Educators demonstrate a broad knowledge base and an understanding of areas they teach.
I spent my EDUC 491 practicum in a Kindergarten class and although the majority of the knowledge I would be teaching ( I.e.numeracy, literacy) doesn’t need much in-depth research prior to teaching, I wanted to make sure that I stepped out of my comforts and teach things that I didn’t have much prior knowledge about. This led me to participating in in-depth research to make sure I was able to have a broad knowledge base suitable for teaching the subject matter. I was able to really play around with this while creating my units/lessons for Social Studies and Science.
In Social Studies, one of my favourite lessons was a lesson about different familial/cultural traditions around the world. I was able to go to the Public Library and find different resources that I found suitable for teaching this at a Kindergarten level. I found this amazing non-fiction book called “Celebrations Around the World: The Fabulous Celebrations You Won’t Want to Miss” by Katy Halford. It had so many fascinating celebrations around the world with information at an age appropriate level. The only problem with this book is that it didn’t include any Indigenous celebrations/traditions, therefore I made sure that I went out of my way to look up celebrations such as the Summer Solstice in order to make sure that my students also learned about Indigenous traditions. Furthermore, I found this amazing video that I showed the students of the traditional Kamloopa Powwow and they absolutely LOVED it!
I was so glad that I went out of my way to learn about different traditions around the world for this lesson and took the extra step of including Indigenous traditions as well. I could have easily kept the lesson revolving around the family traditions/celebrations that the individuals in my class are used to, but I found it important to focus the lesson on how each and every family is different and that there are so many different traditions/celebrations worldwide.
Here is the link to the Kamloopa Powwow video:
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=10155953885582683
Here is the lesson plan:
Social Studies Family Traditions Gr K
For Science, I had the opportunity to teach about the different seasons and weather changes. I really wanted to make sure to include Indigenous perspectives throughout my unit and made sure to do in-depth research in order to make sure the information I was relaying to my students was correct. I found this incredible website where they explained the importance of each season to the indigenous population and in an age appropriate context.
The link to the website can be found here:
https://www.rcaanc-cirnac.gc.ca/eng/1316530132377/1535460393645
As well, I was able to further this research by looking into winter specifically and the structures that the Indigenous would build in order to survive the cold, harsh winters. These structures are called Quinzees and Igloos and the students thought it was so cool to learn about them. However, I thought that having the students actually participate and try to build their own “snow-structure” would make the lesson even that much more enjoyable. Boy, was I right! The students had the best time building their “sow-structures” with their teammates and were so proud of their accomplishments.
