Weekly Language Live Stream

For all you Twitter junkies and language enthusiasts, join your language colleagues every Thursday evening at 8pm EST to discuss the latest topics in the world of education. You can follow along and/or participate using the #langchat hashtag. If you'v missed it, not to worry! Check out their summaries at http://langchat.pbworks.com/w/page/39343677/FrontPage.  

French Texting!

I saw this and had to post it... it made me laugh! French abbreviations for text messages!!! Amazing... check it out: http://french.about.com/library/writing/bl-texting.htm

Breakfast For Learning

I came across an interesting article this weekend, which talked about the first large-scale study of school breakfast programs done in Canada. 

Click here for the article

The study, done within the Toronto District School Board, mentions staggering statistics such as the fact that 51 per cent of elementary students and 68 per cent of high school students came to school without eating breakfast! Thankfully, the study shows that students who ate breakfast through the school breakfast program showed in increase in general health, behaviour and academics. 

Nevertheless, as the article states: "Canada is one of few developed nations that does not have a national child breakfast program." I saw the breakfast program be an outstanding success at my previous school as well, and if your school doesn't already have it, I would highly encourage everyone to do what they can to encourage their schools to participate in a breakfast program. 

New Teacher Website!

As a new teacher myself I was thrilled to come across this website: "Survive & Thrive - Virtual Conference for Beginning Teachers". That's like music to my ears! What a great resource for lesson plans, stress management, teaching strategies, and more!

French Resources For Parents

I found this great website today which is "a FSL resource for parents and students in Ontario". Great link to pass on to your students and parents! Does anyone have any other websites they give out to students and parents? 

French Lesson

I stumbled upon this website today which shows a couple of short lessons, followed by the opportunity to practice what they've shown you. Give it a try! I will add it to the "FSL" page and "Math" page as well. Bonne chance! 

First Nations in the news

It's been a while since I've blogged! School's been keeping me busy and I've been busy fixing up the pages and adding resources - it's overwhelming sometimes when you realize how much information is really out there.

I wanted to share this article I found today, which talks about Aboriginal people and the education system (http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/01/23/pol-first-nations-education.html). It really bothers me that there is such a lack of awareness surrounding this issue. There are Aboriginal people living in our country in extreme poverty, worse than I've seen while living in the slums of El Salvador, but yet no one seems to know, care, or do something about it. This is a very complex situation. It isn't a matter of sending money, or houses, or telling the aboriginal people to “just move”. 

In this article The First Nations Chiefs say that it is difficult to improve education unless the government also deals with the poverty, shortage of housing, under-funding of child welfare services, etc. In the meantime, however, how can we as educators, not only educate people on the atrocious living conditions of our fellow citizens, but also eradicate negative stereotypes that people may have in regards to aboriginal people? I will eventually create a new "page" on my blog dedicated to First Nations people and issues, and resources that can helps us, teachers, help and educate all of our students (including the aboriginal students) in our class.