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A scavenger hunt with attitude! That’s what’s going on here.  IB PYP attitudes to be more precise.

As the term growth mind-set sweeps across the educational world, I’d like to point out that we within the IB PYP have been promoting such mind-set for a very long time.  With an emphasis on developing an “I CAN” attitude, growth mind-set promotes courage, confidence, independence, tolerance, enthusiasm, integrity, cooperation, open mindedness, self management and so on. You get the picture? Character education is just another part of the PYP’s comprehensive approach to teaching and learning that focuses on the development of the whole child.

With the newly enhanced PYP being released this year (2018), the IB Attitudes will become a part of the descriptors within the Learner Profile, as the focus on the Learner shifts towards enabling greater student agency. Understanding one’s personal development through the Learner Profile and the underlying attitudes is paramount to developing se...

When I first started writing this post, my intention was to jump straight into ideas for implementing student agency in our PYP classrooms. Then I got to thinking that maybe not everyone is wholly familiar with the PYP’s enhancements to be released this year. (2018) And so, I thought I’d take a step back, try to clarify the term “student agency” and go from there.  So, bear with me if you’re up to date with the shifting and changing going on. The ideas follow the chat.  Otherwise, grab a cup of tea and read on.

Form: What is agency in the enhanced PYP?

Even though the term “student agency” is the new buzz word regarding our learners in the PYP, it really isn’t altogether new. It’s important to keep in mind that it’s not a brand new change but rather a shift towards a greater emphasis of providing more deliberate autonomy for our students, thus developing leadership. This form of leadership can be viewed as deliberate, independent decision making for one’s own success or leading ...

Hang in there teachers! Summer is in sight!

For those of us north of the equator, the end is in sight! Summer is fast approaching!

I wanted to share my Summer Reading Challenge with your really quickly. Its FREE and is such a win-win activity for kids as well as teachers. Keep those brains in training with the Summer Reading Challenge!

So easy to print and go, there are reading challenges to suit grades 2-6, with a checklist to complete as they go. Send it home over summer or use it to keep your students reading with enthusiasm right up until the last day. Read by torchlight, read a menu, read by the pool, read upside down, read a biography….and the reading goes on and on. 

If you read some of the comments from others who have already tried it, there are some great ideas to copy. I like to send them home over summer with the promise of a wee reward for those who complete it and hand it back to me at the beginning of the school year. I’ve even had ...

If I’m to be honest, teaching elapsed time is not my favourite thing to do. It’s pretty close to pulling my own teeth, but of course, ultimately, far more rewarding.   With interactive timelines things get far more interesting.

With 3rd grade, it is such a tricky concept to grasp, particularly with hours and minutes. And then when you throw in years and A.D and B.C ( now also known as Before the Common Era /B.C.E and the Common Era/ C.E) , we can really end up quite tied in knots. But once they’ve got it, by golly, the wee angels are soaring! And their teacher is on cloud nine with them!

The review, by the time we get to 4th and 5th grades, isn’t quite as painful, thank goodness, and fine tuning those time lines and introducing more complex variations can even become a fun experience for all involved with great digital variations that the kids love exploring. I’ll get to more of those in a bit.

There are numerous ways to teach elapsed time and I wanted to share a few favourites...

Ah, back to school thoughts are upon us once again. Summer. It just FLIES in, doesn’t it? I’m always torn between dreading going back to work and  excitement for the start of a new school year, new kiddos to get to know and maybe even a new classroom.

Whether you start sooner or later, I wanted to share one of my newest back to school activities that you can use with ANY age level. Part getting-to-know-you and part craft, it is so cute and the kids absolutely LOVE that it is all about them and even looks like them.  I can just see them all hanging up in my classroom, with their adorable t-shirts telling all about Who We Are. A perfect back to school display.

This is simple to prepare and acts as a fabulous getting-to-know-you activity for those first days back. I planned it for about 2 hours a day, over 2 days.

Three Parts to Complete

The front of the t-shirt is divided into sections and is  a critical thinking activity that requ...

I am so excited about this new tool for IB PYP classrooms! The interactive bulletin board offers so much and can quite literally become the learning hub for many of the approaches to learning skills, the unit of inquiry or a specific curricular area, all centred around the Learner Profile. It promotes international mindedness, communication skills & accountable talk, builds the attitudes of independence, tolerance and  confidence, to name a few, and encourages student agency in our classroom. This tool does it all!

Form : What does it look like?

The Learner Profile, being the centre of the IB PYP, is also the central part of this interactive bulletin board display. The  posters  with the Learner Profile descriptors are actually pockets. They are cute and colourful, with the usual kid-friendly description of what it means to be a learner through each trait.

These pockets can be stapled or pinned to your board at a kid friendly height. This is very important, si...

It never fails to amaze me, when given the opportunity to take the lead, how much our students rise to the challenge. With the enhancements to the IB PYP having recently been unveiled, I felt that this would be a great time to address co-planning the unit…..with your students as your co-planners!

Encouraging greater student agency in your classroom is more than simply listening to the student voice. In my previous post  about implementing student agency, I mentioned the difference between passive learning and active learning. Allowing the children to actively contribute to the planning of their own learning, absolutely promotes meaningful student involvement.

The unit of inquiry has been planned  in a variety of ways over the years:

• teachers develop a skeleton plan and complete it as they are informed by the childrens’ inquiries and progressing knowledge.
• teachers may collaboratively develop the unit with their team, before knowing the students’ prior knowledge.
• teachers can f
...

The IB PYP Exhibition! The big event that culminates the PYP for the children, where they get to showcase all of their learning of the Essential Elements! If you are an upper grades teacher, you either love it or you dread it! Regardless of how you feel about it, we cannot take away from the incredibly valuable experience it brings to all involved. Personally, I love it!

I’m really excited  to share this article with you. It is FULL of practical tips, a free video sharing steps through the PYPX and a valuable resource that I created specifically for the IB PYP Exhibition.

I was recently a guest speaker with Vasileios Iosifidis, The PYP Traveller, on You Tube. Being an experienced PYP teacher himself, Vasilis shares a TON of great stuff on his You Tube channel.  I have added his video for you, a few paragraphs down.

But first, whether you are experienced or brand

new to the Exhibition, I have created a tool that will help you to keep you...

I’m an avid believer in making maths an adventure of discovery and creation rather than simply an expected chore. By integrating maths into our units of inquiry and making it an authentic experience, we are dispelling the myth that maths is boring and we turn our learners into investigators, truth seekers and explorers! Far more exciting already, don’t you think?

I’m well aware of how tricky it can be to integrate maths into all of our units of inquiry and so there are several alternative routes that I turn to when the going gets tough, which I’ll be sharing soon in a future post. But for today, I want to share how picture books are one of the easiest ways to bring the adventure back to your maths lessons.

Here are some of my favourites that I’ve found provoke inquiry and are simple to slot into multiple units of inquiry, whilst covering many maths standards. Many of them are flexible enough to adapt for all ages. You can link directly to each book for more information by clicking ...