An Amazing Teacher/An Amazing Class

Yesterday I had the good fortune to visit an exceptional grade 1/2 teacher by the name of Jodi Barrett. She follows an inquiry-based approach to teaching and runs a solid program through the use of centres. These centres enable her to differentiate her instruction and allow students to work independently while she sits with small groups for such things as Guided Reading and close support in Math and other areas.

Believe it or not, underneath this gorgeous display from the natural world is her teacher desk. Jodi has put it to better use. I hate my desk. It seems to be fairly useless. I never sit down when the kids are in the class and I tend to just use it for my day planner and paper and book depository.
Her room may be fairly small, but just as Jodi packs a lot of learning into a short amount of time, she packs a lot of things into a small space. Posters hang from strings stretched across the room. Sometimes you have to swish the anchor charts away with your hand, like a beaded curtain.
Here is the cozy reading area you find when you first walk in.


Jodi allows the kids to use the rainstick to transition between centres.

The Art area, strategically located near the sink.


Hands-on learning is evident at the Math centre.

Guess, Write, Check cleverly stored in a duotang. The acetate is used inside for spelling practice. Kids use a dry erase marker. Great idea!
The damp Science station. Here, students are investigating buoyancy. As luck would have it, my Grade 5s are learning buoyancy in Forces right now.


Icons for centres. Jodi said it took a good two months at the beginning of the year to teach the kids how to learn through centres.

There are no traditional desks in the room. The students sit at small table groups as they move through the day.
There work is stored in these dollar store baskets which sit on the table.
Ugly filing cabinet does double duty as it becomes a display counter/extra Art table.
Jodi scavenges for junk for the class. I believe she got the velour arm chair from her hairdresser, who was throwing it out.
Water scenes used to teach symmetry.

Pictures taken and selected by the Grade 1/2s. They wrote captions underneath.

Thanks for the inspiring visit, Jodi!