Hey all - here is another new BC Curriculum Unit - WARNING - untested but I plan to test it in May! So stay tuned!! It will be only $3.00 right now untested and I will make changes as needed so you could buy it now before the price goes up!! Click on the pict below to get your copy! OR CLICK HERE! It will be only $3.00 right now untested and I will make changes as needed so you could buy it now before the price goes up!! I am super excited about the gas report lesson - students get to learn about different gases and write about them! I had a lot of fun learning about the different gases out there!!

BC's new curriculum requires all students to engage in practicing the core competencies of COMMUNICATION, CRITICAL THINKING, CREATIVE THINKING, POSITIVE PERSONAL and CULTURAL IDENTITY, PERSONAL AWARENESS and RESPONSIBILITY, and SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY. Reflection is the key to core competency acquirement. Use these reflection pages for your students to reflect on their competency skill following an activity. Also, be sure to check out the following resources connected to BC's new curriculum: My Community Inquiry Matter Made Easy Inquiry Please rate this product and follow my TpT store! For more ideas check out my blog: A Grade One Nut and Her Squirrelly Crew

Inquiry-Based Learning in First Grade and Second Grade

Project/Inquiry Based Learning has been a passion of mine ever since I discovered it about 5 years ago. Since then, I have stepped out of m...

Use these Transdisciplinary Theme posters for each of the 6 Units of Inquiry. These simple posters with student friendly language are perfect for a IB PYP classroom. ✨My Product Includes✨ - 6 Transdisciplinary Theme posters - Simple Image to remember theme - With and without Theme descriptor - Full Color or Black and White

At the beginning of every year, our science curriculum has us exploring Science Inquiry Skills. It can be a tricky task. Science is huge! Not all scientist do the same things… but to explore this concept, I like to keep it hands-on and fun! We first learned that scientists use their senses to make observations. […]

February is the perfect month to incorporate compound words with your lessons. "Groundhog" and "mailbox" are two seasonal words that students will see in February lessons. Do you incorporate inquiry activities with your lesson plans? If you have some stuffed animals like the ones in the picture, you could use them for an inquiry lesson. This is an activity for students with prior knowledge of compound words. Set the stuffed animals on a small table where you will teach the lesson later in the day. Stuffed animals are a kid magnet. Great tool for building interest and getting your students' interest. Your students will notice the stuffed animals as soon as they walk in the classroom. Tell your class that they can look but not touch your "little friends". If you save this lesson until the afternoon, your students will begin the inquiry process on their own. At recess and lunch, you may overhear your students trying to figure out how something that they play with could be used by a teacher for a lesson. What are they studying (skills) that is like the animals? How are the animals alike? Ask you students to jot down their ideas about how the animals are alike in their journals or a white board when you begin the lesson. Next, put your class in small groups and let them discuss their thoughts with each other. Let one person from each group share the findings of the group. Then write the names of the stuffed animals on your white board or a chart tablet. Tell them to LOOK at the words to see if the WORDS have something in common. Discuss with their group. Let one person from each group share the findings of the group again. TEACHER TIP: "Hummingbird" was not one of the first few words that I wrote on the list. Some of my classes in the past have confused a 2 syllable word with a compound word. With a lesson like this, some students will begin to count syllables when they see the list and assume syllables is how the words are alike. That works until they get to the word "hummingbird". Going through this process solves the syllable-compound word problem. After the lesson, you can continue using the stuffed animals: Team mascots Classroom management tool: pass out a stuffed animal who is working quietly, turned in high quality work, listening attentively during lessons, or any other behavior you want to reward. Tell your students that they will pretend to become one of the stuffed animal. Then your students will: Name the animal character - i.e. Bessie Bluebird, Gideon Groundhog, Buddy Bumblebee,Huxley Hummingbird, Sachi Seahorse, and Liona Ladybug Write pen pal letters to the animal characters If you don't have stuffed animals or have the time to gather them, you can do the same type of lesson with books. The following books have a compound word in the title: You can click on the (affiliate) link for more information Heartprints by P.K. Hallinan Sunshine Makes the Seasons by Franklyn M. Branley Cleversticks by Bernard Ashley Scooby-Doo! Valentine's Day Dognapping by Gail Herman Substitute Groundhog by Pat Miller Underground Homes by Jeff Bauer Dim Sum for Everyone by Grace Lin Harriet Tubman by Susan Washburn Buckley Titus's Troublesome Tooth by Linda Jennings Uptown by Bryan Collier Barefoot: Escape on the Underground Railroad by Pamela Duncan Edwards The Runaway Wok by Ying Chang Compestine Give your students extra practice with compound words. Students can either look for compound words in books (like the books above) or you can give students a topic and see how many compound words they can make about the topic. The picture above are compound words about Valentine's Day. If you want to make the making words more hands on and engaging for your students, cut the cover of a folder in 3 parts. To do this flip folder activity: Students lift the first flap and write the first word of the compound word. Close the first flap. Lift the second flap and write the second word of the compound word. Close the second flap. Lift the third flap and write the compound word. Close the third flap. Go to the next line and continue making compound words. Write a sentence using at least one of the compound above. Let's Make Compound Words can be found here. Do your students need more practice? Let's Edit: Compound Words is an activity that students practice identifying compound words, grammar and writing skills. This is perfect for morning work or homework. You can get a free copy of a Valentine themed page in the preview file here. Sources to make my blog post graphics can be found HERE. Click HERE to read my blog's disclosure statement.

