The One Room School House

Our class has finally wrapped up our Grade 3 Social Studies unit on Communities in Canada where we learned all about First Nations and Early Settlers. Because there was so much to cover in this unit, it took about two months to do it right.

The kids had learned so much about First Nations and how they lived in North America, making use of their environments and overcoming various challenges, such as facing the arrival of the Early Settlers.

Eventually, we moved exclusively into the life of a pioneer, specifically a child. A few weeks ago, the kids arrived to find that I had transformed our classroom into a one room schoolhouse (well, as best as one can do in a 21^st Century classroom; we had to ignore our new wall-mounted Smart Board at the front of the room).

I took the desks out of groups and arranged them in rows and pretended that there was a big wood stove in the middle of the room.

Furthermore, when they finally found their desks, they saw that I had set them up to resemble the desk of a pioneer student’s.

Since we don’t actually have slates, we pretended by using white boards and markers; and since I bought brand new markers for this little project, the kids were just that much more excited.

So what’s that up in the top right corner? That’s a slapper tracker. No, pioneer school houses didn’t have such a thing because the teacher would just whack the children for misbehaviour and other misdemeanours. Obviously, I would never hit a student, but they were so interested in what would warrant a slap, that I used this tracker to let them see how it worked.

First off, my two poor kiddos that are left-handed immediately got a slap, because that was forbidden at the time. I had them fill in one of the circles-with their right hands!

In order to understand all other punishments, we looked at the rules for a one room school house:

Student Rules

-Boys and girls shall file into classroom in separate lines and be seated quietly on opposite sides of the room

-Children must be clean and tidy in clothing

-There will be a daily inspection of neck, ears, and fingernails prior to class to ensure cleanliness of person

-Young ladies must never show a bare ankle; girls’ and boys’ clothing should cover arms and legs completely

-Move their caps when entering

-Children must sit up straight at all times

-Children must not squirm, fidget, or whine

Punishments

-Five minutes tardy = 1 hour after school

-Double assignment id homework is not done

-Nothing shall be dipped into ink wells except pens

-Children who are caught writing with their left hand = 1 ruler rap on the knuckles

-Do not speak unless spoken to by the teacher. Talking in class = 1 whack with a rod

-Nothing shall be thrown in class. Such behaviour = 5 whacks with a rod

-Chewing of tobacco or spitting = 7 whacks with a rod

-Speaking immoral language = suspension

-Carving on desks or defacing school property = expulsion

-Fighting, lying, or cheating = expulsion

ONLY WELL MANNERED CHILDREN MAY ATTEND SCHOOL.

REMEMBER: EDUCATION IS A PRIVILEDGE

*I’m sorry, I cannot remember where I accessed this list, but it appeared on many websites after a Google search

They had a blast as I looked in their ears and doled out “slaps” for bare ankles showing. Even the poor little guy that came in late from a dentist appointment asked (no, begged) if he could actually stay one hour after school for being late…haha!

Cookie Mining

One of the Grade Three social studies units is called Living and Working in Ontario and part of that is learning about natural resources, the industries that are available for jobs, and the impacts various kinds of land use have on the environment.

“B2.5 evaluate evidence and draw conclusions about some of the short- and long-term effects on the environment of different types of land use in municipal regions of Ontario and about key measures to reduce the negative impact of that use” (Social Studies Curriculum 92)

When I was in university, I had a professor who had us do this activity that demonstrated the effects of mining. It’s called the Cookie Mining Activity. Here’s how you do it.

The kids LOVE it. For tools, they used toothpicks and a straightened out paper clip, and they were so careful. At the end, we counted up our chips to see how much “gold” we mined.

The following is a video I found on YouTube of the same activity. Click HERE to be redirected.

I love hands on activities to teach (what I consider to be) a rather dry topic.

And of course, I bought an extra box so we could enjoy a cookie once everything was tidied up!

Welcome to Medieval Times

Grade Fours everywhere long for the day when they get to learn about medieval times. Since the recent social studies curriculum change, the Medieval Times unit has been changed to Early Societies, so we will eventually get into ancient civilizations as well. But since they were all dying to learn about kings, knights, and battles, we thought it was best to start off with medieval times. When you think about it, there is A LOT to cover in the Early Societies unit. My grade partners and I decided it would be best to make it a research based unit and give it a strong literacy focus where the kids would study features of non-fiction texts and synthesize their research into a summary paragraph.

Our “mini learning goals” that were more specific to what we were doing that day.

I did this on our beautiful new Smart Board…so handy!

Our colour coded timeline will help the students understand when these early societies existed throughout time

We started by learning about the social structure of the Middle Ages. It’s important to understand how society worked in order to understand other aspects of medieval life.

Again, the work of my  wonderful grade partner

The social studies curriculum has a strong focus on the inquiry process, so this is our question we will return to as we continue to learn about early societies (I can’t take credit for this; it is yet again the work of my fantastic grade partner).

