At the Literacy and Numeracy training in Thunder Bay in September, one teacher indicated she was always in need of unit plans. We all have that problem, too many things to do and not enough time to do it all. A solution was presented; let’s share units.

Great Idea!!!

To encourage sharing of lessons and units developed; we are posting information on some lessons, which have been used, and providing web sites to access other lessons or units.

For Language Arts, the teacher, elder, tells oral stories in the classroom and children are given a writing assignment on what they heard. Math, Language Arts, Social Studies

The students are also doing community research by videotaping and the children will develop a scale model of their community. This incorporates math, language arts and social studies. If you wish further information on the above, please contact Cheryl Wynne at cwynne@jam21.net.

The following lesson plan can be found on this web site http://lessonplanz.com/

Nouns
Grade Level: First Grade
Submitted by: Jeanette Delgado, First and Second Grade English Teacher

Objective: The students will be able to classify nouns for people, places and things.

Book: The Little Band
Author: James Sage
Illustrator: Keiko Narahashi

Activity: Read the story. Identify all the nouns that they recall from the story. Write the nouns on the board. Classify them as people, places and things

Additional Comments: It is a beautiful book and they really enjoyed it.

Here are some links to assist you with lesson planning and information. If you are aware of any other links or resources, please contact us so the links/resources can be posted. http://www.education-world.com/   http://www.aplusmath.com/games/,   http://canadaonline.about.com/

We are all interested in lessons and units that are fun, inspiring and educational for students. You are invited to share units with one another. If you already have it on computer, and are wiling to share, please do so. If you only have hard copies, post the title, grade, core areas covered with contact information so we can search you out.

Seven Generations Education Institute teacher candidates always write units as part of their training. So, unit plans will be typed up and submitted on the website over the next couple of months.

Have you been watching the testing being done in provincial schools? Results are coming in and helping leaders understand where their students are in comparison to others of the same age and grade. NAEC supports the testing.

Why?

Your school can be involved. HOW?

If First Nations Schools want to participate in the Education Quality and Accountability Office testing, please forward a request to:

Victoria Hemming, Education Quality and Accountability Office, Suite 1200, 2 Carlton Street, Toronto, Ontario M5B 2M9.

First Nation Schools may request funding for this testing. The cost for each test is $95.00 for Grades 3, 6 and 9 and there is no cost for the Grade 10 Literacy Test.

Please forward a letter indicating the number of students in each grade from your school to:

Kathy Knott, Director of Education, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, Brantford Business Center, 58 Dalhousie St. 3 rd Floor, Box 1960, Brantford, Ontario N3T 5W5.Telephone 519-751-2243

Resources to help educators prepare students for EQAO testing can be ordered from

Tree House Press Inc. 110 Lancing Drive, Unit 2, Hamilton, Ontario L8W 3A1,Telephone 1 800 776 TREE (8733), Fax 905 574-0228 , Email contact@treehousepressinc.com  ,  Web site www.treehousepressinc.com

Good question. NAEC has secured training positions with EQAO for a few Aboriginal teachers to learn to mark the test after they have delivered it in the classroom. Learning to assess will raise awareness of content, what is actually being assessed and insight into how well our kids are doing. Maybe results are skewed by content that is not culturally appropriate, unrealistic questions, and other things we haven’t discovered yet.

Testing is important. If we want to succeed, we need to set targets, work towards them then test and assess if we are making progress. Currently, we know that for every 10 aboriginal kids to enter grade one, only 3 graduate from grade 12. This is not acceptable and we have to do our part, in finding ways to improve.

Please get involved. Apply for your funding.

Some teachers will not take the training but you can review your results and find out where your class is. Then you can figure out possible plans of action. You know your class best, you know what resources you have and by building connections, we can do a better job.

 Benefits of talking, sharing and collaborating are demonstrated.

At the September conference in Thunder Bay, the participants were made aware of a northern school with minimal book resources. Within 5 minutes of the presentation, administrators of another school offered to give box loads of books to the school. The books needed to be shipped and within 24 hours, we learned that another party was accessing money from a church legion to cover the shipping costs.

Lesson: Tell each other what we need to help children and it may come to you.