Learning and Sharing in Spain and Canada

Repost from my contribution to Mindshare Learning Report, May 2014 edition:

In the past two months I’ve had access to some amazing professional learning. Here are some highlights from my travels around Canada and the world!

March started off with a bang when I flew to Barcelona, Spain, with my colleague and best friend Leah Obach, to attend Microsoft in Education Global Forum. This 4-day event brought together 1100 teachers, school leaders, and education leaders from 75 countries. Leah and I were there to share our collaborative project, Little Hands Extended. We attended fantastic keynote sessions, participated in a 24 hour Learn-a-thon where we developed innovative projects with teachers from all over the world, and celebrated at a gala evening. To learn more, view my video and check out the Microsoft Educator Network! 

 I was home for two weeks, then it was off to National Congress on Rural Education in Saskatoon, SK. My school principal, Brenda Masson, and I presented on our Smart Start Kindergarten program, and took in some terrific professional learning sessions. Highlights included: Jade Ballek and Terry Epp’s session on 21st century learning competencies clearly detailed how their school division is putting pedagogy first. They shared some terrific resources on 21st learning and innovation, connecting through Skype in the Classroom, and using infographics in education.

Kimberly Schonert Reichl’s keynote presentation on educating the heart and mind to develop emotional intelligence shared important connections to academic and interpersonal success. She encouraged teachers to access video resources from the Dalai Lama Centre for Peace and Education, teach mindfulness with the Mind Up! Program from the Hawn Foundation, and infuse social-emotional learning throughout curricula with resources from CASEL.

April brought a fantastic ed tech conference in my home province of Manitoba. Manitoba Teachers’ Society’s Awakening Possibilities gave Leah Obach and I the opportunity to share about project-based learning and the tech tools that support it, while taking in some inspiring sessions. Steve Dembo set the tone for the conference with his keynote message that encouraged teachers and schools to take pride in being first. Dembo stated that cutting edge, innovative teachers and schools are often regarded as crazy but we should wear that crazy label like a badge of honour—the rest will come around soon enough! Dembo also shared some fun and useful tech tools, such as 1 Second Everyday app.

Attending Kathy Cassidy’s session Connected from the Start: Global Learning in the Primary Grades was an excellent reminder of how ICT tools coupled with strong pedagogy create and support digital learners. Blogs, Twitter, and Skype are Kathy’s go-to tools, and digital citizenship is interwoven throughout learning experiences. Mystery Number Skype, blogging to create digital portfolios, movie-making, and shared reading of blog comments/tweets develop important numeracy and literacy skills in Kathy’s Grade 1 classroom. Kathy suggested Edublogs and Kidblog as two great tools for early years teachers interested in blogging with their students.

Other great takeaways from Awakening Possibilities:
* Nadia Nevieri explained how her school has revitalized morning announcements with engaging video announcements. Learn more here!
* Erin Clarke presented on the many uses of Instagram in early years classrooms 
* Raman Job shared iPhone photo tips and tools: Haiku Deck for presentations, Snapseed and Tangled FX for editing pics, Touch Blur to protect student privacy, and Quipio and Phonto for creating and sharing text over images (memes/quotations).

Chris Lehmann, founding principal of the Scientific Leadership Academy in Philadelphia, ended two incredible days of learning with a riveting closing keynote. His most important points that I felt compelled to tweet:
* Collaboration means doing things differently because we are doing them together.
* Technology should be like oxygen. Ubiquitous, invisible, and everywhere.
* A vision without a plan is nothing more than a hallucination.

And now comes the challenging part—sifting through all these wonderful ideas and tools and deciding how I will use them to affect change in my classroom and school community! Off to Riding the Wave of Change in Gimli, Manitoba, this week, so stay tuned as I tweet from that conference.

Instagram in Kindergarten!

