If I had to ask you which part of teaching you most dislike, whether
it's in a classroom or at home, I can probably guess it's the planning
side of creating lesson plans, right?
It's the admin.
The reason being that A, it just takes so long and I don't know about you,
but I always felt that I'd rather spend my time doing something else.
When I first started teaching way back in the eighties and the good
old days, I don't have any memory of spending hours and hours of planning.
I was a high school teacher back then, and so all my teaching was just based on
literature and grammar, but the teaching in elementary and in early childhood.
It's just so different right now.
I had to teach English and math and science and history and geography
and health and design and technology, and in my case, religion too.
And as every teacher knows, to fit all that in is just about impossible.
And thinking back, I clearly remember being at uni and talking about this.
The whole morning session was on how you integrate across the
curriculum and why this was a good idea, and it totally makes sense.
But then here's the issue.
You tootle off and you go on your practicum and you have to fit in with
the way the class teacher runs the show.
And so you forget about all that, and then you get to your own classroom and the
workload hits you like a freight train.
And you forget everything you've learned because now all you're trying to do is
just prevent yourself from drowning.
And I remember the day when I just thought to myself, surely
there must be an easier way.
And on top of that, I noticed, of course we all know this, that young
children can't sit still for very long.
And I thought to myself, well.
Isn't it smarter just to teach in a way that fits in with
children's natural tendencies?
And of course, I then took a little bit of time, a little half a day or
so just to really watch and observe.
And of course, you don't need to be a genius to figure this out, but it's
what we all know, what all the experts tell us, but somehow we get into a
classroom and we forget all about it because we're so under the pump.
And that is that children just want to play.
They want to socialize and they wanna be with their friends and.
They love a story, story time.
When you start reading to them, you notice, you can see them physically moving
in closer their eyes on the pages of the book, and they're actively listening.
And for me, this was a light bulb moment.
If I could create lessons using a picture book as a catalyst for all the learning
we did, that could change everything.
So usually what I've experienced is that you read a random picture book, you
might do an art piece on it, and maybe something to do with comprehension.
Like you ask children to retell the story, to identify the beginning,
middle, and end of the story or something about the character and that's it.
And we move on, right?
But now.
I started becoming more discerning with the books I was choosing,
looking for books that would actually help me meet curriculum outcomes,
creating learning experiences around children being hands on.
Acting out the story or using puppets or creating art pieces or sculptures
and connecting the story to either, and here's the rub to either science
or history or geography so that children could see the connections
across different learning areas.
Because let's face it, how many times do we teach something and then children
can't apply it outside of the lesson?
It happens all the time, and I remember.
We were learning about movement.
This is back in the day a few years ago in pre-primary how things
move, and that's kindergarten for you if you're my American friend.
And because I learned about floor books and talking tabs from the Great
Claire Warden, I had my talking tub and it had photographs and artifacts
and objects all around movement.
And that also happened in there to have a picture of a fish.
And you're probably gonna think, Hey, but hang on a minute.
And that there was one photograph that sparked an entire project on
how different sea creatures move.
And now of course I still did the experiments with ramps
with different surfaces.
But the whole theme of movement took on a life of its own Children
started wondering, well, why do dolphins and Whales have different
tails to sharks and other fish?
They started making models of tails.
And you know, with little push pins and thinking about why these animals'
tails were different, and that got me reading the picture books like Mr.
Seahorse by Eric Carl, and Sharing a Shell like by Julia Donaldson, and A
House for Hermit Crab, also by Eric Carl.
And then someone in the class brought in their hermit crab pets, which we
all got to observe for a few weeks.
And I remember doing some really cool wire sculptures and still having
children retell the story, still doing comprehension activities and math
activities where we were measuring fish.
Um, someone I can't remember, someone was a fish monger and brought
in a fish and we measured them.
We stepped out the size of whales.
And since we were now immersed in fish and movement, it meant that I
could set up even a water station with experiments in sinking and floating.
Which then led to discovering that the more air there is in something, the less
dense it was, the better it floated.
And so by finding books that linked to curriculum areas, I was able to allow
the children to lead the learning going along with their interests, but unbeknown
to them steered by me because I know what I had to cover in the curriculum.
But they got really involved in doing the learning.
It really was an incredible experience.
It brought such joy to the children, but what it did for me was to
truly bring joy to my heart because teaching was what it was meant to be.
It was age appropriate, it was hands-on, it was playful, and I could tick off
so many areas of the curriculum just by doing one simple reading of a story.
And here's the thing, I know that for many, and this could be you, this
can be challenging, especially if you're not that experienced, and with
everything you already have to do,
it might feel overwhelming to get started.
So what I've done is I've created a comprehensive lesson plan for
you around the picture book.
The Tiger who came to Tea by Judith Kerr.
It's a classic.
It's been road tested by a friend of mine.
It ticks off English, math, biological sciences, humanities,
geography, art Design plus
it includes those all important inquiry and wonder questions for
deeper learning and extension activities with metacognition prompts
and graphic organizers to help give students some structure around their
inquiry project into tigers as well as an animal of their own choosing.
It includes planning for having a tea party with math activities
all around, planning a tea party, and even setting up a tea party.
I've really included all the playful learning that would make it fun for
children to learn about afternoon tea in different cultures, and of
course, tigers and other animals, which all children just love.
It is also differentiated and suitable from K to two.
All you have to do is pick out the parts that are applicable to your learners.
And now this is not a free resource.
It's totally affordable because I wanted to make sure that it's accessible to
every single one of you, and to help you ease your burden, your time burden.
It's going to save you hours and hours of planning time, giving you back your life
to spend with your loved ones instead of scrambling for lesson plan ideas.
It's also the type of lesson plan that can easily be included into your
literacy and your math rotations.
I've included a guide for you so that you can just plug them into your
rotations because you have a math and a literacy activity to do over five days.
And of course there's an inquiry component that's linked to English
that will take you a whole term to complete if that's how deep and
comprehensive you would like to go.
In my classroom, that's exactly what I did.
It's deep learning, so once you get started, you don't have to think
about anything else because this activity runs up to eight or 10
weeks, especially after children have still got to do their presentation.
So that's your integrated learning area taken care of.
Now all you need to do is to go to the show notes where
I will leave a link for you.
So go there now after this episode, get the lesson plan.
Save yourself hours of time, and instead, do what you really love, teach.
As it an extra bonus when you purchase the lesson plan, you automatically
qualify to join the Blooming Community.
It's an exclusive group away from Facebook, away from the distraction
of social media where you can mingle with like-minded folk.
Ask questions and get the support I know you so desperately are looking for.
I know that because people in my group have already told
me that's what they want.
I can't wait to serve you more.
Please get on with a lesson plan, and if you need help or you wanna
ask a question, just send me an email at contact@bloomingcurious.com.
I'm here for you.
And remember, people, curiosity is your superpower.
So until next week.
Stay blooming, curious.
Go to the show notes, download your lesson plan, and get your life
back and get those students engaged in hands-on projects right now.
You can even start tomorrow.
I'll see you next week.