Inquiry-Based Kindergarten Classroom

Today I had the opportunity to go to Rebecca Bathurst-Hunt classroom. I had never seen an inquiry-based classroom before. I was shocked at how intrigued her students were to learn. I love the idea of the wondering, her students have a wonder wall that changes throughout the year depending on what they’re learning about. The process that she uses for most inquiries is what do you know, what do you see, and what do you wonder. I think that this is a great way for students to come up with their own questions and to think about what they want to learn about. I asked Rebecca about how she creates a plan for inquiries. She stated that the first inquiry is more structured. She said that this year they have done three different big inquiries, one was about themselves at the beginning of the year, the second was about pets, and the third was about dinosaurs. I love the inquiry project about learning about themselves as people, how everyone is different and unique. She says that when planning the year she works backwards. She starts with the big idea and works through the curriculum connecting as many key ideas and content to the inquiry project. She also told me how she lets the students choose the inquiry. She says that the biggest thing to start the year with is relationships, really connecting with every student and learning about their interests. She will communicate with her students and because of her relationship with the students, she knows what all the students are most interested in and can start to brainstorm with the students about what they want to start the inquiry project about. She told us that when deciding on what inquiry the students are going to learn about for the next few months they take a vote. Also within those votes, depending on the inquiry subject there can be multiple different groups so the students can have a choice. The biggest thing that I took away from today’s visit was children are capable and should have a voice in what they want to learn about.

Classroom decor was a big part of today’s visit. I loved the feel of her classroom and the environment. It felt so warm and welcoming. She had neutral coloured shelving and desks which made the space feel really big, it was clean and tidy with toys put away but still visible for students to see and want to play with. The toys were natural and mostly made out of wood. They were so unique and hand made that the students didn’t care that they didn’t have lego or my little ponies. I am excited to go and buy her book that she wrote about inquiry-based learning and to pick up some of the children’s books that she recommended to us.

I loved visiting Rebecca’s class because after seeing inquiry-based learning in person, I want to teach my students through an inquiry-based way, this is what I want my classroom to look and feel like.

Music Midterm

Here is a video of me playing Shallow from A Star is Born by Lady Gaga

https://youtu.be/2DizCylbCyE 

Flexible Flow Yoga Routine

Today I decided to really practice my stretching and this routine will helpfully increase my flexibility. First, we are going to start off with the easy pose which is sitting cross-legged with hands placed on knees. Then we are going to stretch our necks as tall as they can be. Now we are going to press out chest forward with our hands placed on the yoga mat, just behind out bum. Then we are going to twist our upper body by pushing one hand against our knee and turning our body in the opposite direction, and then again twisting the other way. Now we are going to come back to facing forward and bend our upper body over our crossed legs trying to put our belly button to the ground. Next, we are going to be on our hands and knees bending our back to try and stretch our belly buttons to the yoga mat. From there we are going to keep our weight on our hands and push up to our feet, stretching our hamstrings. Now come up to a standing position and bend all the way over trying to touch the back of your calves. Next, we will be standing up with feet shoulder-width apart facing forward, we are going to take our left arm out and bend to the left trying to place our left hand on our left foot, keeping our back extended and long, now switch to the right side. Then we are going to come to a standing position with our feet together, lifting one foot up to place either above or below your knee and balance, then switch legs. Now were are going to end with a standing side bend with arms straight above our heads, and then switch to the other side.

I definitely feel like my muscles are warm and that that was a great stretch.

How to Use Kahoot! In a Classroom

Kahoot within a classroom can be many ways by students and teachers alike. Teachers can create various styled quizzes to promote understanding of different subjects and content areas. In our previous post about how to create a Kahoot, there are multiple different styles of quizzes that you can create. Teachers can also use this as a fun tool to engage students in expanded learning as well as fun brain breaks to get students back on track and away from traditional activities. Kahoot further allows students to use their own devices which may allow them to feel more personal connection with their learning. Students can also use Kahoot! to conduct research, review content, create engaging presentations, and recognize their own improvement through saved scores under their profiles (Bharti, 2014).

Furthermore, Kahoot! can be used within the classroom to assist teachers with formative assessment. As the application is able to save student’s scores and data under their profiles, teachers are able to check-in and assess where students are being clearly understood as well as where they may be struggling. Kahoot! can be used as a pre-assessment tool to see what students may already know and to introduce new content. It can be used throughout a unit to measure the accumulation of understanding from students (Mendoza, 2018).

 

Research retrieved from: 

https://edtechreview.in/news/1490-how-kahoot-can-help-teachers-to-engage-students EdTech Review, How Kahoot can Help Teachers to Engage Students, Written by Prasanna Bharti, 15 September 2014

https://learnsafe.com/using-kahoot-in-the-classroom/ LearnSafe, Using Kahoot! In the Classroom, Written by Jonathan Mendoza, 27 September 2018.

By Kate and Holly

Starting To Learn Bohemian Rhapsody

Today I have been practicing Bohemian Rapsody, I know that my musical growth plan says that I should be able to play more of the song than I am currently able to at the moment, but I am working on it. This song is difficult because it has at least eight different parts to the song and it is a fairly fast (allegro) song to play. So far I am currently practicing the first four pages and trying to move onto the fifth, sixth, and seventh pages. The chorus changes to a more difficult part. The one thing that is complicated about this song is there are lots of flats and sharps in the song so it is sometimes hard to sight-read quickly. Also, the bass clef is moderately easy; so far, to play with the right hand by trying to play both hands together on the fourth and fifth pages is a struggle for me. The whole book of sheet music for this one song is eleven pages, this is definitely the longest song I have ever attempted to learn how to play.

On a side note, I have started to play Always Remember Us This Way when I get stuck on Bohemian Rapsody.

