Maternity Leave MusingsHi fellow educators, I write this to you from maternity leave. I gave birth to my daughter on August 24th and naturally have been taking some time away from teaching, even though I still think about it all the time. I find myself constantly in a position where I think something will "make a great lesson." I try writing things down but often my lizard brain will say, "I'll remember that in September when I go back." What do you think the chances are of me remembering any of my "great lesson ideas?" Right now our world is still turned upside down with COVID-19. The most recent variant, omicron, is leaving schools closed again for two weeks. I know this is frustrating and as teachers we find ourselves grappling for lesson plans. Do we finish what we had started before break? Do we start what we were going to start in January? Do we fill the time with something else? Becoming Mother Nature - Podcast UnitI thought now might be a great time to introduce a unit I did last year with my students when we were shut down. I discovered the podcast "Becoming Mother Nature" and decided it would be worth playing for my students. I was pleasantly surprised at the level of engagement I got out of them considering this was a unit we did near the end of the year, when students were exhausted from the constant flip-flopping between online and in-person learning. This unit is not fancy, but it helped for students to actually talk to each other in small groups. I kept it very simple to make it easily accessible and easily differentiated for all levels. It allowed for each person to contribute to the conversation/record their thinking, no matter where they were coming from in their learning. Each day, we listened to an episode (or sometimes every other day depending on scheduling, I also teach History/Geography/Drama.) You can find the episodes on Apple Podcasts for free. Be warned, there are now multiple seasons of this podcast so you have to scroll to the bottom. IF you want to see the teaser, please click the link above or click here. I had students record their thinking in Google Slides or on a Jamboard, all of which are outlined in the Google Drive folder I'm going to share here. After working on their slides/Jamboard, I consistently had students engage in a breakout room "book club" style discussion. They brought questions, think marks, etc. to discuss with their peers. We had completed Socratic Seminars in the past, so we engaged in one of those as well. If you want more information on these seminars, click here for an example. They're an amazing way to get your whole class discussing. One of my favourite colleagues and I, Julie, came up with an amazing "top 10 news stories" unit where we used Socratic Seminars for students to discuss the world events in the past year - but that's a story for another day. Each episode varies in length. You could easily do this unit with any podcast that is appropriate for your age group - although the resources in the folder are tailored specifically for "Becoming Mother Nature" - sorry! I have a resource for each episode. There is no large summative, although if you have the time I would definitely approach one! We just happened to be completing this at the end of the year and we were in a hurry to see how the show ended. Overall, for a unit that was last minute, I was really happy with the level of engagement my students had with the activities and the content. They looked forward to listening to the episodes, which was really nice after feeling very burnt out mentally from the pandemic teaching and learning. Plus, I was about a million years pregnant when we did this unit, too! I loved listening alongside them and popping into their breakout rooms to hear them actually talking to each other. May the next couple of weeks be full of laughter, learning, and patience. I'm here with you in spirit, Ontario Educators! Please forgive if there are any typos in this entry, I'm frantically writing this during nap time. Click HERE if you want to see/use the whole unit. I can't guarantee that it is completely put together, you may need to navigate some things on your own/add mini-lessons as needed. Keep in mind that for my students, this came after a year of working on think marks, discussion strategies, small group engagement, etc. The folder is organized by episode! Feel free to reach out to me via the contact box on my blog, or on Twitter if you have any questions about the unit.
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AuthorHi! I'm Mrs. MP and I teach grade seven English! I'm so excited for you to learn along with me Archives
January 2022
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