As you know, I teach a Grade 3/4 split and I haven’t found it too hard as of yet to deliver both curriculums. It’s pretty easy to teach math and literacy to both grades because the expectations are similar. A different teacher teaches my Grade Three science, so science is easy to teach; the Grade Threes just listen in and learn the Grade Four content. Here’s where it gets tricky: social studies.

The Grade Threes are learning the Living and Working in Ontario unit, so what I’ve done is I’ve divided up the day. The Grade Four medieval times content is being taught through our literacy block (the Grade Threes LOVE that they get to learn about it a year earlier), and the Grade Three Ontario unit is taught in the afternoon. Does it mean my Grade Fours have to hear Grade Three content again? Yes. However, since we are aiming to make these units researched-based, eventually we will get to a point where the Grade Fours can work on their own projects while I work with the Grade Threes. Furthermore, there will be moments when we can mesh our early societies research with our Ontario research. For example, next week we will be learning about jobs in both the Middle Ages and in Ontario. We will be able to return to our inquiry question and consider how early practices have evolved or disappeared over time.

Next week, I’ll talk more about what my Grade Threes are doing. I have a fun plan lined up for them on Monday.

Enjoy the weekend!

Back to School!

    Well, our first week back to school is over and it was a fantastic four days. I have 18 wonderful little Grade Ones who love being at school, and who are so eager to learn. It’s also great that I teach in the primary hall so that I can see my students from previous years. They always come up and give me a hug. One girl even came up to me at the end of the day while I was getting my kids ready and hands me a scrap of paper with her phone number on it. It came just after one of my boys told me he was inviting me to his birthday party in December, as well as all of his karate practices each week. How adorable is that?!

We are starting up this Grade One school year by learning that we are all unique, to accept differences, and to be responsible. The kiddies are learning how to read and write “I like” and use it in a full sentence. By Friday, we had brainstormed a list of things they like about Grade One and they wrote a sentence. My kids rock! It’s amazing how many of them wrote, “I like my desk”. It’s quite the upgrade in independence from their kindergarten tables, I suppose.

Our shared reading this week was a poem called “I Like Myself”. It’s actually longer than this, but I took a few verses out to make it shorter for their first week back. I don’t know who the original author is either; I had it in a digital file from a colleague.

Each morning, we would look at something different in the poem. One day, we underlined all the words that said “like”, so they could get used to seeing what “like” looks like and sounds like. Another day we looked at the uppercase “I” and discussed why we use a capital {because it’s talking about you and you’re special, so it gets a special uppercase-see how I relate everything back to our big idea that we’re all special?}. On Friday we talked about periods and what our voices have to sound like when we see a period. My little smartie pants even knew what an exclamation mark was and how to read with one. Needless to say, they loved this poem; especially when I let them read it animatedly when it came to the loud, quiet, happy, and sad section.

Each morning after our shared reading I would send them back to their desks with a booklet that went along with the poem. They had to complete the activities inside explaining when they were loud, quiet, happy, sad, messy, and clean. They had to draw a picture and write a sentence. Some of them finished, but most put their hearts and souls into the pictures and forgot about the sentences. I didn’t really notice because this was going on as I was pulling kids to read with me so I could assess their reading levels. I think I got to all but three kids. Pretty impressive, I’d say!

In math we are learning about graphing, so on our first day together we made a graph about how we felt about the first day of school. They loved it, and now we have it on our math wall to admire everyday. They were really good at analyzing the information in it, and I couldn’t believe my ears when one boy said he noticed that if you combined all the people who were sad, happy, and nervous, it equaled nine. Genius. The rest of the week we talked about parts of a graph and introduced our Big Idea that “Graphs help us see information easily”. We tacked that up on the math wall as well. I was so impressed with how much math we got done in that first week. We built a graph on how they get to school, we answered questions, and by Friday, I already had them in pairs working on a mystery graph. The task was to see if they could come up with an appropriate title for the information in the graph. Some got it right away and others struggled a bit. We will be doing more fun mystery graphs next week! Thanks to my colleague who created this graph to use last year :) 

In social studies we are learning how to be responsible. So far, we have talked about how to be responsible at home. Some of the answers I got were so cute! “I am responsible when I’m nice to my cat”. Poor kitty…

We’ll be completing the rest of the booklet as we learn more about responsibility throughout the month of September. The social studies period was also a great time to slowly introduce our Tribes Agreements. My school uses the Tribes training so as the kids get older, the consistent use of these agreements throughout the grades should make the behaviour come naturally. So far, we have talked about what Attentive Listening, and what Appreciations look like and sound like. We brainstormed some ideas, and now all I have to say is, “show me what good listening looks like” and they all snap into a criss-cross sitting position, hands in their laps, and eyes on me. In Grade One, they love when I show them appreciations, so as soon as I thank those who are doing what they’re supposed to be doing, everyone else strives to do the same. It’s wonderful.