Instagram MOM Session from emalkoske

Leah Obach and I had the privilege of sharing Little Hands Extended (project-based learning and the tech tools that support it) at Awakening Possibilities in Winnipeg earlier in the month. We gave our presentation at the Minds on Media session, which featured a number of concurrent presentations in a large room. Erin Clarke was presenting just across from us, and although I was never able to hear her entire presentation, I caught enough snatches of information to capture my interest. Fortunately Erin shared her presentation on her blog, 200 Awesome Days and I have embedded it above.

Instagram was a hot topic at Awakening Possibilities--many people were using it to capture the many amazing sessions at the conference, and many people were talking about how it can improve and support learning in their classrooms. I have used Instagram personally for about a year now, and I find that it fulfills a creative need for me as I edit and share images with friends. But how would I use it in kindergarten? I spent some time researching how Instagram could look in a kindergarten classroom and got some great ideas. I decided that using Instagram in my classroom could help me achieve the following outcomes:
-develop students' emerging writing skills as they caption and hashtag pictures
-create an authentic purpose for writing
-capture and share our learning with parents and other kindergarten classes
-provide an artistic medium for students to express themselves creatively
-to appreciate and share the beauty around them
-learn about other classrooms and geographic regions around the world
-develop an understanding of the world around us as we plot the classrooms we follow on a Bing map
-meet curricular outcomes by participating in challenges such as this one. Thanks Zoe Bettess!

 Last week I decided to dive in and use Instagram for the writing component of our guided reading lesson. First of all, I created a private class account, @olcskinders, for my little ones to use. I began by sharing my personal Instagram account with my senior kindergarten students, talking about the kind of pictures I shared, the captions I wrote, and the hashtags I chose. Then I showed them how to take a picture in Instagram, crop it, and use filters. They caught onto this instantly, so I handed out their devices and gave them the job of taking one photograph and returning to the circle. Together we wrote captions and chose hashtags, and the students were so excited with the results of their first Instagram efforts. Together we looked at everyone's pictures, and began to have some discussions about digital citizenship. Who could we take pictures of? Could we use people's names in the caption or hashtag? As I have signed permission forms from all families, here were the rules we came up with to get started:

1) Take interesting pictures that are neat to look at or show our learning.
2) We can only take pictures of the people in our classroom, not the rest of the school.
3) If we want to take a picture of a staff member, we need to ask them first.
4) All pictures need a caption. We cannot use the person's name in the caption or hashtag.
5) We can hashtag our Instagram pictures with our names so people know who took the picture.

I also decided that we would let our students' families follow us, but we would not follow them back (as all content they post may not be appropriate or interesting for kindergarten students).

 Our first Instagram pictures turned out great!

After using Instagram for one day last week, my student teacher and I decided that students needed a word wall to help them print frequently occurring words in captions and hashtags. Miss Anderson did a fantastic job of creating this one!

This morning, we decided to explore a couple of fun apps that Erin Clarke recommended in her Instagram presentation. I was super impressed how quickly my little ones caught on to using Color Splash and making collages! Wow!

My students are already reasonably proficient Instagram users, so what are our next steps?
-continue to develop our ability to write captions and hashtags
-improve our ability to post quality, interesting images
-develop our ability to read and respond to comments on our pictures
-explore apps to enhance our use of Instagram
-implement a rule similar to Erin Clarke's--for every image you post, you must comment on someone else's image

Take a look at some of our first Instagrams!

 

Discovering Discovery Bins

In the past two years, through my involvement with Manitoba Education's Early Childhood Unit, I have been incredibly fortunate to meet a lot of wonderful kindergarten teachers. I have learned something from all of them, but Connie Lowe is a new friend who has had a real impact on my classroom practice. Learn more about what happens in her kindergarten classroom by reading her blog, Adventures in Kindergarten. I'd heard her talk about the discovery bins she uses in her kindergarten classroom, and one night over supper I quizzed her about them. She explained the concept and directed me to her Pinterest page which was full of great ideas. I returned home, excited to try discovery bins in my classroom the following week!

