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Today, I want to talk a little bit about retelling a story, and some ideas for helping our French primary students learn that skill. But first, let's talk feedback and data for a second, and how you can use that to help guide your teaching. My school has the Reading Recovery program in French (called IPLE). My school is really lucky, and the teacher who trains all the IPLE teachers happens to work out of my school. Her office is actually right beside my classroom! Since I've been teaching grade one the last two years, I get to ask her tons of questions, and she gives me feedback on areas of growth for our students. Each year, our students complete a "sondage d'observation", and we get data on where our students are struggling specifically when it comes to literacy. One area where many of our students struggle is with retelling the story. Our students tend to have a hard time naming the characters, setting, and then identifying the main poi...

When I first started teaching math, way back in 2012, to be honest, I didn't know WHAT to do. We "did" math (it had a nice 60 minute block in my day), but now I know that I was not giving my students enough hands-on practice or really teaching math well at all during my grade 1 math block. All I remembered from my own school experience were worksheets, haha! I was provided an optional curriculum, which I attempted a few times, but... truth be told, the lessons suggested by my board resulted in PURE CHAOS. I remember one about having six students pretend to be puppies to teach the number six. Unfortunately, I lost my students for the REST OF THE DAY! Eventually, I learned about the math workshop model - and I fell in love! Now, math is one of my favourite subjects to teach. Here's a peek at what my grade 1 math block looks like this year (with grade ones and a perfect one hour long block). Warm up I love routine, so we always start our ...