As an interest based learning teacher, I usually start out with something most children have some experience and interest in until I get to know them better. Color is something they always enjoy exploring! I set out paint at the easel and asked, what can you wonder and discover about color here? As they explore, I constantly model for them the growth mindset, language and vocabulary often used in an inquiry based classroom: What do you see? What do you think? What do you wonder? What do you notice? What did you discover? Did you learn something new? Did this change your thinking? These are questions I want them to ask themselves as they explore new things this year! I set up experiences for them to explore colors. They quickly on their own started focusing mostly on different shades of colors. Here are some pictures showing the invitations to explore and the children exploring and discovering things about color. They were also noticing shades of colors of objects in our room! When they discovered them, they would share what they noticed with the class. They noticed we could mix colors to make different shades of colors and that adding white made lighter shades and black or darker colors mixed in made darker shades. I wondered out loud if it was possible to create 100 different shades of colors? We looked at a book called Pantone Coors that you see in many of these pictures that showed there were lots of shades! The kids took it as a challenge and a project was born! We wanted to see if we could create 100 different shades! We did one color each day. We did it! Not only did we make 100 different shades, we made 120 different shades of colors! They were so excited to beat their goal and create that many colors! They also discovered that black was black but we could make different whites! I told them that I wanted to display their colors to show people what what they learned. We debated how to display them. Group them by colors separately? Group them by light or dark? Like a rainbow? I thought they would prefer that one but they surprised me. They agreed on a circle with all of the color together. I couldn’t fit the browns and grays/white/black in so those were separate. The kids helped label and write out some of the things we did and noticed for our display to document our learning. Here is the finished display! This was a fun way to get started with how we will learn in our classroom! As they learn more about letters/sounds and writing they will be recording their own observations of what they see, think, wonder and discover! As the year goes on, you will notice them using their writing and reading skills more and more in natural, authentic ways! This is one of our big goals! Now that we have finished, I have started to notice some common interests to start our next inquiry and take all of our learning further! Stay tuned! Here are some other things that have been going on in our classroom! Learning to identify letters and sounds. We start the year learning one letter a day through our Journeys curriculum and how to write the capital letter properly using our Handwriting without tears curriculum. Here are some of the experiences set out for them during this time. The kids have learned how to partner read with letter books contains predictable text. They are learning letters, letter sounds, and the first three reading strategies: 1) Use your pointer finger to touch each word. 2) Look at the picture. It is a clue to figure out harder words. 3) Look at the first letter and say it’s sound when trying to figure out a word you don’t know. They are also learning to help each other and encourage each other as they read together. Here they try to create the letter by putting the lines down in the order they should make them when writing. Here, if they can name the letter and/sound, they are allowed to use it to build a castle. Of course they can ask friends for help if they don’t know it! More ways to practice proper formation of letters and develop fine motor skills to help with writing. Pebble crayons to encourage their pincher grip, texture to feel themselves making the letter on both the the grid and the chalkboard (both provide resistance. A whiteboard does not so does not work as well. We learned about Mat Man to help us with drawing people. We draw his parts and then add details to turn him into somebody. We keep writing at a minimum for now so that we don’t continue the bad writing habits they have developed. We focus on creating stories through pictures and telling oral stories. We read these books to help us. It helped us realize if we don’t know how to draw something, we can draw it “ish!” Dog-ish, violin-ish, etc. it gives them the freedom to try and helps those perfectionists not throw away every drawing they don't feel is perfect. We also read Beautiful Oops and Oomph! These taught us to work through mistakes and to add the destabilization a picture needs to tell a story in itself! These books really helped them learn to tell stories through pictures. Good Dog Carl is a good example of a story told through pictures. A lot of literacy learning has been happening and it’s only just beginning!

