Thomas Westfall, OCT
Today started like any Wednesday morning, with reading time with the second grades. One of the boys from my class wasn't really engaging with his younger reading buddy, so I sat with him. Using the concepts I learned in PED1788, I read with him using the "nurturer's voice" and helped him sound out the words to his book. He just needed some encouragement to feel comfortable reading his book.
The next activity was a science lesson, where they were going to learn about the human body. Sam started by explaining that the human body has multiple categories and would have something interesting for everyone. She did a quiz by power point to know what the kids know already about the human body. She didn't give out the answers, she wanted the kids to become curious and want to inquire and find out the answers. When they didn't know the definition of the words she was using in the question, she had them look it up in the dictionary. The intent is to make them independent in their learning.
After their well-deserved nutrition break, where I helped supervise, the classes switched and the kids worked again on French science getting to know the human body. This group had already completed the task from the morning group, so this was a recap of what they had shared. Their next task was a team activity, where in groups of two they had to make links between the word they are given, a visual representation, a definition and a personal anecdote. They had access to dictionaries of various sorts to do this task. She explained why she didn't want them to use Google translate in her class, that it takes away their ability to think for themselves and it's not always a reliable translation tool because it doesn't use context. I helped the kids with the complex words, helping them figure out the best techniques to search for the words and clarifying any questions they had.
The last activity of the day involved being a good Canadian citizen, focusing on rights for all Canadians. They watched a video that talked about rights, followed by a sharing activity where they had to answer the question: What kind of activities can we do in our communities to model the responsibilities shown in the video? Working in teams allows them to discuss with their peers and come to a consensus before they share with the group what they have come up with.