Parent-Teacher Time and My ClassDojo Discovery!

Parent-Teacher interviews snuck up on me this year. Not sure why, must have been focused on too many other things. About a week before Parent-Teacher, all teachers, all over the world start panicking, each with their own unique reasons. 12 hours straight of interviews, don't have enough marks for the students, have not communicated home yet about issues, the classroom is a disaster, etc. For some reason, I don't panic. I actually look forward to it...

I enjoy a few things about Parent-Teacher interviews. I absolutely love meeting students' parents for the first time. That one 10 minute conversation tells a teacher so much about the student. Gathering information like that, the good and the bad, helps me to a be a better teacher, and helps me to understand and connect with my students. I also love the conversations with the parents. They love talking about their children, if they understand that their child's success is my primary concern, the conversations are positive, friendly, and enjoyable. Now, I have not yet experienced a negative Parent-Teacher conversation, and I am sure that it will happen, but if I keep the interview centered around the child, how can it not stay positive?

Here is a glimpse into my classroom on Parent-Teacher Night!

A nice welcome sign for the parents as they enter the classroom!

And of course, flowers and candy on the table for the parents and students... well, actually, the candy is for me. :)

I always have a slideshow of pictures from the art class since my interviews are usually in my FSL classroom! Good for conversation starters, or distractions if needed! Still need some posters or visuals on that orange bulletin board up top...

My little bunny sculptures in their garden! I love a  bright and colorful classroom!

Parent Teacher Conferences can be very productive too if I use my time wisely! I clean my desk, which I had not seen the surface of since the beginning of the year!
UPDATE! It is messy again... :(

I was also able to get all my TPGPs from the last 4 years hung up by my desk! Good for inspiration and reminders of what I need to work on!

Man, I was so productive this round! I also got my student work bulletin board changed...

...and my homework board which I had been putting off!

Moral? Keep is positive, keep it welcoming, and keep it student centered.

Area for Self-Improvement...

One of my major goals this year (in fact, it is goal #1 on my TPGP), is to communicate more effectively with parents on a more regular basis. I have gotten better this year compared to past years, but I am still not where I would like to be. I have kept D2L (our online tool for news, grades, due dates, etc) up to date, and I have emailed home once to the parents whose child is missing one or more assignments. I would like to email home on a more regular basis, commenting on not only the needs of the students, but also their successes. I need to make this more of a priority for the next few months.

I actually discovered an awesome online tool that could be used for formative assessment, providing feedback for the students and the parents beyond that of assignments and tests. It is called ClassDojo! Teachers can attach a little adorable monster character to each student. The teacher then creates badges, which are worth points! There are positive and negative badges (I'm not a fan of the word "negative", I would prefer "areas of improvement", but I can't change it..). They can be anything that the teacher would like to provide feedback on, for example, "Hard Worker", "Spoke French", "Up to date on all Assignments", etc. Teachers could have it projected during class, and subtly give out badges as students complete them! Teachers can also add comments to the badges, and students can create accounts so that they can log on to see their badges, their points and the attached comments! There is even a Parent email tool! Check it out! I am starting it with my French as a Second Language classes this week! I'll let you know how successful it is!

The First Few Days With Grade 6

I have only been teaching Grade 6 for two years. I have approached both years completly different. In my first year, I had two classes, all year long. We had so much time together. All of the projects were done in portfolios, so students were given 3-4 projects centered around a theme, and could work on any of the projects during the class. All the projects would then be due on one date. This year, we organized the Grade 6 classes differently. This year, I have 3 classes, who rotate through Art, Music and Foods. So, I am able to see the students twice throughout the year, but not necessarily twice in a row. This year, I have basically divided up the two sessions in Art into 2D, providing one assignment at a time (drawing, watercolor, collage, etc.) and 3D (mixed media, sculpture, clay, etc.) I am not quite sure which way I prefer, and maybe it depends on the timing and organization.

I really do love the Grade 6 students in the Art room. They are young enough that they don't question their creativity and ideas, yet old enough to create some really amazing artwork. They are excited, and enjoy being in school. They try almost everything I throw at them without worry or complaint, and are quite positive and open when having class discussions. They are ready and willing to learn, which is so beautiful. It is a really interesting age. They of course have their challenges, as any grade does, but overall, I really enjoy teaching this age.

Anyways, I was looking through my pictures and found a few gems from the first few days with my Grade 6 classes that I thought I would share with the world. The first few pictures were from our very first day of school. The Grade 6 students rotated into the art room for about 45 minutes each, and I needed something that was exciting, yet doable for the first time in the art room. I decided to do a large collaborative mural that would have a number of different sections to provide a number of different media and a variety of experiences at different levels of difficulty.

This was an old school sign that was found behind a bookcase! Perfect shape and size for a collaborative mural! I drew out squiggly sections before hand and planned out a a variety of media to use in each section. This was after day 1.

Zentangling on the left, and layered tissue paper with matte medium on the right.

Layered tissue paper on the left and yarn designs on the right.

Magazine roll ups! This station was quite hilarious, because the kids started to battle over who could make the largest, longest roll up. The really long ones unfortunately fell off...

I had anticipated that a lot more of the mural would be finished after day 1, so we turned it into the "I'm Finished" mural! So now, I have the stations in large ziplock bags, so when a student finishes an assignment early, I ask them which section on the mural they would like to work on, grab them the baggie, and they get to work! This way, there is never a student with nothing to do.

I am a little nervous that we are not going to have enough time to finish it. I am going to try and have a day every now and then that we can dedicate to the mural in hopes to get in finished. I guess it wouldn't be the end of the world to continue it next year in Grade 7, but my worry would be that they would get bored of it if it took that long. So the goal will remain to get it done this year. I'll keep you posted!

 The next few pictures that I found were from a few days into Grade 6 Art. I began the year, with short, in class activities that got them playing around with lines, colors and textures. The goals of the activities were not as much to teach specific skills, but more to get them experimenting and playing, not worrying about finished pieces. Secondly, they were to get them comfortable creating spontaneous art together, looking at each others art, and feeling safe in the art room to be creative and make mistakes.

This particular activity was called Abstract Continuous Line Exploration. This how I approaced it.

1. Students were to grab 3 contrasting colors (any media, colored pencils, crayons, markers, etc). Here we discussed contrast, and why certain colors contrasted with others. 
2. I told them that when I said go, they were to choose a first color, and begin to fill their page with one, continuous line. Their pencil was to stay on the paper, and they were to play around with shapes and using the entire space. 
3. I gave them about 30 seconds, and gave verbal encouragement and advice as they drew. 
4. Next, they were to choose a different color, and do another continuous line over their first. They could follow their previous marks, or cross over them. I gave them 20 seconds for this one. 
5. They now took their 3rd color, and did one more continuous line with only about 15 seconds. 
6. They now had to search for shapes that the three lines created and color them in. They could use any colors, patterns, and could choose any shapes, large and small. 
7. We then got up and took at look at each others. 
8. Then they got three more colors in a different media. We followed the same directions, except, before adding the next line, they passed their sketchbook to the person to the right. After the final 3rd line, they returned the sketchbook back to the original artist and then completed the final step of finding and coloring in the shapes.

This activity was really fun. It provided some good discussion points on artistic terminology such as abstract, collaborative, continuous lines, contrasting colors, organic versus geometrical lines, etc. It also had them create some extremely spontaneous, and then forced them to work from someone elses spontaneity! It also led us to a number of different in class activities such as continuous line observational drawings, and then blind contour drawing! It would make a really good sub plan as well!