Practical tips and real examples from a US history teacher who puts the DBQ essay at the center of instruction.

An integrated unit on the Christchurch Earthquake of 2011 in New Zealand looking at Earthquakes from a Social Studies, Health and Science Perspective. This sensitively designed unit uses the Christchurch earthquake as a starting point to look at Earthquakes in New Zealand. WHAT IS COVERED:Achievement ObjectivesSocial StudiesL2 Continuity and ChangeUnderstand how time and change affect people’s lives. ScienceL1/2 Planet Earth and Beyond: Interacting SystemsDescribe how natural features are changed and resources affected by natural events and human actions. Health(2A3) Personal Health and Physical Development: Safety ManagementIdentify risk and use safe practises in a range of contexts   56 PAGES

At the beginning of every year, our science curriculum has us exploring Science Inquiry Skills. It can be a tricky task. Science is huge! Not all scientist do the same things… but to explore this concept, I like to keep it hands-on and fun! We first learned that scientists use their senses to make observations. […]

The Wonderwall Inquiry Based Learning Bulletin Board will allow students to make their own inferences and questions about interesting topics.

Inquiry based science stations and using the question formulation technique in primary classrooms

Hi all - so I have a student teacher...and she is amazing!! As a result I have time...so I have been making the most of my time. First, I did my Long Range Plans: Comments? What do you think? I was planning to include the Core Competencies when I wrote lesson plans. Also - I would just print what they provided on the BC Curriculum website in PDF format as the first page. These two pages would follow for Social Studies. Next, I did an Inquiry Unit for Social Studies to match. It covers most of the new content: This unit has not been tried in the classroom so I am looking for the first 5 people who write a comment on this post with their e-mail to demo parts of it or all of it with their class and provide feedback. I plan on doing the same. Anyone interested? My plan is to do a small Matter Unit next. Wish me luck! My student teacher leaves after the first week of March and my time will be up!!

Here are a few photos of the documentation showing others of our journey as we inquired about color and shades.

This Rainbow In A Jar Science Experiment is a fun spring science experiment to show density. Perfect to use as a science fair project too!

