new beginnings

Hello, blogging world! In the past 8 months, I have been grossly absent from this little slice of the internet, but I am happy to announce that, with the new school year (my FIRST as a teacher!) approaching, I am setting a goal to get back into it with gusto! Ideally, I would like to post once a week about my journey, but I also want to be realistic and give my first-year-teacher self a bit of leeway, so I am hoping to post every 2 weeks (or twice a month). Who knows, maybe I will pleasantly surprise myself and use blogging as a welcome break from planning – haha.

Just a little refresher and catch-up on my life…

I moved to Hudson Bay and into my adorable little house this past Sunday (July 31). I am absolutely LOVING it! I feel right at home here; having grown up in a small town, it feels familiar and comforting. I know that small town teaching is definitely my niche.

Home sweet home 🙂

I’ve been spending a lot of time in this room – the couch and chairs make a great spot to sit and plan.

My little slice of home – all my friends and family.

Of course, as soon as I got keys to the school, I was in my classroom and rearranging furniture (thank goodness most of it is on wheels!). I loved how the previous teacher had the room set up (everything in there is so ECE friendly, calming, and beautiful), but I decided to change it up completely to give the room a fresh feel and to put my own spin on it. That definitely helped to make the room feel like mine, and hopefully it will signal a fresh start to students as well!

I decided to have areas in the room that served a specific purpose. I have a quiet/calming/comfy area for students to curl up in if they need a break from the hustle and bustle of the other things going on (it’s complete with a leather sofa and recliner – both miniature, of course!). Then I have a block/construction area and a house (complete with baby dolls, another child-sized couch, and a kitchen and table) area. I have a numeracy/literacy centre where targeted letter/number/fine motor work will be set up. My story corner/morning meeting area is carpeted and features a “VIP/Leader” leather chair, the SMART board, and a book display/shelf. There are 2 large tables in the open space of the classroom for eating snack/doing activities. At the back of my room, I have an art and exploration theme going on – there is a shelf with art supplies and a two-sided easel, as well as the sand and water tables. Finally, near my desk in the back corner is a natural items/small parts/FNMI area (pictured below).

See the circular basket divided into four quadrants?  I am going to use that as a Medicine Wheel!

 

This is the visual schedule that is displayed at the morning meeting area. I made it myself – can you tell I’m pretty proud?

Once I have everything set up and picture perfect, I will post pictures of all of the areas of my classroom. I can’t wait to share it with everyone!

For now, I am spending most of my days planning and prepping. I made an interactive SMART notebook file at the school today, which students will use to check in each morning for ‘attendance.’ Can’t wait to share more of my adventure with everyone!

Stay tuned!

-KKF

P.S. Did I mention I went on a two-week cruise/land tour to ALASKA with my lovely mom?! We were celebrating being finished our respective educational endeavours – me my degree, and my mom the Educational Assistant course through Sask Polytech. Here are just a couple of the 1000 snapshots I took! It was an awesome getaway and bonding experience that we both adored!

Our first port of call – Ketchikan, AK

Checking out historic totem poles

Whale watching in Juneau – highlight of the trip!

Dog sledding in Skagway

Hanging out with some sled dogs 🙂

I just think this photo is about the cutest thing ever. Sled dog puppies ❤

does school kill creativity?

Well, it’s official – this is my first brand new post on my WordPress blog (all of my previous posts from my old Blogger blog have been brought over now – glad that’s finished)! And what a great way to start fresh!

I came across this TedTalk on We Inspire Futures and absolutely loved it! Sir Ken Robinson gets his point across very clearly and peppers his presentation with his sweet sense of humour, making the video both informative and entertaining. It also led me to question my views as a future educator.

I think with all of the debates about standardized testing, the issue of creativity is often brought into question as well. I remember someone on Twitter saying “Is standardized testing producing standardized thinkers?” or something to that effect. This video gave me a similar question. Can our artistic students truly flourish in the education system we have set up for them? And how can we ensure that our future choreographers and filmmakers and actors/actresses are being properly stimulated and engaged in the classroom?

As I think more and more about it, I realize that Arts Integration is going to be  HUGE part of my future classroom. Some statistic somewhere said that children who play an instrument are more likely to do well in school, and I truly believe that we can’t focus entirely on Math formulas and English concepts to educate our children. Their education deserves to be much more enriched with creativity and opportunities for artistic expression and discovery.

I have loved music as long as I can remember. I always made up songs and sang them to myself when I was playing outside as a kid. One Christmas, one of my cousins got a miniature electric keyboard and one of the pre-set songs it played was “My Heart Will Go On” from Titanic and I was maybe 5-ish at the time and was just belting it! haha My uncle ended up telling my parents that I had a future in voice and that led to me being put in piano lessons and, later on, I took up voice AND guitar lessons instead, which I am sorely missing this year! I also loved being part of the Drama club at my old high school. And while I don’t consider myself a good dancer or artist by any stretch, I still find these types of art beautiful and a wonderful way for people to express feelings that they can’t elsewhere (and I am VERY jealous of people who are good dancers or artists, because I would LOVE to be!). That is what music feels like to me and I would never want to stop a student from developing these amazing talents.

Because the arts are so near and dear to my heart (which is kind of surprising, seeing as I am also a very analytical and organized person, not your typical artist personality), I really want that to show in my future classroom. I smile when I picture myself, guitar in hand, singing with my students and I insist that this future become a reality someday!

This topic also gave me a lesson idea…

I am in Art 100 this semester and one of the things that is clearly stressed to us over and over is that art, while primarily considered to be made primarily for its aesthetic appeal and visual beauty, is more modernly geared towards expressing one’s opinion. So I think it would be great for students to pick a side of an argument or a controversial issue that they feel very connected to, and turn it into art. Whether they want to make something out of clay, draw a picture, write a song, choreograph a dance, it doesn’t matter! But expressing their interest in a topic in a medium outside of a report or powerpoint could really help them deepen their thinking (and also, it’s way more fun, am I right?). This may be a bit difficult for a Grade 1 class, but I never want to underestimate the creative capacity of kids these days (seems like kids in school know WAY more than I did at their age – kind of scary! haha) and there are many ways you could adapt this for younger students.

I am sure that I will have WAY more posts about fostering creativity and integrating art into other subject areas, so stay tuned! I think I’m gunna go dance crazily around my room and sing into my hairbrush for a while – haha! :p