Long Range Plans
Which, of course, for a teacher means looking ahead to the next ten months :).
Tomorrow night is our yearly parent curriculum night, where the parents are invited to come out to the classrooms of their sons and daughters and hear about what they will be learning for the next ten months, as well as meeting the person who will be teaching it to them. It means I've had to spend a bunch of time this week finalizing what units I'm going to do this year.
Here's some of the highlights I think could be quite fun to teach. First of all some units that have worked in the past and will be done again this year:
- Ancient Greece Unit. Students will do research projects, read books, study Greek mythology and finish up the unit with a big Greek Lunch.
- Christmas Poetry Unit. Students will learn the structure of several types of poetry, write their own samples on a Christmas theme and prepare hard-cover poetry books to take home for their parents for Christmas.
- Harry Potter Unit. The third Harry Potter is coming out next June, so we'll study "Prisoner of Azkaban" in May to prepare to go to the movie as a field trip in June. They will design costumes, build sets, act out scenes and follow up with critiques of the movie.
- Structure Unit. This unit, which I tried for the first time last year, involved learning the theory of structures using K'Nex. The kids loved this unit.
- Recorder Instruction. The students had a bit of recorder training last year in Gr. 4 and we will continue where they left off.
- Newspaper Unit. Involves learning the sections of the newspaper and what you find in each section, and designing and writing a class newspaper of their own.
New units to try this year:
- Election Unit. Government is a unit we teach every year, but this year we can connect the electoral process into the present Ontario election campaign. I'll be starting this unit next week to take advantage of that.
- "Annie"- Lily (the other Gr. 5 teacher) and I co-directed "Fiddler On The Roof" last year. This year we aren't doing a full-school musical, but we are going to put on a version of "Annie" with our two classes. It will involve all our lessons in the arts in the second and third terms and will be presented late in the year.
- "The Lost Treasure of Casa Loma"- Found this novel set in the library just today and being that our vice-principal gave it a ringing endorsement when she saw me with a copy, both Lily and I have decided to do a novel study on this book. Author Eric Wilson is well-known for his adventure and mystery books for children. Like the Toronto connection, like the compact length and like that the books contains maps and blueprints to go with the action. And we will likely follow up the book with a field trip to tour Casa Loma (on the same day we go to Queen's Park as part of our government unit).
Well, sounds like it should be a busy and eventful year!
Exercise log: I got lazy today, only 1.5 miles taking me to 438.5 miles. What with the hurricane and all I don't know if I'll reach Rivendell by Monday. I still have 19.5 miles to walk. One of my fellow walkers reached Rivendell today, the same woman who sent me the long, thin mystery parcel sitting in my closet right now. She is very, very happy :).
Tomorrow night is our yearly parent curriculum night, where the parents are invited to come out to the classrooms of their sons and daughters and hear about what they will be learning for the next ten months, as well as meeting the person who will be teaching it to them. It means I've had to spend a bunch of time this week finalizing what units I'm going to do this year.
Here's some of the highlights I think could be quite fun to teach. First of all some units that have worked in the past and will be done again this year:
- Ancient Greece Unit. Students will do research projects, read books, study Greek mythology and finish up the unit with a big Greek Lunch.
- Christmas Poetry Unit. Students will learn the structure of several types of poetry, write their own samples on a Christmas theme and prepare hard-cover poetry books to take home for their parents for Christmas.
- Harry Potter Unit. The third Harry Potter is coming out next June, so we'll study "Prisoner of Azkaban" in May to prepare to go to the movie as a field trip in June. They will design costumes, build sets, act out scenes and follow up with critiques of the movie.
- Structure Unit. This unit, which I tried for the first time last year, involved learning the theory of structures using K'Nex. The kids loved this unit.
- Recorder Instruction. The students had a bit of recorder training last year in Gr. 4 and we will continue where they left off.
- Newspaper Unit. Involves learning the sections of the newspaper and what you find in each section, and designing and writing a class newspaper of their own.
New units to try this year:
- Election Unit. Government is a unit we teach every year, but this year we can connect the electoral process into the present Ontario election campaign. I'll be starting this unit next week to take advantage of that.
- "Annie"- Lily (the other Gr. 5 teacher) and I co-directed "Fiddler On The Roof" last year. This year we aren't doing a full-school musical, but we are going to put on a version of "Annie" with our two classes. It will involve all our lessons in the arts in the second and third terms and will be presented late in the year.
- "The Lost Treasure of Casa Loma"- Found this novel set in the library just today and being that our vice-principal gave it a ringing endorsement when she saw me with a copy, both Lily and I have decided to do a novel study on this book. Author Eric Wilson is well-known for his adventure and mystery books for children. Like the Toronto connection, like the compact length and like that the books contains maps and blueprints to go with the action. And we will likely follow up the book with a field trip to tour Casa Loma (on the same day we go to Queen's Park as part of our government unit).
Well, sounds like it should be a busy and eventful year!
Exercise log: I got lazy today, only 1.5 miles taking me to 438.5 miles. What with the hurricane and all I don't know if I'll reach Rivendell by Monday. I still have 19.5 miles to walk. One of my fellow walkers reached Rivendell today, the same woman who sent me the long, thin mystery parcel sitting in my closet right now. She is very, very happy :).