The end of the term is quickly approaching! During this last week, we have 3-way conferences. The teacher, child, and parents all attend the conference. Tanya has it set up so that the child is in charge of the conference. To help them prepare for it, the kids fill out a Think Sheet that has three of their strengths and three things they want to improve.

During the second last week of term, each area (there are 5 – specialists, prep, grades 1-2, grades 3-4, and grades 5-6) has a planning day. My area had our day on Wednesday. We started off by revising the integrated unit planner for second term. There are two integrated units for the term – Aboriginal Studies and Life Education. A few of the teachers who have been in the 1-2 Area for many years had done the Aboriginal Studies unit a few years ago, so they used the old planner as a starting point and revised it as needed. We created an essential question, decided that the list of skills acquired would include an entire list, but each teacher could highlight the few that they focused on.

I have contacted my second cooperating teacher and I am looking forward to sharing a lot of the things I have learned in Australia with her. Part of what I will be teaching is a poetry unit and I think it would be interesting to have my students use De Bono’s Six Thinking Hats to help them analyze poetry.