FREE Guided PD for Emergency Remote Learning

K-8 TEACHERS

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Let us help you with

EMERGENCY REMOTE LEARNING

FREE

GUIDED PD and SUPPORT for K-8 TEACHERS

* Implement your local Literacy and Social Studies curriculum through a variety of integrated, cross-curricular community activities.

* We will literally guide you through the four steps of having your K-8 students publish artifacts about their local neighbourhood to the “Kids’ Guide to Canada”.

* Benefit from the step-by-step guidance from experienced teachers

* Enjoy talking and learning with fellow teachers from across Canada

* Access free teacher resources and ready-made activities created by regular classroom teachers for students in Kindergarten, Gr. 1-3, Gr. 4-6, and Gr. 7-8.

At the very SIMPLEST level, students take photographs or create artwork, and write a brief description to share what it’s like in their local neighbourhood. Knowledge-creation from a student perspective is paramount!

Engaging Activities for Students

* Students explore and then share their local neighbourhood community with kids across Canada.

* Students complete integrated learning tasks which are exciting and meaningful!

* As a class, students can then share and learn with K-8 classes across Canada.

* Activities help students build intercultural understanding, empathy, and respect.

AKGTC Guided PD involves 4 Virtual PD Sessions over 5 weeks

4 Teacher Sessions

**Tuesdays May 12*, 19, 26, and June 2nd**

6:30-7:30 pm EDT

* May 12th session will last until 8:00 pm

Registration soon as space is limited!

PROGRAM DETAILS:

1. 4 SESSIONS OVERVIEW

All sessions will have 2 parts: A Kids’ Guide content and activities, and a “Teacher Chat”.

Week 1 A. Social Meet & Greet B. Teacher and Student Preparations C. Teacher Chat: Current struggles and strategies

Week 2 A. Students Explore their nearby community – Activities at K, 1-3, 4-6, and 7-8 levels. B. Teacher Chat: current struggles and strategies

Week 3 A. Students Create artifacts about their local neighbourhood B. Teacher Chat: current struggles and strategies

Week 4 A. Publishing student content to the Kids’ Guide B. Teacher Chat: Moving forward…

ADDITIONAL DETAILS

2. STUDENT SAFETY & SECURITY

*** STUDENT SAFETY ONLINE IS THE ONLY MANDATORY COMPONENT of this project.

*** STUDENTS ARE NOT VISIBLE or IDENTIFIED ONLINE, (unless with parental consent, you chose to do so.)

*** STUDENTS DO NOT HAVE ACCESS to INTERNET ACCOUNTS, NOR IS ANY STUDENT DATA COLLECTED.

*** All online activities are conducted by you the classroom teacher.

3. TECH or NO TECH?

We understand the incredible challenges of trying to do emergency remote teaching from home during covid19!

Most activities will be completed by students off-line, and then sent to the teacher by email or attachments. As long as a family has email capabilities, student work can be received and photographed for inclusion in this project. Oral descriptions can be recorded over the telephone.

Some activities will be best implemented in a videoconference setting, however even these activities have been prepared to send home for independent home use.

A letter to parents about their role (ie not to do the work for the students!) is included, since original student work is required.

At the end of the project, you and your students will choose which works you wish to add to the Kids’ Guide to Canada map.

We will help you to both PLAN and then UPLOAD these works using our simple fill-in form.

4. FRENCH LANGUAGE PARTICIPATION

The 4 PD sessions will take place in English only, as we do not have a French teacher to conduct these sessions in French. (All of the team members who run this project are elementary teacher volunteers.) Our sincere apologies.

We will endeavour to provide as many activities and resources in French as possible. 80 percent of the existing Kids’ Guide activities and resources are already provided in French.

5. CURRICULUM CONNECTIONS

The activities in the Kids’ Guide project were created by elementary classroom teachers with Literacy and Social Studies curriculum expectations in mind. As a participant, you will choose activities you feel will best help your students achieve the learning goals you have identified during this stressful time of covid19.

Some of these activities teach specific skills, while others provide students with an opportunity to develop different concepts and skills.

GRADES K-3: ONE FOCUS AREA

LITERACY: Expository and Descriptive writing: view and respond to community features, label artwork; Narrative Writing (community events, story-writing); Oral Speaking Skills (describe artwork, photographs, or images).

SOCIAL STUDIES CONNECTIONS (integrated): Heritage & Identity (Family & Community Traditions); People & the Environment (Our Local Community, Communities in Canada, (Province + Territories of Canada); Spatial Skills (Map Reading)

GRADES 4-6: TWO FOCUS AREAS

LITERACY: Expository and Descriptive writing: view and respond to community features, label artwork; Narrative Writing (Story Writing, community events, family stories); Oral Speaking Skills (describe artwork, photographs, or images).

SOCIAL STUDIES: Heritage & Identity (communities in Canada, past and present; People & the Environment (Province + Territories, and Physical regions of Canada), Spatial Skills (reading & creating a map, compass directions, relative location)

GRADES 7-8 TWO FOCUS AREAS

LITERACY – Expository and Descriptive writing: view and respond to community features; Narrative Writing (Creating strong questions, community events, family stories); Oral Speaking Skills (Interview a community member; describe artwork, photographs, or images).

GEOGRAPHY – Place & Location, (Political, Physical, & Cultural Regions of Canada), Spatial Skills (Creating a Map, Compass directions, Relative and Absolute Location)

HISTORY opportunities: Change & Conflict (Communities of Canada, Indigenous communities in Canada)

MATH opportunities: Measurement (Distance, Area & Perimeter)

ALL GRADES:

A DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP & SAFETY (essential)

Online Safety guidelines and requirements for students
Parental consent requirements for posting online works

B THE ARTS (optional)

We are focussing all of our attention on helping students to achieve Literacy and Social Studies/Geography curriculum expectations.
However most activities involve The Arts in some way.

Visual Arts (both with or without technology): picture making with different medium, photograph, videography, etc. An emphasis on creative expression and individual perspective.