About Us

The goal of The New Teachers Blog is to inform teachers, of all forms, about new teaching strategies, methods, resources and technologies, as well as any other valuable information we come across.

There will be many posts based on a lot of different thoughts and ideas, all of which belong to the author of the posts, and no specific educational institution.

As we begin our journey, we currently only have Ontario Certified Teachers involved in the process.  Many of the posts will apply to Teaching and Education in general, but there will be a large portion aimed at the Ontario Curriculum and/or initiatives surrounding it.

Mr.S

Using PollEverywhere!

*THIS IS A LEGACY POST FROM 2014*
– The PollEverywhere Pricing, Features and Design have changed for 2024
This is only a quick look at this innovative service, feel free to take your time with it on your own!

PE

Poll Everywhere is a great tool that I have used in the past to get students (and fellow teachers) engaged in the lesson or presentation at hand.  You can easily set up a multiple choice poll and get results as I did above.

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BOOGIE BOARD SYNC 9.7 ‘TEACHER REVIEW’ (Typed Version)

*THIS IS A LEGACY POST FROM 2014*

Here is the TYPED VERSION of the Boogie Board Sync 9.7 ‘Teacher Review’ going word for word from the original version written only using the Sync 9.7 itself.  

(*Statements made in this format are additions I made as I was typing out the review, things I forgot to add because I got sucked into the great writing experience on the Sync)

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What is it?

The Boogie Board Sync 9.7 is an eWriter tablet with an LCD screen.  As the name suggests, you can save and sync all of the notes you create on the 9.7 inch screen to any of your various devices or even your Evernote account.
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Boogie Board Sync 9.7 ‘Teacher Review’

*THIS IS A LEGACY POST FROM 2014*

I will be posting a typed up version, with screenshots of the apps over the weekend, I just wanted to show everyone that the Boogie Board is fantastic for taking notes, including the student rhyming journal entry.  I had some difficulty adding individual images to the wordpress post so I had to stitch them all together and make one really long .jpeg file.  If you would like to look at the individual images/screens you can find them here.  I will be adding a word count once everything is typed up. Through this whole experiment the only problem I had was with adding the images to wordpress (they skipped about 10 lines after each of the 20 images, it didnt look pretty) and of course my ugly writing!

I will also be linking to some great articles about how writing helps students remember a lot more than typing, but I will save that for the typed up version. Enjoy the Boogie Board ONLY Review below for now!

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New Teacher Must Haves

MustHaves

This one is for all of those Teacher Candidates doing their first practicum right now.  You are half way through!  You should be right in the middle of an amazing experience, and you may not have time to search all over the web to find some resources.  I hope this list of posts I have already made helps a bit.

ALL Ontario Curriculum Documents

Classroom / Student Behaviour

3 Great DPA/Gym activities

Language and Math activities

Resources

Essential Classroom / Teacher Tech

This is almost everything I have posted since starting the blog.  Go through the links and see if they help you out in anyway.

PLEASE, let me know if there are any areas that you want to be covered in the future, anything that would help you out.

Enjoy!
Mr. S

Rhyme Bags (Language)

*THIS IS A LEGACY POST FROM 2014*IMG_1406833664291

I made these Rhyme Bags for the younger students in the Enrichment Program I was running during the summer.  They are very easy to make and the kids love to create words using the pieces.

Making your own Rhyme Bags:

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T (ennis) – Ball Soccer (Phys. Ed. )

Your students will love this game, there is no other way to put it!

To play T-Ball Soccer you will need a few things, but it is well worth it

  • Two tennis balls
  • Two hockey goalie catching gloves, or baseball gloves
  • Two hockey nets

That is all you need for what will become the best game you have ever played with your students!

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The Number / Group Game (Phys. Ed.)

Our second Gym / DPA game is another one where all you need is a big open space (whistle is optional for this one).

* Some students like to call this The Number Game and others like The Group Game, some call it Atoms. Usually I play it with them and let them call it what they want and then go with that, it makes it more personal.

Tell your students to line up on one side of the gym (if you are playing this outside you just need to establish two boundaries that are on opposite sides of each other). Explain the simple rules for The Number / Group Game and have some fun!

THE NUMBER / GROUP GAME:

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This is why I Teach!

I have been working at an afterschool program and summer camp since I was in Grade 11.  The summer camp goes on some pretty amazing field trips each week, and each staff is responsible for a group of members.  During the 4th week of camp I was asked to go on a trip (not all staff go to each trip).  After I got my group assigned to me I noticed a few kids that had been late additions to the trip, so they didn’t have a group yet.  I noticed one of the kids who was a ‘trouble maker’ and ‘always caused problems’.  I called out to the staff that was making the groups and said “I want Tom” (not his real name), and when he came to me I told him he was “my number one draft pick.”  Right away his eyes lit up and he came running over and I gave him a high five and told him to choose a partner.

Cool, right?  I didn’t think anything of it, he needed a group and I didn’t have that many kids in mine.  Well… look what he wrote in the yearbook at the end of summer, 6 weeks later.

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