A must-see documentary

In teacher's college we were always told that one of the most important ideas behind teaching is to let the students do their own learning - that is, it is easy for us as teachers to give them the answers, but it's when they work hard themselves to get to the answer that true and permanent learning will unfold. That is why I encourage any teacher, parent, child, family, to consider watching the documentary "One Clip at a Time". It is an extremely moving story based on the fact that one student, had one question, and his teacher allowed it to be turned into a project that would quickly become international. The story behind the film is about an 8th grade class studying the Holocaust. One of the students asked the question "What does 6 million look like?" This questions turned into a school-wide project of collecting 6 million paperclips to represent every person lost during the Holocaust. 
To me this is an incredibly inspiring story and a beautiful reminder to all teachers of how amazing our job is, and how amazing it is that we have this ability and opportunity to influence young minds, IF, we let them. If you chose to watch the film, please feel free to post any comments below.

Here is the link to the preview and official website
Here is the link to "like" the project on Facebook

Beating Summer Learning Loss

Studies have shown that students lose between one and two months' worth of academic knowledge each summer (see interesting article from Edutopia). How can you beat this? Here are 8 ways to use Edmodo over the summer to keep students engaged and learning, and for some creative ways for teachers to stay connected as well (for the full article click here). 


1. Create an Edmodo summer camp
2. Get involved with Edmodo reading groups
3. Participate in a concept study (for teachers)
4. Create an alumni group
5. Have students create Science projects
6. Engage your new students (if you already know who your students will be)
7. Host Professional Development Sessions (for teachers)
8. Contact new teachers (for teachers)

The debate of course is, do students and teachers actually need the break? Should teachers keep in touch with students over the summer or is it OK to take the break and disconnect? What are the pros and cons of keeping schools open year-round (the above article from Edutopia discusses this in more depth)?
Would love to hear your thoughts! 

What will you do over the summer?

What will you do this summer? I know I started a list back in January already of "will get to this in the summer"... Here is a great article that gives 10 suggestions for each teacher to do over the summer (for the original article click here):

1. We all know the temptation to start planning for next year, but take a break from everything teaching for one week. Two. Maybe an entire month. You’ll be better when you come back to it.
2. Read a book that’s just for grown-ups.
3. If you have your own kids, let them plan one wandering, wild, carefree day. The kind that’s hard to have when there are piles of paper to grade.
4. Whether or not you have kids, plan one of those days yourself!
5. Take this challenge: Go to Target and buy NOTHING for your classroom. Can you do it?
6. Make an investment in your professional life that matters to you. Maybe that’s taking a course on a topic you’ve always wanted to learn about. Maybe it’s catching up on this year’s Newbery winners. Whatever your interests, the summer is time for professional development on your terms.
7. Make it a goal to connect with a colleague you don’t know very well or with whom you haven’t always seen eye to eye. A summer barbecue or coffee outing is a nice opportunity to get to know one another outside of school walls—and established teacher cliques.
8. Work on a “feel good file” that reminds yourself about the good parts of your job. Include thank you notes from students, inspirational quotes, that mantra from your favorite teaching professor—whatever makes you think, “Yes. This is why I teach.”
9. As soon as you get that new class list, reach out to every student on it and say hello. You don’t have to do anything fancy or “Pinterest-worthy”—a simple phone call does the trick. (And may be the most important step in setting yourself up for success next year!)
10. Remember, summer break is like New Year’s Eve for teachers—grand expectations can lead to disappointment. It’s okay if you don’t read every book, finish every house project or cut out every last decoration for next year’s bulletin boards. It’s okay if you don’t have a traditional summer break or are working a second job, too. The next few months will still be filled with small, simple joys. Look out for them!
    
    
    
    
    
    

FREE tutorials for variety of web tools

Are you overwhelmed by the million different types of online tools available to you? Not sure where or HOW to begin? Wait no more!!! Here is a link with fantastic beginner's guides to a variety of common online tools such as Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, Google, and more. My suggestion would be to focus on one thing at a time or you will get overwhelmed. Don't worry about the fact that other people keep track of 10 blogs a day, post 20 tweets by 9am, or have created 8 new boards on Pinterest each week... there will always be someone who does more. So do what works for YOU! :) Enjoy!

Inspiring Stories BY kids For kids

A couple of weeks ago I planned a unit on Biographies (French). Our motto for the unit is "Inspire, and be inspired". The goal of the unit is for the kids to interview someone inspiring in their lives, and to write a short Biography on them. 

To start, I wanted to expose them to a variety of Biographies - not just any kind, but ones that they could relate to as 9 and 10 year-olds. I found an absolutely phenomenal website that does just that! Even though all the stories are in English, we discuss them in French. The website, called Inspire My Kids focuses on a wide variety of topics, such caring, fairness, compassion, responsibility, etc. It contains a wide database of inspiring stories and videos of people from all ages. 

This website, I'm sure, can be used in many, many different ways. Please let me know if you have used it and in what ways. 

Enjoy!

Poetry Cafe in French

Looking for a fun and interesting way to get your students to speak and present in French? Put on a "Poetry Café"! We learned about and practiced a variety of poems (email me if you'd like the Poetry Booklet with all the poems ready to print  and practice) on a variety of topics throughout the month. Once the students decided they would like to present them to their parents, they chose their best poem from their Poetry Booklet and wrote a little paragraph on why that was their best one (good time to talk about critical thinking and not just writing because it's pretty... because it's my favourite... because I like it...). Now came the time to prepare our Café! The students came up with a whole list of ideas that they wanted to do, so here's some of them:

• "Publish" the poems onto a big piece of chart paper and add illustrations
• Use a microphone
• Make donuts and coffee mugs out of cardboard and hang them from a ceiling (looked really good!)
• Bring in checkered table clothes to put over the tables
• Make a "menu" for the parents (AKA a list of who presents when)
• Bring in Coffee and apples for parents (some parents brought home made brownies as well!)
• Make a background/welcome sign for the presenters
• Create their own invitations (incl. how/when to RSVP, advertising light refreshments, time/place, etc.)
• Create invitations for the Principal and VP
• Have a student be the MC, have 2 students welcome and seat parents
• Students run the whole show... teacher relaxes! (most of the time!! hehe)

It was an outstanding show and performance by all of the students! Best of all, it was all done within an hour so parents could easily go back to work in case they came during their lunch break. 

The students loved hosting their parents and were excited about speaking French! 

Edmodo

I'm curious to know if other teachers use "online classrooms" such as Edmodo, and if so, what are they and how do you use them? I have used Edmodo since the very beginning of the school year and have found it to be an absolutely amazing tool for various reasons: 

• Builds a kind and caring classroom community where students can talk to each other, share information, compliment each other, and find common interests (every student and parent signs an agreement at the beginning of the year explaining what it IS and ISN'T supposed to be used for and consequences for when rules are broken)
• Saves paper! Homework can be posted on Edmodo, whether it's a link to a game or article, or an assignment they can do on the computer and then upload again back onto Edmodo
• Communicate with parents - parents can create an account as well, where they can monitor what their child does/says online 
• Networking opportunities!!! We participated in the Global Read Aloud (I highly suggest it!) and connected with a classroom in another country to discuss the book we were both reading, and share thoughts, opinions, and activities

Please share if you have any other thoughts or ideas on online classrooms.