Christmas Cards

This Christmas Charity Inquiry has by far been one of my all time favourite inquiries. I asked students to think of a way to raise funds for a charity of at need. The only limitations were we had no money and we had to get the whole school involved. 

After a lot of brainstorming and pitching ideas students decided we could have a Christmas Card Contest for each grade and feature the winners on cards that would then be sold back to the school.

Students divided into groups based on their talents. Some focused on writing to students and making posters/school announcements and a letter that would go home to inform everyone of the contest. Others wrote to parents convincing the to buy. And the third group researched, phoned/emailed businesses that printed cards for donations and prices. 

I want to thank Toronto Printing House with being so supportive and patient with our students as they learned how to write clear emails, perfected speaking on the phone and a million other real life skills. From start to finish the students in my class created this initiative and saw it through. Spending countless hours of recess, after school sales and more. The students were able to take the lead and worked through more math, language and Social Studies than I ever could have imagined.

By the end, they were able to raise funds that went to helping students in the Hospital over Christmas. The funds went directly to supporting Sick Kids.   

Class Inquiry Project

As a culminating Task students were asked to use all the skills they gathered this year and create a meaningful and relevant project. These projects addressed students own learning and interests. They worked on and built this blog as a means of showing the world their fantastic project.

http://mrbutlersinquiries.blogspot.ca/ 

No More Isolation!!! Grade 6 Ontario Teachers Chat

I've been fortunate enough to have delivered workshops at some incredible conferences these past two weeks, but it is really good to be back home in the classroom. The trouble is I'm not ready for the learning to stop. Twitter and online articles are great, but I really want to open the dialogue and collaborate with others. I'm tired of working in isolation!!!
I work with great teachers in my school, but unfortunately, I'm the only grade 6 teacher and my brain turns a lot faster than my hands. I have some great ideas, but they never stop; EVER! Fortunately, I have wonderful girlfriend and friends who drag me away from work and force me to have a life outside of school.
Coming back from my tangent, I think it is important to live a balanced life and not try to do everything yourself. It is important to work with others, share ideas and resources. My latest project is to start a discussion for grade 6 teachers in Ontario. We all have a lot of great things happening in our classes and I think it is time we share them. The topic (possibly first of many) will revolve around best practices for EQAO preparation. Please take a few minutes to complete the below survey and participate in the chat.

21st Century Reading Buddies = Inquiry Buddies

Reading, Writing and Arithmetic means so much more when there is context. With kindergarteners you really see how innate a love of learner is. When do we start to lose that love of learning? When does play become work? One of the themes for this year has been bringing Play-based learning into a junior classroom. My answer has been through rich game-based learning, real world problem solving and inquiry/project-based learning.

With the new full day kindergarten being play/inquiry based, I've been looking at them for insight and learning to foster that love in the junior curriculum. Along with the activities occurring in my class, I've had my students working along side the kindergarteners. In a twist of meta cognition and inquiry, my students and I are learning to understand and develop good learning practices through inquiry. My students have taken on leadership roles and help guide kindergarteners through inquiry projects. 

Below is some of the castles we build together with our inquiry buddies.

                              

STEM Challenges

Challenges inspire students to think creatively and reflect on their strategies. Having students build the tallest tower out of spaghetti and marshmallows or the most buoyant raft out of 10 sheets of paper allow students think critically. They need to make a plan, test out their ideas and revise their work.
We are constantly pleading with students to double check their work. Rich challenges sparks students interest and help motivate them to work better. Students are able to apply a theory to real world examples. Students can be hands on and get immediate feedback if they are successful or still require help.
I am a huge believer that we are not teaching students to memorize mindless facts or preparing the for the weekly test. We are inspiring students to be live long learners, researchers, problem solvers, critiquers of knowledge, skeptics, innovators, critical thinkers, team players, presenters and individuals that disrupt the status quo (Be the Change). If students can walk away from my class understanding the learning skills and the Four C's (Communication, Collaboration, Critical Thinking & Creativity). The result of a test will not matter in 10 years, but the ability to collaborate well, gather information (not memorize a worksheet) and critically respond to information will help students for the rest of their life.

Below are some resources to support challenges in the class:

Curiosity Machine

10 Team Building Critical Thinking Questions

DIY.org

Engineering in Elementary

Instructables

Web 2.0 Session at #TCDSB21C EdCamp

This past weekend marked TCDSBs first Ed Camp. It was an incredible success. The #TCDSB21C EdCamp brought together a large amount of teachers all working together to better prepare students for the future. The passion by everyone in the room was inspiring. Everyone was feeding off one another and was motivated to learn from each other.
I was very fortunate to facilitate a discussion on Web 2.0 tools with my good friend Mario Stamegna. The energy in the room was fantastic as we all shared our favourite Web apps. we created a online survey through Kahoot and polled the crowd to discover a common interest. After we quickly gave a few of our favourite sites we opened the discussion up. Great discussions were had and everyone including myself, hopefully went home with several new websites to use with their class.

Education Resources -Collaboration

You are not ever alone in the 21st century. We work with others and you LEARN with others. The era where we have students working silently by themselves is over. It is a more critical skill to have students learning to collaborate and share ideas. They must identify and communicate goals, give constructive peer feedback and problem solve and work with different learning styles and personalities.

Some of the best tools for working with others are:

Google Drive

Prezi

Mural.ly

Evernote