In art, we are learning about one element of art: line. To go along with our celebrating differences unit, I gave them all an outline of a person and their job was to make themselves, but the t-shirt had to be designed with at least three different kinds of line. Their creations were so cute. This is a picture of mine that I used as an example. I know what you’re thinking: “Wow, Ms. Lawrence! You’re quite the artist! And I had no idea you were a Simpsons character”.

I tried my best, okay?!

Let’s move on to this week’s learning centres. At the Writing Centre, they had to practice writing “I like” and then draw a picture of what it is they like. Once they were finished that, they were allowed to practice their writing on the big white board. Dry erase boards and markers are just the bee’s knees to Grade Ones.

 Click for a copy

At the Math Centre, I wanted to see their abilities when it came to counting by ones. They had to identify how many of each picture they saw. On the back, it was the reverse; I gave them the number and asked them to draw that amount. It also allowed me to assess their number writing skills as well.

Click for a copy

At the Art Centre I had them draw a picture of what they did in the summer. One girl drew a beautiful picture of the Niagara Falls all lit up at night. Sounds like a great summer!

At the Computer Centre, I’m teaching them how to use Tumblebooks. I love this website. It’s going to take some time teaching them all how to use it, but they catch on quickly.

Finally, at the Storytelling Centre, I set out some toys for those kids who just need to play and use their imaginations. Keep in mind; they’re coming from two years of play-based learning in kindergarten, so they still need that time to learn through play.

One of my biggest struggles with the centres was realizing the emotional turmoil many of them went through when I told them they had an assigned centre for the day. In kindergarten, they were allowed to roam between the different learning centres. In Grade One, I have them in groups that rotate between each centre throughout the week. They’ll get the hang of their new routine.

I’ll leave you with some other pictures I took of the room this week. It’s really coming along. Although, I will have to make a stop at Fabric Land {the store I dread more than anywhere else in this world. My mom used to drag me there when I was a kid. It was awful because it was a) boring and b) located in the downstairs portion of a plaza, which just emphasized the feeling that I was in a dungeon. It still haunts me}. But I really do have to go because sadly, those one dollar table clothes around my learning centres did not last one day without being torn *sniff, sniff*.

On the first day of school, I get a knock on my door and my mom is standing there with a bouquet of flowers for me in a ducky vase. I have the best mom ever. Check out the Unforgettable Moments page to read about the conversation that followed. 

My first day of Grade One picture. Except we cheated a little bit. We forgot to take the picture on the first day, so this is technically my second day photo

Our anchor chart about different kinds of line

I posted their sentences about what they like about Grade One. I gave them all their own pictures to paste on, so I had to blur them out for the blog.

 They've done a great job at keeping track of the days and weather with our daily calendar time in math

 These are the books I've read to them so far this week

Our success criteria. The yellow is just general classroom SC, and the pink is for Literacy. We are going to fill in the rest of the Literacy SC next week as a class.

Time to enjoy the weekend with lots of family events to attend. Oh, and marking-lots of stuff to assess this weekend to get ready for next week; but I don’t mind because I love what I do. Have a happy weekend, friends!

Around the World

    Right now we are in a unit we call "Fiction of the World" where our big idea asks the students to consider: Is Canada a fortunate country? We are looking at texts that are set in different countries around the world. So far, we have looked at African countries like Egypt and Tanzania. We have read fictional books that depict life in these countries. Our students are learning that these stories do not reflect the country as a whole, but rather a specific area, showing how some people live. They can see that Canada is very much the same: not everyone in Canada has the same lifestyle and privileges as everyone else. It really gets them thinking about our big idea. 

    This unit fits so nicely with the Grade Two science unit called Features of Communities Around the World. The Ontario curriculum summarizes this unit by saying, "Students develop their awareness of physical and human geography by examining contemporary global communities. They use map, globe, and research skills to compare the cultural and physical features of a variety of communities. Students explore how the environment influences people’s lives, and begin to recognize that the lifestyles of people in other countries may be both similar to and different from their own" (The Ontario Curriculum: Social Studies, Grades 1 to 6, 37).

    The kids are writing postcards from the countries we "visit", writing summaries of the stories we read, and making a decision as to whether or not Canada is a fortunate country. To make it even more exciting, I made them all little passports. For each country we visit, they fill in the little information pages. I splurged on the pictures by using my own coloured ink for their identification pictures. It just looked better that way. Every time we go to a new country, they get their passport stamped. For those who have never travelled or even seen a passport, this process was very exciting! 

    I'm in the works of arranging a classroom Skype date with a friend who also teaches Grade One over in Egypt. They are six hours ahead of us, so finding a time that works for everyone is tricky. Hopefully we can make it happen! It's not everyday you Skype kids in Egypt while you're at school. Click the picture for your FREE copy!

Cut and assemble into a little book. Include a copy of the stamped page for each country visited.

A book we read to learn about life in Tanzania, written by Tololwa M. Mollel

Template for the story summary and the text to self connection

Postcard template