Jesse Miller’s Presentation

I learned so much from watching Jesse Miller’s Tedtalk and listening to his presentation in class today. I learned that the google pictures to allow the cache that has street signs, cars, lamp posts or birds are decided if those pictures are right by other people answering those questions. The biggest thing that I learned today was that Snapchat keeps every photo to use for marketing. They don’t necessarily care what the picture is but they will look at everything around them and look if there are any signs or logos and will use this to make money for marketing and seeing what people are wearing or using. This scared me because there are people are just using an app that has no idea what’s going behind the app. This is how Snapchat makes its money. We also learned about the camera on our laptop, if you click on a website and allow access another background user could hack into your laptop camera. Also, we learned that if you have a Samsung tv and a Samsung phone they are communicating. The TV can tell if you are watching tv and if you are on your phone. If you are watching TV and ads are coming up and you go on your phone, they can tell what you’re looking at to give you ads that are more relevant to you. I have seen this on my phone, I will be talking about a product or some clothing and the ads for these will show up on my Instagram or Facebook. We also learned about the importance of teacher and student relationships and making sure that if teachers are posting pictures that there should be no student, student information or anything about them online. We want to keep everyone safe and make sure that they really understand social media and privacy. I learned about social media safety when I was a child just starting to use social media but never to this extent, this new information really shocked me.

 

Here is a clip of an iMovie that I made from my own pictures of some beaches that I have been to.

Energy Booster Yoga Routine

Today I decided to try the energy booster routine on my YOGA app. To start this routine you lay in the corpse pose, which is laying on your back flat with your arms by your side. Then we move to the half wind relieving pose which is laying on your back and bring one knee up to the chest and pull your knee in with your arms and pull yourself up halfway and using your abs to hold you up. Then you switch legs. Then we move to the upward tree pose which is you standing up straight and bringing your arms up to your head breathing in and breathing out while bringing your arms down to your sides. Then we do the downward dog and bending your knees but keeping your heels on the ground. Now we go onto our hands into a plank position and bring your leg up to your chest and lunge forward, and switch legs. Then we move into a one-legged downward dog and switch legs. Now we come up to our feet and bring arms to meet above your head and lean to one side, then the other. Now we’re going to do a full plank. Then we sit cross-legged and put arms behind back on the mat and expand your chest. Now we are going to lean all the way forward with our legs still crossed, trying to put your belly button to the floor. Finally, we come up and are still seated cross-legged and rest arms on knees and breathing in and out. We have completed the energy booster workout and I feel energized.

Also to give you some information on my last post about the bedtime yoga routine, I had a great sleep and that routine really worked!

How to Create a Kahoot

Step by step on how to create a Kahoot:

  1. Visit the Kahoot website or download the app on your tablet or phone
  2. Choose whether you are signing in as a teacher or a student
  3. Create an account with a username, email and password
  4. After creating your account, click on “Create a new Kahoot”
  5. Choose which template that you want to use; depending on the teaching style you are going to use. Such as, teach with slide, Kahoot! for formative assessment or practice spelling and adjectives with a puzzle.
  6. After selecting a template, type in a question, option to insert an image, and insert up to four possible answers.
  7. When adding a question, you can choose the type of question you would like to ask, either true or false, quiz, open-ended, or a poll.
  8. Once done adding questions, click the green Done button and enter the title of your Kahoot.

Hopefully, you have a blast creating your very own Kahoot!

Holly and Kate

Practicing Shallow

Today I practiced the song Shallow by Lady Gaga from the movie Star is Born. The movie Star is Born is such a good movie that every time I play the song it reminds me of the scene from the movie. If you have not seen it yet, I definitely recommend watching it.

Anyways, I practiced the song to warm me up about two times, then I played it all the way through with only three or four mistakes! I feel as though I am getting close to playing the song with the correct tempo and not making any mistakes. I will be practicing it again throughout this week.

I also started to learn Bohemian Rapsody, I decided to learn shallow first because it is definitely going to be easier than learning Bohemian Rapsody. The introduction to Bohemian Rapsody was difficult because there are lots of sharps and flats and trying to keep up with the tempo of the song was difficult as well. With a bit more practice I hope to have the first two pages polished and can play through to start to learn the rest of the eleven pages! I know it is going to be a long song to learn but I am determined and going to try my best.

 

Bedtime Yoga

Tonight I decided to try the bedtime yoga routine from my YOGA app. I have been trying to get more sleep recently and having better and deeper sleep, I thought I would give this yoga routine a go.

First, they start with a sitting “easy pose” and are playing soft piano music. You hold that pose for 30 seconds. After that 30 seconds, there is a neck stretch, sideways, forward than another side in constant motion. Then there is a seated twist in which you are sitting cross-legged and twisting your body to one side while lengthening through your ribs and back, switch sides. You are to hold each of these poses for 30 seconds. There is a seated side bend, you sit cross-legged and put one arm onto the mat and lean towards it, stretching through your side, then switch sides and holding each for 30 seconds. While doing these stretches you are reminded to be aware of your breathing in through your nose and out through your mouth. The next stretch is sitting on your bum and knees are touching the mat as far as you can while reaching forward trying to put your belly button to the ground. This is followed by a wind relieving pose, you are to lay on your back with your knees pulled in and hold for 30 seconds. Now it is time for the lying spinal twist, laying on your back bringing one knee up and crossing it over your body, pulling your upper body to the opposite side giving your back a nice stretch, then switch sides. Next up is the bridge pose, you lay on your back and bend your knees, raising your lower back off the mat and using your abs to hold you up. The final pose for this routine is the corpse pose, you lay completely flat on your back (if comfortable) and focus of your breathing and continue to be relaxed.

I feel very relaxed and ready to go to sleep after this routine, I will let you know if this yoga routine helped with my sleep at all!

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