2017 May Archive - Mathematics and Science in SD#38 (Richmond)

Archive for May, 2017

TWOKAM Day 2017

Posted on: May 30th, 2017 by jnovakowski

This year, the Richmond School District held several events to promote Talk With Our Kids About Money Day on April 19. TWOKAM is an initiative coordinated by the Canadian Federation for Economic Education and is endorsed by the Richmond School District’s Board of Trustees.

More information about TWOKAM can be found on the CFEE website HERE

On March 28 we hosted an evening event for parents from across Richmond Schools at Cook Elementary. This event was facilitated by Tracy Weeks, the BC regional coordinator for CFEE and Jonathan Ho, a Richmond School Board Trustee. The event was well-attended and parents received some resources to support them in talking to their children about financial literacy. They engaged in some financial literacy tasks themselves!

On March 30, we hosted an after school session for intermediate and secondary teachers. I shared the BC Mathematical K-9 curricular components regarding financial literacy. Rebeca Rubio shared some of the new financial literacy resources available through the DRC and then Tracy Weeks shared the CFEE TWOKAM resources with teachers.

On April 1st, Tracy Weeks continued to share information about financial literacy with parents at our district’s Learning and The Brain conference.

On TWOKAM day, we hosted an evening event for students and their parents at Hugh Boyd Secondary. Speakers Tung Chan and Paul Lermitte inspired important conversations about financial literacy and the role parents play in supporting their children’s understanding of this important concept.

We are looking forward to continuing to increase awareness of TWOKAM day in our district and create opportunities for our students to engage in developing financial literacy in our schools.

~Janice

creating spaces for playful inquiry: April 2017

Posted on: May 28th, 2017 by jnovakowski

For our third session of our Creating Spaces for Playful Inquiry dinner series, Richmond educators came together at Grauer Elementary to share and learn together. This year at our sessions we have focused on broad themes or big ideas that cut across curriculum areas and grade levels, beginning with community, then identity and for our third time together this year, we chose to focus on place. Those that attended our Lower Mainland study tour to the Opal School in Portland created panels reflecting on their experience. Many of our playful inquiry mentors set up either pedagogical provocations or shared provocations they developed to engage their students.

Playful_Inquiry_Place_Provocations_April2017

Four teachers shared their experiences visiting Opal for the first or second time – what had an impact on them and how it is affecting their practice. Thank you to April, Louesa, Laurie and Karen for your thoughtful and passionate presentations!

Based on feedback from the mentor groups during our January session, Michelle Hikida and I did a short professional learning presentation on playful mathematical inquiry and how we plan around a big idea, use provocations and projects based on students’ interests and curiosities and how we extend and sustain a math inquiry.

After dinner together, we spent time in our mentor groups, zooming in on an area of interest and sharing and learning from each other.

We are looking forward to continuing working together next year to support professional learning and building a playful inquiry community across our district.

~Janice

primary teachers study group: sixth session

Posted on: May 28th, 2017 by jnovakowski

For our sixth and final session of the year, the primary teachers study group met at Blair Elementary. Thank you to Karen, Robyn and Tanyia for hosting us!

We broke into small groups and worked on our environmental inquiry visual – still a work in progress! Lots of great feedback from the group.

We then toured the outdoor learning spaces at Blair. I was the teacher-librarian at Blair for three years when I introduced Spuds in Tubs to the school – since then the school has embraced school gardens and many of the teachers have made outdoor learning and integral part of their programs. April and Karen shared how they use some of the typical suburban school spaces around the school for outdoor learning and also shared how they involved the district Works Yard employees in creating an outdoor classroom space and storage.

There was much talk about school gardening as a way to get students outdoors and feeling connected. We left thinking about ways to continue our work around environmental inquiry and creating opportunities for students to take action and take care of the outdoor spaces at their schools.

Next year, our primary teachers study group will be entering its fifteenth year as a professional learning structure in our school district!

~Janice

primary teachers study group: fifth session

Posted on: May 27th, 2017 by jnovakowski

For our after spring break session, we met at Steves Elementary, hosted by Kathleen Paiger. After sharing some of the outdoor learning experiences we were engaging in, we began to co-construct a visual of sorts to show the process of environmental inquiry that we have been working towards together this school year. For many teachers in the group – the first stages have been the focus: getting outside, noticing and naming local plants and animals, being curious and connecting. Drawing upon the work of David Suzuki, Ann Pelo and many others, we know these initial stages are essential if children are to care about the environment.

What we discussed, and connecting to last year’s Natural Curiosity seminar that some of us attended, was that getting outdoors and gardening, although important, is not the overall goal of environmental inquiry. We want to find opportunities for students to take action, to take up a concern or issue that emerges or that they are noticing in their environment.

Kathleen regularly takes her kindergarten students for walks in their neighbourhood which includes the west dyke. We ventured out together and learned about some of the story of this place – the farmland, the coyotes and the birds that frequent the wetland areas.

And as the weather eventually warms up, we know there will be lots of opportunities for our classes to get outside, to notice and wonder. We are using these three picture books this spring to inspire us.

~Janice

Big Mathematical Ideas for Grades 3-5: year four

Posted on: May 25th, 2017 by jnovakowski

This after school series is in its fourth year, focused specifically on the foundational mathematical concepts in grades 3-5 such as operations, place value and fractions. This year, we met once a term after school in Jennifer Plummer’s French Immersion grades 3&4 classroom at Homma Elementary (thank you for hosting Jennifer!).

For our first session in the fall, we focused on number sense and operations and the curricular competencies of reasoning and communication. I had recently been to the NCTM Regional Conference in Phoenix and shared a great game that I was reminded of in one of the sessions there.

The Product Gameboard

The Product Gameboard instructions

At our second session, in January, we focused on financial literacy and mathematical inquiry. I shared the new Pizza Co. game for the iPad from Osmo as well as some other resources and children’s books to support the financial literacy content in the BC Mathematics Curriculum.

BC K-5 Mathematics Big Ideas

BC_Financial_Literacy_Resources

For our third session in April, teachers in the series requested a focus on assessment, place-based learning and connecting the core and curricular competencies.