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.   

Prodigy Championship Head to Head Battle

Our TCDSB Prodigy Tournament is finally over. We had our final match live head to head in class. Both contestants battled hard, but we finally have our winner. 

Family Math Night

Last night I was fortunate enough to give my first keynote address to a group of over 200 parents and at a Family Math Night at St Gregory's. The staff and parents were amazing and really passionate about exploring Play-based Learning. The presentation is below and really focuses on how we need to highlight students natural curiousity and making learning tangible for students.
I argue games are a rich starting point that helps students develop a growth mindset around their learning. Students play games and are more likely to take risks, try different strategies and make strong connections to the work. Games must be supported with higher order and meta cognitive questions if we want our students to consolidate their learning. Without these questions games can be great activities, but the learning doesn't last if students are not able to communicate and process their learning.
Take a look see the power of what Play-Based Learning really means.

Prodigy Math

Prodigy Math has long been a favourite in my class. Today I had the great fortune of being asked to present at St Jerome. I worked with several teachers in the morning training them on Prodigy and then working with their students getting them on and playing prodigy.
Below is a slideshow used to walk teachers through the essentials and best practices for Prodigy Math.

Student Conference Math

As part of our Student Conferences, I had students look back at their learning. All year students have been responsible for playing Prodigy Math, Reading texts of their choosing and using their agenda.
As part of their math this week students were working on mean, mode and median. As a class we created Google Sheets and shared it with everyone in the class. Students input their data for each area and then were responsible for determining the class mean, mode and median and then graphing all of it. This information was powerful in helping students discover their strengths and areas where they need help.