The challenges of a combined class

Happy Friday bloggers and blog stalkers! In Ontario, we teach until almost the end of June, but we don't go back to school until after Labour Day in September. This means that I have exactly one month of summer vacation remaining. Wow, that first month of July just flew by! We had a quick visit to school earlier this week and I took a couple pictures of my classroom but I only had my cellphone. Please excuse the quality of the pictures.

My word wall will go here

Checking to see that my Cafe Strategies fit so I can add a space for the post it goals

My teachers desk along with a small work table.

 

As many of you are aware, I am scheduled to teach a combined Grade One / Two class in September at my new school. Among my efforts to work smarter and not harder I was searching for a document that would easily let me compare the expectations in each subject area across the two grades. Well I searched and searched and came up empty. There doesn't appear to be any document available that shows this information in an easy to read format.

I decided that I should attempt to put something together myself. I figure it will allow me to easily compare the expectations and plan accordingly to accommodate both sets of expectations within my lessons. I don't have the time or the energy to present two totally separate lessons so this comparison document will allow me to easily visualise the differences between the two grades. I'm hoping that I can deliver my whole group lessons to cover common expectations, and use my small group and guided instruction to cover the unique expectations. Hope that all makes sense.

So far, I have completed the language and math comparisons for the Ontario Curriculum in Grades One and Two. I have uploaded the documents to Google Docs, hoping that some of my fellow Ontario colleagues can also benefit from the information. Here are the links.

Ontario Combined Grade One/Two Language Expectations

Ontario Combined Grade One/Two Math Expectations

I am hoping to complete the other subject areas over the next few weeks and I will continue to post the links. I am hoping there are some Ontario teachers who can benefit from their use. Thanks for reading and following,