Busy and Active in Grade One!

Our Grade One teacher always organizes the day for active learning. Students are engaged, motivated and ready to learn in this classroom! Students have been learning about money and working in centres that were developed by the teacher for hands-on learning. The following are pictures of a Grade One classroom in action.

Computer Centre

Interactive White Board Centre

Stamp Centre

Puzzle Centre

Making a Book Centre

Writing a Menu Centre

This group of students were also busy learning about simple machines. They worked in centres throughout the inquiry and their culminating task was to design and build a simple machine. Most had never touched a hammer or nail before this project. They loved it! 

What kind of active learning is happening in your classroom? Please share!

Twitter Hashtags

Starting a New #Hashtag

Twitter is my virtual staffroom. It helps me keep up with latest trends and ongoing professional discourse. The benefits of this tool as PD inspired me to start the #ontsshg hashtag that would focus a discussion with fellow educators around Social Studies/History & Geography (SSHG). Specifically, the chat was created to have a professional dialogue around the implementation of Ontario’s SSHGcurriculum document September 2014.  Using hashtags on twitter is a way to search for tweets that have a common topic and it’s a great place for people to connect,  share ideas, questions, and resources.

The tools and strategies presented in the SSHG document are for some of us, a shift in teaching and learning.  The focus is on: the inquiry process, concepts of disciplinary thinking and the citizenship education framework.  Using twitter and the #ontsshg hashtag is a vehicle to support the shift in pedagogical thinking with educators. 

#ontsshg meet on Twitter every second Thursday at 9:00pm with a variety of topics related to Social Studies, History & Geography. This has opened up a whole new way of sharing, not just with Ontario teachers but also with teachers from around the world. At times, we’ve even teamed up with other professional discussions that are connected to our topic and created the #inqsshg hashtag. In general, the use of #ontsshg has provided educators with great discussions, ideas and resources related to the document. Topics such as; the inquiry approach (which continues to be a hot topic), historical thinking concepts and citizenship education have generated links to resources, questions and ideas from a variety of people.

Please consider joining #ontsshg for a rich discussion around Social Studies/History and Geography -SSHG on alternate Thursday at 9:00 PM EST.