Discovery bins, as their name suggests, encourage discovery, exploration, and investigation. They feature a variety of materials, and the teacher may include an example of how the materials might be used. Discovery bins can promote fine motor development, creative expression, and literacy/numeracy skills. The activities are open-ended, and there is no right or wrong way to interact with the materials. We spend the first 30 minutes (more or less, depending on student engagement) of the day exploring our discovery bins. It is such a pleasant way to start the day--the students are so eager to work with the materials that they rush to do their morning jobs and head straight for the tables!

Here are some of our discovery bins so far...

 

First day of pattern discovery bins included a variety of materials as well as examples of patterns. Later in the week, I provided strips of paper and students were encouraged to describe their patterns using letters, numbers, symbols, etc. The old keys I included were absolutely fascinating to the students. They loved examining them and had a lot of questions about where they came from. When I told them they were found in the drawer of a captain's desk from an old naval ship in Scotland, they were even more interested!

 Paint samples, foam board, paper trimmers, and glue were provided for students, and led to many engaging sessions as they created their own mosaics.

 Egg carton ten frames, cubes, and paper to print number sentences showed me how capable my students were of creating and representing equations. I was shocked! Later in the week, I added dice and spinners to generate numbers for equations.

 

Sometimes discovery bins can be just TOO exciting and engaging...exploring buoyancy led to altercations over boats and marbles, and the students were overexcited for the rest of the morning. Lesson learned!

Exploring magnetism was a great topic for discovery bins. Later in the week, I added small plastic bottles and containers with iron filings inside. Some students decided to sort the materials based on whether or not they were magnetic.

Geoboards, elastics, and pictures of shapes were a fine motor activity as well as an opportunity to explore shapes. Later in the week, I added dot paper so students could draw pictures of the shapes they created. These discovery bins were a good example of how students access discovery bins at every level--some students were completely engrossed stretching elastics around the pegs and never created any shapes. It was great fine motor development at the very least!

So what do I do while my students are engaged with discovery bins?

• I circulate around the room and observe.
• I ask questions to encourage students to investigate further, become more involved with the materials, and hopefully challenge them to take their learning to the next level.
• I make assessment notes in students' Evernote folders
• I take photographs of what students have created and post them to our classroom Facebook page, Twitter account, and Instagram
• I encourage students to use their iPads to photograph their work. We are just learning how to make photo collages on our iPads and use Instagram, so that is an exciting new way to share what we are doing with discovery bins.

I encourage all kindergarten teachers to expand their classroom practice with this student-led and highly engaging approach--my students and I look forward to discovery bins every morning, and they have been a great addition to our kindergarten program!

A year later--read my student teacher's post on how discovery learning has evolved in our kindergarten program!

Supporting Numeracy Development Through Project-Based Learning

Throughout the school year, my junior and senior kindergarten students engage in a variety of project-based learning activities. What are my goals for project-based learning at such a young age?
-students will cooperate and collaborate with others to identify real-world issues that are important to them
-students will develop and implement action plans that address these important issues/topics
-students will use ICT responsibly to build knowledge, achieve curricular outcomes, and think critically/creatively in authentic situations
-students will become informed, responsible decision-makers, playing active roles as global citizens' who contribute to the well-being of others

Watch an overview of our project-based learning with our partner classroom, Mrs. Obach's Grade 1 students!

In the past few years, project-based learning has become very engaging and interdisciplinary in my junior and senior kindergarten program. As the teacher, it is my job to identify relevant teaching and learning experiences and skills that are crucial to the students' abilities to implement their plan. Often, mathematics skills are strongly developed within the context of project-based learning. Take a look at the skills developed and curricular outcomes achieved as we've explored some very real issues in our projects! Many times, students don't realize that they are "doing math". Instead they are acquiring and using skills that are paramount to the success of their real-world project. This is learning for a purpose at its finest!

Hopping to Help: when a student brought a frog for show and tell, everyone became very interested in researching frogs. When the students learned that the Oregon spotted frog was an endangered species, they held an iced tea and lemonade sale to raise money to help with preservation efforts.

What important mathematical learning occurred during this project?

1. Students conducted surveys to determine which drink was most popular. They surveyed students in the school using clipboards and tally marks. They reached a larger audience using Survey Monkey and social media. 

