2nd Teaching Placement
Grade 5 Classroom at Waverly Park School, Brandon, MB.
Brandon School Division
Waverly Park School, Brandon, Manitoba
Grade 5 Classroom
(7 Weeks)
Units Taught:
Social Studies - The Fur Trade
Science- Maintaining a Healthy Body
Units Observed:
ELA- Mysteries
- Graphic Novels
Math- Measurements
- Decimals and Fractions
French- Sports
- Verbs
Health- Fire Safety
- Internet Safety
Art- Panting
- Drawing
- 3D Art
Grade 2 Buddies - Reading Partners
- Art
Extra Curricular:
Grade 7 & 8 - Games and Chess Club
Formal Evaluations:
"Katelyn knows how the curriculum works and relies on this to help direct her teaching. "
"Katelyn has a very good understanding of the value of assessment, how to connect it to the lesson being studied and that student choice is an important component to explore when considering assessment tools."
"Katelyn is organized and not afraid to dive into a lot of planning."
"Katelyn is open and reflective. She always considers suggestions and acts upon them when appropriate."
"Katelyn always has an engaging hook to introduce her lessons. These hooks were directly related to the purpose of the lesson and really helped students make sense of some scientific fact."
Social Studies: The Fur Trade
During the fur trade unit, students embarked on a journey through the Canadian fur trade era while making connections to its lasting impact on present day Canada. Students made connections through examining artifacts, reading fur traders journals, and studying maps. Throughout this unit, the focus was on how daily life in Canada has changed. Students had the opportunity to pretend to be Aboriginal trappers or European merchants in an establishing fur trading rates game, examine cultural diversity within Canada then and now through a sorting activity, compare and contrast past and present maps of Canada and much more. At the end of the unit, students created their own fur trading post and showcase all they had learned through creating a 3d model, locating their post on a map, establishing trading regulation and writing a written report.
Science: Maintaining a Healthy Body
In science, the grade fives and I explored several of the human body systems. Some of the body systems included the nervous system, circulatory system, respiratory system and the skin. We learned all the components of every system, how the systems work together and how to keep our bodies healthy. When discovering the nervous system, students learned a brain song, created a giant neuron, and labelled a model brain. For the circulatory system students learned the components and functions of the blood through a blood model, creating their own paper hearts and playing a heart matching game. When learning about the respiratory system, students explored lung capacity through playing kazoos, learned the parts through a paper cut out activity, watched a lung dissection and examined pictures of healthy and diseased lungs. During science students also created their own mini research project surrounding a question that sparked their interests.