The New Curriculum and Core Competencies

The NEW CURRICULUM.  I know you are wondering why it's all caps.  I'm not yelling, it's because for the last year this is how is sounds in my head.  If you are reading this and not from British Columbia, our government has thrown, introduced new curriculum.  It was put out to teachers to try if they wished last year, and made mandatory to use this year.  Our district has been very supportive and helpful, but not even they have all the answers, and there are many teachers that are still fumbling around trying to get a grasp on what's happening. 

Anyway....
I have found that if I look at the documents individually, I don't find them that overwhelming.  I tend to plan using big ideas, so I for one and comfortable navigating this change.  That is until someone comes along and tells me I'm doing it wrong...

My interpretation is that we are moving towards more of a continuum of learning, which is great.  I also appreciate the idea of more play and exploration, even outside of Kindergarten.  I also like the openness of how to teach the ideas.  This has made some of my colleagues nervous.  I feel like in some areas, there is less to teach so I can really sink into some of the ideas a little more.  For my grades, the math seems more manageable and language arts didn't change that much. Some things that I don't like very much is the addition of ADST and having to give grades and comment on that-especially at my age group.  I also am not a fan of having to give comments and grades for Social Responsibility, Health and Career.  Especially at the grade level that I teach at.

The Core Competencies on the other hand, I do not appreciate at all.  Last year, when the CC's were rolling out, the information that I got again and again was that they were not going to be graded or reported on.  Now I am told that they will be once at the end of the year.  Hmmm.  I am wondering how long until they will be reported on all the time or reported on within the different subjects or...
The Primary teachers got together at a planning day and started to look and and share ideas of what this could look like and what we could do.  I have to be honest, I still have no clearer idea what the point of the CC's are and why we are having to monitor yet another thing.  Like a colleague said recently, "they've taken the unwritten curriculum out of the shadows and now we have to put a grade on that too!" 

Studying Light

When I first started looking at my next Science unit, I realized that Light and Sound are usually taught together.  I decided not to.  I pulled apart the two ideas and taught them separately which I think helped the kids really understand the topics better.  We started with sound, and I tied in music outcomes as well.  I brought in all the sad little instruments that my school had available and they explored with them.  They were not that surprised that I wanted them to make noise, my colleagues were a bit annoyed at first, but I asked for patience and I got it.  Mostly.  When they came in first thing, there were different sound activities for them to do, using instruments, and they had a blast.  As the week went on, I had little experiments that they duplicated or tried for themselves.  It was so fun to watch them connect what we were learning during Science time to what they were "playing with" during morning centers.  To finish the unit, we took an afternoon and did these explorations that I set up around the room.  They completed the activities with a partner and each completed a bit of writing or drawing to go with it.

When we moved to learning about Light, I followed the same procedure just changing out the activities for morning centers.  We have had many interruptions in the past few weeks, so we are still working on the Light, but so far they are having fun!