 Once students collated the data, they learned that iced tea was the most popular drink. The next job was to estimate how many glasses of iced tea were in each jug. Students made a graph on the SMART Board to share their predictions.

 Students measured and counted to make many batches of homemade iced tea.

 Students experimented with jugs of water and glasses to increase their understanding of capacity.

 

Students experimented with fractions and practiced reading numerals as they mixed and baked cookies for the sale.

Students themselves identified that they would need to learn how to use money for the iced tea and cookie sale. We decided that what was most important was that they learn to recognize the coins and bills and how much they were worth, and adults would help them make change. We used our interactive response system to practice money skills and played with coins at our practice iced tea and lemonade centre.

 Students counted how many students were in each classroom, recording on a clipboard. They counted and labelled notes (printing the grade and number of students) to distribute to each classroom advertising the sale.

 Students held two sales: one outside the Co-op store and one at school. Students counted cookies, glasses, and jugs of lemonade. They estimated how many cookies would fit on a plate and counted to check.

 When the sale was over, we worked together to count coins and bills, exploring how skip counting could make the task easier.

Throughout the project, a great deal of real-life problem-solving took place, allowing different students to shine--not just those with strong academic skills. Through play and project-based learning, a variety of rich mathematical learning can take place!

Interview with a Kindergarten Teacher

I think that nearly every year, an education student from Brandon University asks me if they can interview me about my use of ICT in kindergarten and I am always happy to share with them. And I think that the questions are pretty similar from year to year... so I thought it would make sense to post the questions and responses on my blog for anyone interested! If you are a regular reader of this blog, you will know that I am passionate about teaching kindergarten and infusing technology in a developmentally appropriate manner and they are both favourite topics of mine!

Interview Questions
How did you get started with using technology in your classroom?
I always tell everyone that I was a technology zero. I was teaching Grades 1 and 2 at the time, and I firmly believed that school budgets should be dedicated to buying guided reading books as my main goal at that time was to build my library for reading instruction and home reading. I saw "computer class" as an add-on that took away from my time to teach the curriculum. At best, I used computers as a reward for students who completed their work early. At worst, I never turned them on for the students, and I used my computer for email, online shopping, lesson planning/research, and word processing.

This all changed in 2005 when Howard Griffith, our division's ICT consultant, approached me to see if I would be willing to develop and pilot the new Literacy with ICT continuum in my classroom. My first reaction was, "why me?", but when he explained that I would receive 5 new computer workstations, a printer, scanner, and digital camera for my classroom, my thoughts turned to "why not?".

That fall, I began my journey in technology infusion with my first Manitoba Education Literacy with ICT session in Carman, Manitoba. The pedagogy made sense to me (after all, it was best practice in any subject area), but there were so many new terms floating around--ethical/responsible use, digital citizenship, digital natives/immigrants, so my learning curve was steep. We were given homework to complete before our next session... and it was something like, use technology in one learning experience and plot three students on the Literacy with ICT continuum. As the deadline loomed, I made the decision to use PowerPoint in our Grades 1 and 2 polar animals research. At that time, I didn't have a projector or a SMART Board, so I figured out PowerPoint the night before and did a mini-lesson to my students. 24 little bodies were clustered around the monitor as I explained how to create a presentation on a polar animal. Then I unleashed some of my students, working in partners, on the classroom computers. And within an hour, several pairs of students had produced rudimentary PowerPoint presentations. I was shocked and awed! With great delight, I printed (printed LOL) the students' presentations and took them to the staff room table to show off! I was hooked, and THAT was the beginning of ICT infusion in my teaching practice. After several additional learning experiences that featured technology, I came to the following conclusions. These conclusions marked a huge shift in my classroom practice and still shape how I teach to this day:
-technology is not an extra. Technology is infused to meet curricular outcomes.
-technology develops 21st century skills, which will be vital to our students' future success
-technology is engaging for students and teachers
-teachers/students don't need to know everything about a piece of hardware/software or a web site. We just need to know enough for that particular learning experience.
-every student in our classrooms does not need to do the same thing at the same time. It is fine for some students to use technology while others use pencil and paper.

