Bachelor of Kindergarten and Elementary Ed.
Artifacts from Field Experiences One and Two
English Language Arts
A Message to Stillwater
In this lesson, I co-led a read-aloud of the book Zen Shorts and guided students through the process of writing a postcard to the main character of the story, Stillwater. I believe in all lessons, students must feel inspired and excited to learn, so for this lesson, my partner and I used a puppet to read the story as our students have loved anything to do with puppets. After the read-aloud, I engaged students in an open discussion determining what a postcard is and how to make one. Next, the students made their own postcards to be sent off to Stillwater, which mimics a task that students may do in their lives. Students loved the puppet, and they thrived with the freedom to create their messages and images for the postcard. It was very successful!
Arts Education
Rainbow Connection Concert
My class participated in their first-ever concert, and the theme was rainbows! For their performance, we made rainbow necklaces for each student to wear. Students were encouraged to be creative and make a necklace that best represented their ideas of rainbows. I also co-facilitated the making of a rainbow mural and a rainbow paper chain for the gymnasium decorations. The students loved this art assignment related to their exhilarating concert and enjoyed the flexibility when designing their necklaces. Many accommodations were taken when required to best support students with diverse needs.
Mathematics, Science, and Technology
Doing 3-digit addition on Pizza Day!
This is a quick and simple lesson on 3-digit addition using the standard algorithm related to students' favourite lunch, pizza! Showing students how mathematics relates to organizing a pizza day was a great way to help me get my students engaged and excited about their math lesson. I helped support students by providing them with the best environment to learn this lesson and encouraged class participation by inviting students to the board to answer questions. This is an intro lesson to the concept, but with review periods, students were able to develop this mathematical skill successfully!
Ethics, Religion, and Culture
Kindness in the Classroom
I used this book for an activity relating to kindness. The author describes how individuals can be kind to make the world a better place. Students enjoyed this book with all of the unique drawings from the numerous illustrators. After reading this book, the class participated in a compliment circle because compliments were one example of an act of kindness presented in the book. We sat in a circle, and students took turns giving compliments to their peers. Also, the author introduces the idea of creating a kindness jar to promote kind habits. So, as an activity, we made our own kindness jar as a class and students all contributed to filling it with acts of kindness they received or gave. We promoted the students to continue to use it for the rest of the school, which they loved!
Prior to my Field Experiences:
Head Buddy
In 2019, I was one out of 50 students that were selected to work behind as well as in the front of the scenes to develop, facilitate and supervise a program that hosts workshops and events for Grade 9 students entering high school. It was my responsibility to create workshops addressing, balancing academics, mental health awareness, navigating social events and more for these students. Furthermore, I was responsible for coordinating, advising and supervising a team of 50 members of the program that helped facilitate events and workshops. This experience demonstrates Professional Competency 1 as it displays my ability to act as a professional interpreter of knowledge when teaching students. It was my responsibility to use my personal experiences, while also gathering perspectives from my peers and create and deliver advice to Grade 9 students. Furthermore, this demonstrates the skills of Professional Competency 11. Considering, I was working alongside four other “Head Buddies”, 60 additional “Buddies” as well as teacher supervisors and principles, I was successful in engaging professionally with others.
Camp Counselor
It was my pleasure to volunteer at the University of Toronto Camps for a month in the summer working with specifically the Mini Adventure Camp. The children I was responsible for supervising were between 4 and 5 years old, and I work alongside 15 other staff members. We participated in facilitating games and activities, reading stories, swimming, playing sports and much more. My experience volunteering at U of T Camps displays my skills of Professional Competency 12. Specifically, I was able to demonstrate professional and ethical behaviour while supervising young children while both ensuring their safety and providing them with fun activities.