Monthly Theme: September: New Beginnings
Each September is a time of new beginnings - new rooms, new grades, new subjects, new teachers, new friends, and even a new season. Let's begin our new school year with a call to connect so we can learn about each other and build strong relationships to support learning through the whole year. This month's Feature Theme is New Beginnings! You’ll find collections across all subjects that invite collaboration and provide opportunities for students and teachers to get to know and grow together.
Get started this year with concepts that will empower student learning! Edwin's new Conceptual Collections series is designed to support teachers and students through deep, enriching inquiries that reach both within and across disciplines. This collection is designed to develop a broad conceptual understanding of relationships across the three subject areas of mathematics, science, and social studies, and accompanies specific Conceptual Collections in these subjects.
In this project, part of a group of three collections which develop the concept of relationships across mathematics, science, and social studies, students examine patterns in a calendar in order to develop their understanding of the concept of relationships in mathematics. They will use their findings to solve a mystery pattern, and then create their own mystery pattern to share with a friend. This collection can be used to review previously learned concepts, as a culminating assessment of student learning, or students can learn the concepts through the project.
In this Conceptual Collection, students begin by questioning a familiar concept in science: the ecosystem. Students have probably heard the word ecosystem many times, both in and out of class. They may have read or heard examples of ecosystems such as rainforests, lakes, and grasslands. But what makes these types of places ecosystems, and are they the only types? This collection will help students think about the concept of ecosystems in new and exciting ways.
This collection provides suggestions for using a short film to engage students and is a great way to get started with building classroom relationships. To create its narrative, the film uses a series of paintings by children’s artist Kevin Sylvester. There is a soundtrack of music and bird noises, but no dialogue dictating the viewers’ interpretation. The openness of the film lends itself to a myriad of purposes. As students view, discuss, and respond to the film, they will work together to learn about themselves and their peers.
In 2021, the Canadian government passed legislation to make September 30 a federal statutory holiday called the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. This day recognizes and commemorates the legacy of residential schools, as stipulated in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action. The links in this collection explore some of the Edwin materials that can support the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation (September 30, 2021).
As anyone who took a long trip over the summer knows, the music is key! Starting off the school year with a retrospective of summer songs can help students get introduced and discover new music, too. In this collection, students find out how to create the ultimate road trip playlist and build their own playlist for another person. Once they have made their choices, students express their decisions in an informative paragraph.
Artist Luis Segura in his rap “Here I Am” explores identity in a diverse world. Students listen to his work and reflect on what identity means, and then create their own spoken word poem about what identity means to them.
Getting started on something new almost always means some uncertainty – but what about when it lasts longer? Could you do a science experiment that lasted months, years, or decades? Some monumental discoveries took lots of patience and perseverance. Find out about these key competencies of science. (The Collection won't take that long to explore. Promise!)