Note: This is the second post in a two-part series. See the first post here. Now that you know the components of Project-Based Learning, I want to share a step-by-step example illustrating how I walked through a project with my primary kiddos. As a disclaimer, the project I am about to share is not perfect. It's a work in progress (aren't they all?), and I'm sure I'll continue to tweak it in the years to come. That said, I hope this will still provide a practical example of how you can pull off a project of this scale in a primary classroom. Here's how you can make it happen! 1. Present the Essential Question and Brainstorm Solutions As I wrote in my last post, our essential question for the project was, "How can we use economics to bring justice to the world?" I started off by presenting the students with some background knowledge: families in many countries around the world depend upon cows and other livestock for their livelihoods, but they often don't have enough. Next, I framed a central problem. Cows, which can provide extra income, cost around $500 in many countries, and that's often beyond the reach of the families that would benefit most. How could our class earn that much money and help a family develop a more sustainable livelihood? I created a problem and solution chart and had students share their ideas for how they could solve this problem. The teacher is the facilitator in this step, and can guide students towards the idea of creating their own businesses. 2. Brainstorm Ideas Individually A few years ago, I read the book Quiet by Susan Cain. I'm an introvert myself, and this book helped me better understand how to operate well in a group setting. Jumping right into brainstorming without quiet time to think is an incredibly stressful experience for me, and I don't typically feel comfortable processing things verbally in front of others. According to Cain, it turns out that extrovert-oriented brainstorming sessions don't necessarily lead to the best ideas. Everyone, whether introvert or extrovert, has the best ideas when they are given time to think quietly on their own before coming together with a larger group. I see individual brainstorming time as one of the most important steps of the problem-solving process. Giving your students time to think individually before they collaborate with peers will help them prepare their valuable contributions to their group. 3. Collaborate as a Group After students have written down their individual business ideas, it's time for them to share their concepts with their group. Before your students break off into groups, review and model appropriate social skills for collaboration. I can't say this often enough: assume nothing and model everything. It's easy for adults to take for granted the skills we've mastered for working well with others. Don't forget, though, that learning how to speak is a relatively recent event in your primary students' lives. They've only been using complete sentences for a few years! It's completely reasonable and absolutely necessary to set aside time to practice how to respectfully disagree and make compromises with others. When your students do break off into their teams to share their individual ideas and come up with a group concept, remind them that they'll be allowed to tweak their ideas in the future. This isn't set in stone after the first group meeting! 4. Explore the Topic in Other Content Areas This is the fun part for me. I love referring back to my Curriculum Map and bringing the economics theme into other subject areas. Take this opportunity to cover your measurement and data standards on the value of money, hit your language arts standards on persuasive writing by creating advertising for stores, and address reading comprehension standards by reading books and articles about finances and businesses. ReadWorks is a fabulous resource for leveled articles, and you can search for resources about economics by your students' grade level. There is a wealth of quality children's literature with this theme, too. Here are some titles to help you get started! 1. A Chair for My Mother by Vera B. Williams 2. Pedrito's Day by Luis Garay 3. A Day's Work by Eve Bunting 4. Alexander, Who Used to Be Rich Last Sunday by Judith Viorst 5. Once Upon a Dime by Nancy Kelly Allen 6. Chicken Sunday by Patricia Polacco 7. A New Coat for Anna by Harriet Ziefert 8. Those Shoes by Maribeth Boelts 5. Develop a Prototype and Revise Learning how to make a plan before diving into a project is an invaluable skill that will benefit your students throughout their lives. (It's something I'm still working on myself!) Before handing over any project materials for making store products, have your students work with their team to draw a detailed plan or build a prototype out of inexpensive materials. That way, when you hand over the real supplies for creating the products to sell, your students will have a clear end goal in mind. This also helps to resolve disputes about product designs before they even start! 6. Create a Final Product Now the fun part: give your students time to create their final products! Don't be shy about asking for help from parent volunteers, and I would recommend distributing only a few supplies at a time. For example, if you have a group painting toy cars, don't give them all 20 cars at once. Give them just a few to work on initially so that there is a higher quality of workmanship. Discuss with your students the importance of offering quality products in your store. 7. Share Learning with the Community After all of that work developing their businesses, your class will be ready to celebrate! As a culmination of the project, host a market on your school campus to sell the products the students made. Again, don't be shy about recruiting volunteers! After the market, help your students calculate their earnings, pay back their loans, and use the profits to buy a cow for a family in the developing world. 8. Reflect on Learning A final, critical component of Project-Based Learning is allowing your students to reflect on their experiences. Remember, you built in room for failure, and your students learned a lot through the process of fixing those mistakes or revising their plans. That's the whole point of Project-Based Learning. This reflection step will solidify for your students what they would like to do differently when you take on your next big project together as a class. Do you feel ready to get started? If you are looking for a resource to make your first experience with Project-Based Learning a breeze, I have good news! I've included ALL of the printable materials you'll need for this project, as well as a more detailed daily pacing guide, in my Marketplace Economics packet. Click here to see more! This post contains affiliate links. This means that Amazon awards me a small referral fee when people visit their site via the links in my blog posts and purchase something (even something other than the linked product!). This doesn't affect the price you pay, and you can be confident that I only recommend products and teaching supplies I believe in and use myself. Thank you so much for your support in making this blog possible!

PRIMARY SCIENCE UNIT 1 - THE HUMAN BODY We are so excited to dig into Unit 1 in our science sequence! We kick off science this year with My Body and My Five Senses . It is the perfect place to start science with our primary kiddos. This year we are going to explore and learn about the

A Kindergarten blog about effective teaching and making learning fun.

We always dove into our insect unit in the spring, I wanted to let you know that I put together a list of insect books for you to use with your class! Be sure to stick around until the end of this post, because I have something VERY special for you and your students!

Lots of easy ideas for learning about materials and their properties, perfect for key stage 1 science for kids.

Since masks are becoming part of their day-to-day activities, an art teacher from Tennessee school district, Cassie Stephens, introduced this brilliant mask self-portrait art project.

LES RÈGLES RÈGLES DE VIE DE LA CLASSE del blog «Maîtresse Myriam». Es precioso y muy útil para establecer las normas en clase. J’avais remis depuis longtemps la mise en page des règles de vie…

What your Stem Story Challenge will have: 3 Illustrated Stories, Teacher Guide, Vocabulary Cards, Rubric, and a Journal!

Put learning into your students hands with Genius Hour Passion Projects!As students explore their wonderings, have them come up with their driving question in which they can research and become the expert on. In this packet, students will share their passions by exploring a topic of interest to the...

