NTIP and More

This week I had the opportunity to take a day and attend the NTIP introductory workshop. NTIP stands for the New Teachers Induction Program. Not only did it explain all the perks and opportunities for new teachers, but it got me out of the classroom for a day, putting my occasional teacher planning to the test. Having once been a supply teacher myself, I could remember what sort of planning I really appreciated going into a new classroom. I made sure my OT binder was up to date and I left typed up plans. I thought it would be much easier for a supply teacher to read; which led me to realize that my day plan template works well for me and my scribbles, but not so much for anyone else. I went home and remade the template later that night.

Anyways…NTIP! It was a full day of presentations that were pretty useful. NTIP teachers have the chance to participate in a wide selection of professional development workshops; three of which may be full day, out of school sessions. The others are online or after school. You can pick and choose which courses work for you. I want to do about 90% of them (typical for me), so I’m going to have to sit down and really think about which ones are most important for my own learning.

We also received a TON of free stuff; my favourite was the PRIM textbook, which is a teacher’s dream. If your school has one, it’s usually housed in the Special Education classroom because it lists pages of strategies for a lot of different exceptionalities, both academic and behavioural. One thing we did not receive however, was a free pen. I love getting free pens.

So, back to the classroom. Apparently all went well with my onesies while I was gone, and I was oh so happy to see their adorable little faces once again. We have been looking at short vowel sounds, specifically short o and short i. We read this poem called “Friendship” and looked for those words with the short vowel sounds. The poem complemented our big idea that we need to be responsible and kind to one another.

I’ve still managed to get every child in for guided reading throughout the week with a new book. We are practicing what it needs to look like and sound like during independent reading. These kiddos are still transitioning from the full day kindergarten life, where the concept of reading quietly is really quite foreign. I’m not too worried.  They’ll get the hang of it.

We’ve moved onto bullying this week, and started reading stories where someone gets bullied, and how they solve the problem. The kids have been perfecting their sentence writing by responding to the text. They’re also learning how to peer edit and self edit their written work, using the success criteria and their writing goals to make their writing even better. For some, the process is difficult because they don’t all know what they’re looking for; for others, they are pretty good at not just labeling their work as perfect. This is something I’d like to do with every unit, so there’s no harm in starting them off early.

In math, we have been continuing with graphing, and learning to compare objects in a graph. I introduced two more math big ideas: 1) You can represent a number in a variety of ways; 2) You can compare items in a group by matching up the items. This is getting them used to making 1:1 correspondences with the information they see. Most are now getting the hang of telling me how many MORE one set has than the other. This is a tricky concept, but once they got the hang of making 1:1 correspondences, it got a lot easier.

I love when I hear that the kids take something away with them that they learned that day, and share it with their families. One mother came in to chat with me on Friday morning and she said her son started cleaning up the dishes from the kitchen table at dinner the night before, which was something he didn’t usually do. He told her that his teacher taught him what taking initiative meant, and that he wanted to help her without being asked to do it. Hearing that made my morning. As a teacher, you always hope that what you teach your students sticks with them; but sometimes it’s not the academic content that makes a huge difference—it’s the life skills you teach them about how to be responsible and caring people in the world.

Friday morning was a dreary, rainy morning and I just felt like having a little bit of fun with them before the weekend. This was my morning question: “How old do you think Ms. Lawrence is?” I always find it interesting to see a child’s perception of age. WELL. One boy told me he thought I was 19. One girl guessed 50. FIFTY! On average, most of the kids guessed around 30. Then we played a little game of “More or Less” where they had to ask me if my age was more or less than _____. We used the number line to help. Eventually, they discovered my true age and they were pretty excited. Now my one boy won’t think that I’m “too old” to have children. Please see my Unforgettable Moments page to read about that one. 

After our little game and then some guided and independent reading, I brought them back to the carpet to show them next week’s word work game. It is a game called ZAP! It is super easy to make and play. I got coloured popsicle sticks and wrote sight words on them. Every now and then, I’d write ZAP! on a stick. The idea of the game is to pick out a stick and read the word. If you pick a ZAP! stick you lose all your sticks. First person to get 10 sticks wins! The kids LOVED this game.

With just one week left of September, I’m getting the kids ready for their summative tasks. Next week we will be wrapping up our Acceptance and Responsibility unit, and getting ready and excited for October’s new unit. Also, I’m starting to think I need to redecorate my blog. Since I’ve caught the Back to School Plague (I’m writing this post at 3:45am on a Saturday because my throat is so sore that I can’t sleep), I may just work on that later as I lay bedridden, trying to get better. Stay tuned!