class this year, and each student chose one event to record and draw. This was a great way to reflect on our year and all the special memories we have shared!

Learning involves patience and time.

This ties in so well with the idea of GROWTH MINDSET which has been a focus at our school this year. I had students work on this big letters activity. The resource also includes writing and drawing prompts. This would be a great activity for September to establish a growth mindset culture for the year!

Learning involves exploration of one's identity.

Again, this would be a good principle to focus on in September while you are getting to know who the learners in your class are. I had the students do this identity tangram activity. From self-portraits to "All About Me" writing projects to loose parts representations of identity, there are so many ways this principle could be explored!

We still have several more principles to consider! I'm looking forward to continuing to explore these important concepts with my students.

Safe Bodies, Strong Kids

We did the final two Safe Bodies, Strong Kids lesson:

Students created a web of safe adults in their lives who they can ask for help if needed.
As a conclusion to the program, I handed out certificates that students coloured to celebrate all we have learned. We are now experts on keeping our bodies safe!

Biodiversity

We have started our final science unit of the year which is all about biodiversity! I'm using this resource from Poet Prints Teaching.

We have done the following lessons:

Intro: We did the reading from the passage entitled "What is Biodiversity?" Students highlighted important words from the passage and created word webs. Then, we watched this video. Finally, students wrote down three things they know and three things they wonder about biodiversity.
We watched this video and students wrote sentences using the sentence starters "Biodiversity is...", "Biodiversity has...", and "Biodiversity can".
We completed a "mixed-up puzzles" vocabulary activity. Students worked individually or in partners (their choice - I selected the partners for those who chose that option) to match up terms and definitions.
We read the "What is an Ecosystem?" passage and students completed the response to reading activity, which asked them to draw examples of how living and nonliving things in an ecosystem work together.
We read the "Living and Nonliving Things" passage. As a response to reading, I gave the students the option to either answer the questions related to the passage or complete a cut and paste living vs. nonliving things sort. In retrospect, I think it would have made sense to do this lesson before the ecosystems lesson. Students also coloured the covers of their mini-books!
We completed the first page of our mini-books: students drew and labelled four plants that can be found in Richmond. To build knowledge, I had them read a passage generated by Microsoft Copilot, and I showed them photographs of local plants that they could use to help them with their drawings.

We also planted flowers with seeds a student's family donated! (I got the soil and pots at the garden store using PAC funds.) The students had fun watering their plants and seeing them start to sprout!

Art

We worked on two projects this month:

Easter bunny directed drawing and painting

2. Collaborative flower art

I LOVE this project, and my students do too!

Here are the slides I used to have the students create their flowers. Here is the (free!) lines handout.

Once students have created their flowers, I put them in groups of about 4-5 students each. They glue their flowers on poster board and collaboratively decorate the background.

I'd recommend allocating quite a bit of time for this project - AT LEAST 80 minutes.

Writing

The first week back, students wrote personal narratives about their spring break adventures. They used the Reading A-Z personal writing graphic organizers, which they are now familiar with. I love the Reading A-Z graphic organizers because they are provided at different levels which allows me to easily differentiate.

As the term 2 report card reflection, students reflected on the competency "I can be aware of others and my surroundings. I can help and be kind."

We had fun writing spring sticker stories! The example on the left is from Sarah's Teaching Snippets. The students used a simple graphic organizer that asked them to come up with a character, setting, problem, and solution, then wrote in their notebooks.

This month, we really enjoyed visiting the Vancouver Aquarium! Students wrote journal entries about this experience. As for the spring break writing, they used the Reading A-Z personal narrative graphic organizers.

Sara DeWaal Author Study

A big highlight this month was our author visit with Sara DeWaal (my MFA classmate!)

We started by exploring Sara's first book, 48 Grasshopper Estates. Students drew pictures and wrote sentences to represent the beginning, middle, and end of the story. Then, we did our "make a friend" project using recycled materials! Next, students wrote descriptions of their friends based on this planning sheet. We had so much fun with this!

Next, we explored Sara's newest book, The Biggest Smallest Thing. This book inspired us to create some sidewalk chalk art on our playground! Also, using this template from Annick Press (page 2 of the document), students designed their dream neighbourhoods and wrote descriptions! This inspired so much creativity!

Poetry Tea

April is poetry month! Each student in my class memorized and recited a poem this month. This was something that they worked on at home with their families. I shared this document with the families (these poems are from the Royal Conservatory of Music Speech Arts and Drama syllabus); students could choose from the document or select any other poem they like! Every student had several opportunities to perform in front of their classmates as practice for the grand finale: our poetry cafe with the Grades 4/5 class! The 4/5s also memorized poems, and some of them shared some of the poems they'd written, too! Parents donated lemonade, iced tea, and baked goods for this fun celebration!

What a busy month it has been! The weather has warmed up here in the lower mainland, but, as I have been reminding my students, the year's not over yet - we still have two more months of learning to go! In May, we will celebrate our special grown-ups, learn about owls (the students' choice; they voted on a local animal they would like to learn about), and investigate the trees on our schoolgrounds! Looking forward to another month of learning and fun!

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