Elyse Hnatiuk
Educator/Learner/Coach
Numeracy
Numeracy was a project based math enrichment class that was also connected to CTF outcomes. I taught both the grade 6 and 7 classes this course and the result was very rewarding.
For my Professional Inquiry Project, I created a web resource that included all of the projects each class did, the resources I made and the CTF challenge plan.
Please browse this website at your own convenience to get a better understanding what was expected in this course. The website is very user friendly. It contains documents, reflections and exemplars from each project the students completed.
Physical Education
I was very lucky in my placement to be able to teach Physical Education to the grade 6 class. There are 4 different grade 6 classes that come to PE 2 times a week. This made planning very straight forward and I was able to adapt each lessons accordingly to which class I had.
From September until Christmas break I was able to cover 4 units and keep students engaged throughout them all.
The unit that I am most proud of is the combined skipping and dance unit. I decided to complete a unit like this because I had originally wanted to do just a skipping unit but once I saw how much students enjoyed dacing in PE class, I decided they could be combined. A reflection of the unit is included farther down, along with the unit plan document.
I also have a favourite lesson of the semester, it came in our Cooperative games unit. While I try to plan lessons where everyone is engaged and having fun, it does not always work out- or it will for some classes and not others. This lesson has 100% participation and engagement for ALL 4 classes, thus making it my favourite lesson. A reflection and the lesson plan for that class are included below.
Skipping/Dance Unit
The inspiration for this unit came from a YouTube video that I came across on Facebook- got to love social media. The video was of a grade 2/3 PE teacher having his students complete a dance/fitness routine to the song, "Watch Me" by Silento. This song is a HUGE hit right now with this age group of students- as proven by the immediate dance party when I played it during the unit before.
Seeing students react to this song in such a fun and positive matter, I decided that I wanted my students to complete a video similar to the one that I had seen online- but what about my Skipping unit?
I am quite stubborn with certain aspects of fitness that I believe are my responsibility to teach students, skipping being one of them; there was no way I would have enough time to teach a dance unit and skipping unit seperately before Christmas, along with all of the other units I wanted to complete. I decided to combine them!
After just completing a Cooperative Games unit where we extensively talked about working as a team, having leaders and followers in a team setting and way to work cooperatively, I figured it was pretty safe to do this unit. I was both right and wrong about this.
Let me first give an overview of the unit. Students were to create a skipping/dance routine to the song "Watch Me" by SIlento. In this routine, they had to include a certain number of skipping tricks that I would teach them during the first half of each lesson. Tricks varied in difficulty and I encouraged students to attempt the harder tricks, even if they were not able to perfect them- students were getting graded on their participation not mastery level.
Each class was split up into 2 groups- girls and boys. I did this for 2 main reasons: 1) because they alwasy ask if they can play boys vs. girls- I do not like playing games this way in PE class however, this was an activity that could be separated in this fashion and 2) sometimes in a dancing unit students this age will refuse to participate because they don't want to dance with the opposite gender. While this is not a type of dance that involves touching one another, separating students right from the beginning totally disregards this excuse further down the road.
The first 2 lessons for each class were rough, certain groups were not capable working together. While the groups of boys and girls were quite large, I also did this strategically so that those students who did not feel comfortable performing in front of their peers, could somewhat hide in the background of the group during the performance. Specifically, the boys in 3 out of the 4 grade 6 classes did not work well together at first. It was necessary for me to talk with them each class about why they couldn't all be leaders in their group and that it was going to be OK if they decided to take ona followership role for this project. In the end, the routines were great and students enjoyed the unit. Link to the unit plan and unit assessment plan are located below.
Unit Plan
Unit Assessment Plan
Routine Checklist
Cooperative Games Unit
My favourite PE lesson of the semester came during the Cooperative Games unit. This unit was all about working together as a team, including all team members, communicating effectively and being a good leader and follower. Each grade 6 class had great discussions at the beginning of each lesson in regards to each of the above aspects of the unit. Through our discussions and their journal entries, I really felt like all students had a better understanding about cooperation by the end of the unit.
My favourite lesson was the one I have posted below. This lesson sticks out in my mind because in each grade 6 class, there was not a single student who was not engaged and involved for a full 40 minutes (usually there is at least one student who does not enjoy the games that are planned). I still have students over a month later is they can play Yoshi again, I will have to incorporate it into a lesson before the end of my practicum!
"Yoshi" lesson plan