What types of technology do you use in the classroom?
Tablets: my school division provides my students with iPads, so that is what we use. I would also be excited to use Microsoft Surface devices in my classroom. We use our tablets for many purposes, including photographing and filming. They have taken the place of a digital camera.
Interactive whiteboard: I would be lost without my SMART Board and SMART Notebook software.
Interactive response system: I use the SMART Response LE system, designed specifically for young learners.
Front Row Classroom Amplification System: this fantastic sound system provides surround sound for all my devices (computers, iPhone, iPads, etc) as well as a pendant microphone for me and a pass-around student microphone. Quality classroom sound has a direct impact on student achievement and my vocal fatigue!
Computers/laptops: I use these rarely with my young students, but obviously they are indispensable to me in creating and delivering learning experiences.
Social media: we tweet as a class (@olcskinders) and I tweet professionally (@india0309) as well. I also maintain a classroom Facebook page as a parent communication tool. Check out these blog posts for more information on how we use Twitter and Facebook.
Smart phone: my cell phone is an indispensable tool. I use it to communicate with parents, photograph/film, enter assessment data, as a timer, etc.
Document camera: great for science experiments, shared reading, math manipulatives, etc.

Do you blog personally or with the class?
This blog, Kindergarten Diva, is a platform for reflecting on and sharing my kindergarten practice with other educators and educational stakeholders. Little Hands Extended is a joint blog with colleague Leah Obach and her Grade 1 class, where we chronicle our collaborative project-based learning. Sometimes, the students and I use shared writing to post to this blog. Given the age of my students, I find that Twitter is a better fit for their writing abilities and attention spans.

Do you use Skype to communicate with people and/or other classes?
We use Skype on a daily basis in our project-based learning. We use Skype to communicate with partner classrooms around the world, to consult experts, and to obtain information that is vital to our learning. Read our Skype in the Classroom moment--it was just chosen as a winner and we won a new webcam!

We use Skype in the Classroom to connect with other classrooms who are learning about the same things as we are and to access experts that are far away from us. We live in a small rural community, so Skype is an important tool to that brings the world to us. Also, when I am away, even for a day, I Skype my students to check in on them. I love being able to see and talk to them when I am out of the classroom. Skype is probably my most-used technology tool! Read this blog post to see how we infuse Skype in kindergarten.

What do you feel are the benefits of using technology in your classroom?
The benefits are numerous, but as a kindergarten teacher, I strive to infuse technology when it is developmentally appropriate. Little ones need many real-life, hands on experiences to stimulate their senses and develop gross and fine motor skills. Many students have a lot of screen time at home, and don't need hours more at school! I try to make deliberate decisions about when technology is the best tool for learning! These 21st Century Learning Design Rubrics from Microsoft Partners in Learning guide my planning and assessment. Create your free account to access these rubrics and many other great resources!

Benefits include:
-student and teacher engagement
-development of 21st century skills (communication, collaboration, problem-solving, creative thinking, ICT skills, etc)
-matching the learning style of the 21st century learner
-bringing the world into my classroom and providing students with opportunities that would not be possible in a traditional classroom
-sharing our learning with others
-reducing the amount of paper consumed for a more sustainable classroom
-enhanced parent communication through texting, Facebook, and Twitter leads to greater support for student learning

Is there any advice you would give to someone who is new to using technology in the classroom or is unsure about using it?
-you don't need to know everything. You just need to know enough for that learning experience.
-you don't need to figure out everything! Just know that it is possible and you can always find a tutorial on YouTube or get a colleague to help you.
-start small by infusing technology in ONE area--start tweeting, use your SMART Board for calendar or attendance, use YouTube songs and dances for movement breaks, etc. Once you are more confident, add another area to your repertoire.
-don't be afraid to learn with your students! Become the "guide on the side" instead of the "sage on the stage".
-take risks, be prepared for some technology disasters, and persevere!!! Have a back up plan for when technology doesn't work!
-teach digital citizenship and ethical and responsible use from kindergarten on. Explain that you can't use someone else's music or images. It's much easier to create good habits from the beginning than try to undo them in the middle years.
-attend inexpensive local conferences such as BYTE in Neepawa or visit another classroom that infuses technology
-and remember--infusing technology is NOT OPTIONAL. It is a best practice in education that will enrich and deepen student learning while developing 21st century skills.

