Mr. Baldonado is one of our French Immersion teachers who shares more than one class. He teaches grade 6/7 (with Mme Power), grade 5/6 (with Mme Cork) and grade 4/5 (with Mme Blumel). This classroom blog is based on a visit in his 5/6 class last week. I did blog about these students when Mme Cork was teaching them, but this lesson sounded so like a lot of fun, so I dropped in for a visit and thought I would share.

The class was working on Science, and the students were exploring pendulum motion. Hands on lessons is a very rewarding way of teaching a science class, but it can have its challenges. Students are given a task (or a series of tasks) and have to carry them out in pairs or groups. Effective group work is something we teachers need to teach, and we need to be purposeful in how we form our groups. Groups formed without forethought can sometimes have trouble staying on task or completing the learning activity. It can be very challenging finding the right combinations of students for successful group work, and we need to give children the opportunities to work with many different people.

Group work can also challenging to assess.

• Do we mark the work as individuals, or is their a group mark?
• Is there a way of creating both a group mark and an individual mark?
• Should all group work be marked?
• Do we mark too much?

I was not in the class when the groups were made. By the time I came in, they were gathering up the necessary materials, and getting started on with their experiments. I asked students what they were doing, and I received multiple answers. I think they were to be doing the same activity, but not everyone was able to explain it right away. Asking students to tell me what they are doing or learning is a simple way to see if they are engaged or have paid attention to their teacher. It also helps get the groups talking about their plans.

Here is what I learned they were asked to do (Mr. Baldonado might clarify this later if I got it wrong). Each group was to make up an experiment using a pendulum. Their materials were; string, paper clips and a stop watch. They were to come up with a question, design an experiment, run the experiment and then report out.

Some pendulums were swinging with a couple of paper clips as their weight, while others made use of anywhere between 6 and 30 paper clips. Some groups had several pendulum with one clip on each, but the strings varied in length. Groups were timing and counting, recording data, cooperating with one team members, and seemed engaged the whole time I was in the class. It was a pleasure to watch.

This is a French immersion class, and as the teacher circulates, he speaks to groups in French and they respond quite comfortably in French. It is wonderful to see the students speak fluently with their teachers on a variety of topics.

There are some challenges in a French Immersion class that I must share (sorry kids).  When Mr. Baldonado moved on to another group, many students quickly revert to English. Their teacher is not looking at them or within hearing distance, so the students start to use their English. I did have to point this out to the groups. They looked up at me with a little grin, and tried to speak to me in English. Sorry. En Français, s’il vous plaît.

They tell me they speak in English to help me understand what is being said. Sorry. I understand more than you think, and if I want to get better, I need to hear French. But thanks for thinking of me. 🙂

I think I will visit the class later this week to ask about what they learned from experimenting with pendulums. I will ask them to start explaining in French, but if I have trouble, I might have to ask them to switch to English. I don’t think they’ll mind.

Take care.

Mind Mapping & Patterns

Mrs. La Prairie is teaching a grade 6/7 class this year. As I entered her class she was leading her students in a discussion on patterns.  She was asking students questions: “How do patterns show up in…?” The white board had the word PATTERN written on it and it was surrounded by smaller words (Nature, Transportation, Humans). The questions then were: “How do patterns show up in nature?” “How do patterns show up in transportation?” “How do patterns show up in Humans?” You get the idea.

Students contributed their ideas, and were invited to write their ideas on the whiteboard for all to see. I heard “leaves” (they have fractals and the golden ratio), “brains” (they are used to see patterns), and “bicycles” (on the wheels). There were many other ideas listed. When they added their answers, they were building a web, which would eventually be turned into a Mind Map.

Students were engaged and were eager to share their ideas. Hands were up, and just like students in grade 1, grade 6 & 7 students love to share. They also love to contribute their creativity to the Mind Map on the white board. There were many busy hands at the front of the class, and the board was being filled with images and words.

From these ideas, the students moved on to building their individual Mind Maps on patterns. Mind maps are great learning tools. They make use of a key idea in the centre (in this case Patterns) and make use of visuals, colours and and words to organize ideas and assist in understanding meaning. Some students had worked on these at home, and they already had a lot of details on their work. Others were just starting, and still other students “forgot” theirs at home.

Perhaps they did forget their work, but I put the word in quotations as I believe the word can sometimes have more than one meaning in a school setting.

• “Where is your homework?” asks Mom. “I forgot it at school,” answers the student. This may mean that the student did not know the he/she had homework, and did in fact forget it.
• “Where is your homework?” asks Teacher. “I forgot it at home,” answers the student. This may mean it was not done.
• “Where is your agenda book?” asks Mom. “I forgot it at school,” answers the student. This may mean that they student did not want to share their homework with his/her parents.
• “Where is your agenda book?” asks Teacher. “I forgot it at home,” answers the student. This may mean that the student does not know where it is, and it could be at home under the bed, or in his/her desk, but did not bother to look.

Part of the art of being a teacher (or a parent) is to understand what meaning of the above word that a student may be using, and help develop habits to ensure he/she does not forget. The students who forgot their work on this day had other work to keep them busy, and I hope they can remember their work in the future.

I enjoy seeing our students create Mind Maps on a variety of topics. I hope you get a chance to see these displayed.

Take care.

Mme Doyle teaches a French Immersion grade 1 class. During the month of September, teachers in grade 1 classes spend time working with their students on being good listeners and waiting for their turn. Sharing time is a great way to learn these skills.

I visited Mme Doyle’s class on Wednesday, but was unable to write a blog about it until now.

Mme Doyle had most of her students sitting on the carpet (some were on the couch) while a child was sharing with the class. He was sharing about dinosaurs, in particular about a picture of a Tyrannosaurus Rex and a fossil (“It’s real.”).

Sitting on the carpet during sharing time can be really hard. Someone else is in front of the class and talking, and you have to sit still and listen quietly. It is easy to become distracted (playing with the Velcro on your shoes, finding something on the carpet, looking at the books on the shelf, poking your neighbour, waving to the Principal). You try to sit quietly and wait until someone asks you to share your questions, and sometimes you forget what you were going to say when it’s your turn. Often, when our youngest students have their hands up and are called upon, we don’t get a question. Instead, the student wants to share a story (“Once…, I saw a dinosaur fossil…” or “One time…”).

We all want to share our stories, and and in primary classes, you do get your turn. Sometimes though, you have to wait. Waiting your turn is hard. Sometimes your colour group is the last one that is called upon to go to their desks from the carpet. Other times you have to line up at the end of the line and wait your turn at the water fountain. Be patient. Your turn will come.

In a French Immersion primary class, the students French fluency may not be up to the task of sharing in French at the start of the year. Returning to school in September, students may have gone 10 weeks without speaking French. During this sharing session, the children often spoke in English, and Mme Doyle repeated words or phrases in French. One technique that I often see teachers use is saying a word in French, repeating the word in English, and then repeating the word again in French. Teachers also ask students to repeat words or phrases. Learning French is a lot of work, and over the course of many years, students will develop their fluency and understanding. We have many teachers who have grown up in North Vancouver and taking French Immersion in our school system. The North Vancouver French Immersion programs are successful, and it is a pleasure to watch our youngest students start on this journey.

The sharing session came to an end at about 11:50 am, and it was time to start getting ready for lunch. “Wash your hands” (and in some cases, wash them again). “Put the fossil down, please.” “Did you forget your lunch in the cloakroom?” – (All these phrases were said in French, but I don’t know how to write them down in French. Sorry.)

I look forward to seeing more sharing in our primary classes.

Take care.