Here are a few of our favourite things . . .

When I reflect back on my 14 years of teaching, I often think to myself how rapidly the world has changed in such a short period of time.  When I started teaching, you would have to find a DVD or VHS tape that fit the them of what you wanted and then would have to time the sections you wanted to show or just by default watch the whole thing.  Now there are video clips at our finger tips, and often the sheer volume of what is available is the most overwhelming part. Here are four of the many videos that have had the greatest impact so far in my classroom this year.

1. FSL (French as a Second Language) videos.  There is so much power in learning a new language through song and the combined visual effect makes the experience and learning that much better! First of all FSL (French as a Second Language) videos. To the right is one of my grade 7's favourite FSL class songs!


2. The video below from Flocabulary.com has been a greatest hit in my Grade 7 class for the past two years.  Students LOVE this Five Elements of a Story song and sing it all year long.  It's great because it get the parts of a story 'stuck in their heads'.  I have also tried other videos from Flocabulary.com and they have all been hits!

4. Kid President - 20 Things we Should say More Often.
Okay, so if you haven't seen the video to the right yet, take a minute to watch it.  My class loved this video and it inspired them to make their own videos about their favourite words.  Below is one of the several videos that students made in their groups. You can find the rest of their videos at my classroom youtube channel or on my classroom blog.  Enjoy!

3. Historical Clips.Earlier this year, we read the novel Forbidden City, by William Bell as a class.  It is a fantastic historical fiction book based around the events of Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.  It is a very powerful book, but many students were not grasping that the Chinese government actually rolled tanks into Beijing and that the PLA actually attacked the citizens.  Thanks to the internet, there are so many powerful, historical clips to share.  I was able to share news reports about the 1989 protests with real footage, similar to the footage that fictional character of Alex in the book smuggled out.  My classes appreciation of the novel through historical footage was amazing, and the depth of the conversations and writing that resulted was greater.