My go-to websites:
Microsoft Partners in Learning Network: everything here is so useful, from free software downloads, hundreds of learning experiences, to rich discussions in the Hot Topics blogs! Access to Virtual University webinars brings professional learning right to your home or classroom too.
SMART Exchange: why create a SMART Notebook lesson when you can download and modify a pre-made one? Save yourself time!
YouTube: seriously, who wouldn't be lost without YouTube? Just preview content first and watch out for videos of scantily-clad women that come up when the video is finished playing!
Symbaloo: the perfect way to safely bring web content to your students and their mobile devices! Read this blog post for an example of how I use Symbaloo to build student knowledge.
Evernote: organizing and tracking assessment data. I'd recommend using student initials to maintain confidentiality.
Brain Pop Junior: the videos are fantastic and the educators' community has great free webinars. The videos are subscription only, but there are some free ones so it's worth checking!
Twitter: my students and I love to tweet our learning and interact with classrooms and teachers around the world. I use Hootsuite to manage my many streams. Kindergarten teachers, please tag your tweets with #mbkteachers to share with other Manitoba kindergarten teachers!

Being in an early years environment, how do you monitor and make sure that students are using technology appropriately?
-as I mentioned earlier, I teach and model digital citizenship from the beginning. Students know what they are allowed to do and why. Read this blog post to learn more about digital citizenship in my kindergarten program.
-I use guided access on my classroom iPads to lock students in the one app that they are allowed to use at that time.

My colleague Leah Obach and I often hear that we must be gifted with technology or that we're really "lucky" with technology. Neither statement is true...infusing technology to maximize student learning just requires a lot of persistence and tenacity. Having a teaching partner to share the planning and problem-solving makes it so much easier and more fun (and they don't need to be in the same building or school division). Don't give up--begin your journey with one little step and you'll be walking then running in no time at all! And remember that help is just a text, email, internet search, or tweet away!

Building Knowledge with Symbaloo

Anyone who follows this blog and/or Little Hands Extended knows that we do a lot of project-based learning in kindergarten. For the past few weeks, we've been involved in yet another exciting collaborative project with Mrs. Obach's Grade 1 class--the Olympics! Since my kindergarten students were babies the last time the Winter Games were held, they knew absolutely nothing about this huge event. Although knowledge building is an important part of any learning experience in our classroom, it was even more vital for this project!

Since I became involved with Microsoft's Innovative Teacher program (now Expert Educator program) in 2008, I have used their rubrics to plan and assess instruction and learning. Their latest rubrics, 21st Century Learning Design, include collaboration, knowledge construction, skilled communication, use of ICT for learning, self-regulation, and real-world problem solving and innovation. Although this learning experience targeted descriptors from all rubrics, I chose to really focus on knowledge construction.

One of the areas that my students were really struggling with were the variety of Olympic events. They had some knowledge of hockey and figure skating, but the rest of the events were a complete mystery to them. It was important to me that they guide their own learning of the Olympic events, rather than me just tell them what each event was. So here's what we did....

I used a tool called Symbaloo to create an Olympics 2014 webmix. Symbaloo is a kid-friendly bookmarking tool that helps me make internet content safely and readily available to my kindergarten students. My Olympic webmix contains one video for each event as well as video clips of famous Canadians at the 2010 Olympics. I have published this webmix so feel free to use it with your class too.

I love how I'm able to customize each tile with my own text and images. The ability to add an image makes it very user-friendly for our youngest learners! My next step was to install the SymbalooEDU app on my classroom tablets. Once the app was installed, I logged in with my account and there was my Olympics webmix for all my students to use!

