Better Together

Kent and I just tried putting our classes together for a Remembrance Day writing activity.  The kids enjoyed the opportunity to work with the other class.  We could have done the same activity in our classes separately but it was better together.  Kent found the idea and we met , did a little planning, produced some notetaking and assessment sheets and got everyone together that week.  Just changing things up a bit and blending the classes went over well.  I also like having the chance to plan things with Kent; we have some other ideas brewing for the novel we are both reading to our class ( I am way behind him) and social studies (we want to pick Jeff's brain).  I am appreciating the push this project is giving us.

Easier by the Dozen

It's the Naramata X country run today so I only had 12 students in class this morning.  Wow, zero management and productive.  We tried Jeff's suggestion for learning with movement by posting numbers to 31 around the room.  I said a number in French and they had to try and be the first to find the sign and touch it.  I thought it was better to try it first with a small group.   For French they made little cartoons of dialogue we will be doing 'live'.  Their cartoons will be on the bulletin board as a prompt.  They were happily working on the proper pronunciation and spelling for the presentation.  They each chose the context of their different conversation lines.  Dice games as a group in math.  They all said they loved the morning. 

Here I go.

I have never blogged before and was never too successful with journaling either.  I have heard that having kids write out anything they are worried about before an assignment or test lessens their anxiety.  Maybe I should give it a try.  I am worried that I won't be able to come up with enough creative ways of meeting the learning outcomes, that time will burn away and we will be left with untouched curriculum (more than usual), that I will have difficulty keeping enough records and then won't get enough data for the project. 
I know the desire to change the way you do things doesn't always make changing any easier but it does motivate you to take the first step.  I feel relieved that the Different Lens project gave me a place to put my foot down and has such great supporters to move me down the path.  I am already thankful for the blog since I signed on and saw a great lesson from Kent (Thanks).