Playing with kids — of all ages — will always bring me joy! While most of my day is spent working with small groups of students — and often in more structured ways — sometimes play enters into these reading and writing experiences. This was true this past week. It started when I was in a kindergarten class for a few minutes, and a child brought me up an ice cream cone that she made (with a sphere and a can). She wanted to give it to me … but what were my flavour options? While we only had a few minutes until it was time to clean up, she still grabbed a piece of paper and we started to write a ..read more

We’re currently in the middle of April-May-June: the craziest, most stressful months of the school year. With the warmer weather, some fast-maturing students, summer upon us, and months of staffing stress, these are the months where every day seems like it’s Friday, but it’s not. At our last Reading Specialist Meeting, our principal reminded us to “end strong,” and maximize the learning in these last few months. In the midst of crazy, it can actually be the time of the most incredible learning. So how do you get through these final months of the school year, and end on a strong note, despite a ..read more

In my role as a Reading Specialist, I spend the majority of my week working in classes (with teachers and students) and with small groups to support reading instruction. While I have regular groups of students who I take each day, the classroom teachers and I are always re-looking at data and modifying these groupings to best meet student needs. This is a story about a child who I do not take in one of my groups, but with whom I interact with each day. When I go into one of the Grade 1 classes, a student stops me every day. Even though, I’ve been taking a similar group of students for a couple ..read more

One of my jobs as a Reading Specialist is to help build capacity. I know that this is often done through more formal ways, such as professional development sessions, but I think that it can also be done in some informal ways. I’m a fan of the latter, as I normally find that these less formal ways result in … more targeted conversations with educators, smaller chunks of new ideas, a responsive approach, and the added bonus of seeing the ideas in action. Recently, someone asked me how I build capacity, and so I decided to blog about some of my favourite ways. Literacy in the Loo – This is a n ..read more

Today, I was up in the hallway during second nutrition break, and a Grade 5 student stopped me. I don’t know this student well, but her class is reading buddies with one of the kindergarten classes that I support. She asked me, “Is today our reading buddy day?” It is. It was what she said next that stopped me. She asked, “Is [Name (one of the JK students)] here today?” I wasn’t sure, but I asked her why. She said, “Because she’s my reading buddy and yesterday was her birthday. I made her a card. It’s blue because her favourite colour is blue, and it has a sparkly butterfly on it because she lo ..read more

Yesterday was hard. The first week back after March Break can be a challenge. Both staff and students are out of routine, and coupled with a time change, adjusting to being back is not always easy. I will admit that by the end of the day on Tuesday, I wondered if it was Friday. It wasn’t. This doesn’t mean that I didn’t have all kinds of joy this week because I definitely did, but I could relate to the educators who were feeling ready for an extra long sleep this weekend. Then yesterday, I had a really challenging group. The classroom educator has been away, and there have been different gues ..read more

Today is the last day of March Break, and I can’t help but think back to the last day of school before March Break. March 8th. International Women’s Day. And my birthday. I was overwhelmed with the love and kindness from staff and students on this day. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Aviva (@avivaloca) I keep thinking about these two card comments from a Grade 1 student. “You make all of us smile.” “You are the best. Everybody is talking about you nice stuff.” While on one hand I will say that if you ever want to feel great about yourself, spend some time connecting with kid ..read more

When you teach in an elementary school and you say that it’s almost your birthday, the first question that kids ask is, “How old are you?” Young children have a really interesting perception of age. For most of them, you are either … 80-100 years old or a teenager. I like to play with ages then. Often times, I get students to guess my age, and then I give them clues to narrow down the number. Before the Winter Break, I finished the Math AQ Part 1 course through our Board. I recently signed up to start to the Part 2 course after March Break. Maybe it’s my thinking around math that inspired me ..read more

This year, I decided to facilitate two book clubs at my school. Anyone who follows my. Instagram account knows that I’m an avid reader, but I tend to read more fiction, mystery, and suspense novels. These professional book clubs are helping to ensure that I’m also digging into and reflecting on academic reads. While I’ve already read both books, I did so on my own and without further discussion about them. Now I can engage in conversation about these texts, and re-look at them from the perspectives of different grade levels. When I first asked my principal about facilitating a book club, I was ..read more

A principal friend of mine, whom I highly respect, once told me that her staff is like her class. I thought about these words this past week, as I was reflecting on some ideas shared by colleagues. This is how the story begins … Back in December, I blogged about my Literacy in the Loo experience, thanks to some sharing by Laura Wheeler and Doug Peterson. As I indicated in this blog post, never before have I received such positive feedback around resource sharing. Best of all, not only is this Loo PD reaching the educators in our building, but also visiting educators who happen to drop by the b ..read more