When it was time for the research portion of our learning experience, each student chose one event to study. I modelled using the Symbaloo webmix on our interactive whiteboard, and the students navigated the Olympics webmix on their tablets with no difficulty at all. Each student watched their video, then recorded their understandings on this recording form. Students drew a picture of what happened in the event, then printed words below describing the event. I was super excited to observe how independently they completed their research!

Once our research was complete, we skyped the Hamiota Grade 1s to share what we had learned from researching Olympic sports. Each student was responsible for describing the sport they had researched and answering any questions their peers raised, which added to the learning of the entire group and made their work more interdependent.

Tomorrow each student will select a new sport to research and complete another research recording form. Now that we are more comfortable with using Symbaloo and the research recording form and sharing what we've learned, I want to add another layer to the task that requires them to apply their knowledge in greater depth. 

Shopping for Learning

I'm very fortunate to have an elevated loft area in my classroom that I usually use for dramatic play. Children of all ages are instantly attracted to this loft and it's the first place they want to go as soon as they enter the classroom. Throughout the years it has served many purposes such as reading loft, vet clinic, post office, hospital, castle, and Santa's Workshop. I used to spend hours planning the next dramatic play centre and collecting the supplies, and setting everything up perfectly for the students' arrival the next morning. Now I do something a little different that makes the students part of the process from the beginning. I think the learning is richer with more curricular connections, less teacher-directed, and more enjoyable for both the students and me.

Now when it is time for a new dramatic play centre, I ask the students what they would like to do. We discuss the supplies we have and what we have done in the past--sometimes this leads to a repeat of a favourite centre or the development of a new one. This month, the students decided that they would like a grocery store. We hadn't done a grocery store in a few years, so I knew we'd need to develop it from the ground up. Here's what we've been doing!

Our first job was to decide what we needed for the centre and how we would get it. The students decided that a note in our clipboards and a post on the classroom Facebook page would let all our parents know that we were collecting clean grocery items. We also wrote a note to our custodian and asked him to get our shopping cart out of the storage hut. We visited our school's resource room to get paper money and coins to use in our grocery store, and found wallets and handbags in our tub of dress up clothes. Then we waited for the grocery items to roll in!

The next kindergarten day, a number of families sent in bags of empty grocery items, much to the students' and my delight! This led to a number of teacher-directed learning activities, such as sorting the grocery items (healthy/not healthy, breakfast/lunch/supper, dairy/not dairy, etc) and pricing the items for our store. The students loved pricing items. We used sticky notes and tape, and learned about the dollar and cent symbols. Priced varied widely (great deals and not so great deals) but the students enjoyed consulting flyers, setting prices, and printing the numbers. It was such an authentic opportunity for students to practice their number printing skills!

That afternoon the "Kindergarten Co-op" held its grand opening. There was no shortage of customers and soon the shelves were empty. It was so interesting to watch as the students played a number of roles--customer, clerk, grocery bagger, child, pet, etc. The students loved their new play centre!

Over the next few days, we added more items to our grocery store, and used the grocery items for some numeracy learning experiences. All students were given a number of loonies (for the dollar items) and pennies (for the cent items) and moved from item to item to match the number of coins with the price on the grocery item. It was a great number recognition, counting, and matching activity!

Learning how to make a list was an ELA learning experience that we engaged in yesterday. We read flyers to decide what we wanted to buy, then developed a grocery list on the SMART Board through shared writing.

After this lesson, blank grocery lists were made available in the grocery store. It was fascinating to observe all the different levels of writing development, from random symbols and squiggles that represented writing to initial and final consonants and some CVC words.

A few students have mentioned more writing that needs to be done, such as an open/closed sign. A field trip to the grocery store in town will likely result in some new material for dramatic play as well--I anticipate that we will explore basic needs and wants from the social studies curriculum and reusable vs. plastic bags to support our environmental citizenship initiatives. The opportunities to develop important early numeracy and literacy skills through dramatic play are many! We will capitalize on those in the coming weeks as the grocery store evolves to reflect student interest and ideas.