Feb. 27 – Mar. 3rd

I hope everyone had a relaxing break, whether you were lounging on a beach somewhere, hanging out at hockey rinks, or just taking things slowly at home. We stayed close to home this week, with the odd trip in to Saskatoon to grandma’s house, some skating in Warman, and a couple of meals out (5 Guys for lunch and Amigos for supper….yum!). I’m really looking forward to getting back to work, back to a routine, and back to the energy and enthusiasm of the students and staff.

As David and I mentioned earlier in February, we will continue to visit classrooms, however we want to be much more intentional about what we are looking for, and the discussions we are having with you. This is where we need your help. Please let David and I know what you would like us to be looking for when we do our classroom visits. We realize that timing will have an impact on this, for example, if you wanted us to listen to how you use wait time with your questions and we pop in during the independent work portion of your lesson, we may not see much questioning. In that case we could talk about other things, but I don’t think it is helpful to try and force feedback where it doesn’t fit. Please complete this very quick 3 question survey to provide David and I with some guidance.

When Sandra Herbst was here in February one thing she talked about was the environment as the third teacher in the classroom. Classroom set up was something I was always playing with when I was in the classroom, always tinkering with the set up to the point where students started questioning me on Monday mornings if I hadn’t moved things. One thing I never considered was moving furniture during the lesson, how things looked in the morning was usually how things looked at 3:00. After watching this video, which is this week’s learning linkI wonder how much more effective the teaching and learning could have been had I used the environment as a tool to differentiate. Have a look, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Here is what lies ahead this week:

Monday:

  • Day 6, first day back at it.

Tuesday:

  • Grade 8 field trip to Saskatoon

Wednesday:

  • Business as usual

Thursday:

  • Pizza for lunch at the booth

Friday:

  • Business as usual

 

As always, create a great week!

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About the Author: Bruce Mellesmoen