Are you nervous about trying to teach a unit of inquiry for the first time? Do you want to know more about Project Based Learning? Did you want your students to complete an inquiry based project by themselves? Are you looking for differentiated learning? Do you teach a split grade in primary? ...

There’s nothing better than the sound of the bell at the end of the day on a Friday. I usually can’t wait to get home so I can get my comfy clothes on and put my feet up (which is what I’m doing right now!) My kids are all playing nicely, the hubs has his […]

This printable STEM package has been made to promote design thinking among K-7 students in classrooms and Makerspaces. Included in this package are 20 varied design thinking challenges. These design challenges have been created to be broad in nature to allow for student creativity. Students can sketch out their ideas if no makerspace or STEM materials are available in your school, however many small (and cheap) materials can be found at home or your local dollar store. Thank you for your purchase, and please take a moment to review this product once downloaded. You may also be interested in my other products: Seven Sacred Teachings/Social Emotional Learning - Respect Indigenous Social Studies & Research/Inquiry Unit - Complete Bundle Indigenous Unit - PowerPoint/PDF Slides & Activities Fur Trade Bundle - With Indigenous Perspectives The Orange Shirt Story - A Residential School Unit for Orange Shirt Day (Also in French) Stolen Words: A Residential School Unit for Primary (Also in French) Top 10 First Day Of School Books with Lessons (FREE) Top 20 Indigenous Books for Classrooms and School Libraries For Free Resources and Updates: Follow me on TPT by clicking here Instagram: @onecuriousworlded

What can you do when your child is having trouble with b and d reversals? Try this easy, yet discrete trick!

Hypothetical. You’re looking to create an Inquiry Design Model lesson and need some resources. Maybe you and your kids are getting ready to start a problem-based project. Perhaps you need som…

I wanted to find a new self portrait project for the first week of school this year. I saw some inspiration on pinterest, but there were no directions on how to create it. So I took the best from the pics I saw and tried to recreate it my style. I used my 5 year old to practice this before my 3rd graders start this year. Here's how I did it... Step 1: Take a photo of your student as they stand so you get their Profile shot. Step 2: Airdrop or send the photo to your computer and print it out on a regular black/white printer on plain white paper. Then take a thin tipped black marker or sharpie and trace the outline. Step 3: Fill in the profile with a black marker. I used a black crayola marker, but I'm sure any black marker or crayon will do. You can stop below the neck or go all the way to the bottom of the picture. Step 4: Cut out the black very carefully. Step 5: Glue it onto blank white paper or cardstock . Step 6: Take a black pen or pencil and a ruler and draw straight lines to separate the background into sections. Step 7: Design as you wish. I'm going to have my students choose things all about them. It could be words to describe them, favorite things they enjoy...and filled with pictures and words to show them. I like the idea of the name only being on the back, so when parents come in they can guess which one is their child. So that's it! I plan to back these on black paper and hang in my classroom. Hope they all turn out great. I think this might be my new favorite back to school portrait art project!! If you like it or plan to use it, I'd love to see your pics and comments too!

We had another class Monday night with our new dual/ELL staff members, and this time we focused on differentiation and what that may look like across the subject areas. As we have done in the past, we had the teachers participate in a gallery walk and thus rotate around with their groups to add to a series of posters focused on this topic of differentiation. Yet again, our wonderful staff did not disappoint and came up with a wide assortment of ideas as to how instruction can be differentiated for our students! I typed up their ideas on a nice one page spread for them, and thought you all may find it useful as well! Click on it to grab a copy for yourself or a friend. Graphics/Fonts: Scrappin' Doodles, Rowdy Fonts, My Cute Graphics Also, (as if you haven't already heard ;)), I wanted to let you all in on the big secret. TpT will be hosting a "3 Million Teachers Strong" sale February 27-28th. In using promo code TPT3, you can get up to 28% off at my store along with so many more! How exciting is it to see this community of teachers growing and working together :)!

I love starting the school year with this activity. It’s easy, parents love it, and it immediately gives the children a little boost of self-esteem by identifying a part of themselves that they like…

Teaching sun science in kindergarten will be a breeze with these free resources and engaging STEM lesson that your students will love!

Even though my son is only 5, I still love to incorporate writing into the units I teach him. He is still learning to correctly write all the letters so his writing usually consists of drawing a picture and then dictating the story to me and I write it down word for word. Sometimes he

Measurement concepts benefit from hands-on learning! Help your K-3 learn non-standard units of measure & how to use a ruler. Get 20 ideas for measurement today!