Heritage Fair Hosted in Scarborough!

The last time our school participated in Heritage Fair was in 2024. It's a busy time of year but I insisted that we register this year because the regional fair was held in Scarborough, at Centennial College's Progress Campus. Even though it took a lot of effort to prepare for the event, I am so glad that we went. It was spectacularly organized on every level. (Big thanks to my daughter for helping me supervise the group I brought.)

Parking and navigating to the event space were easy. There was plenty of space and enough tables for the projects. The students were grouped into four animal sections and the animal sections dictated when they attended their workshops and had their judging times. The students had cards with their schedules and spots where they could track how many times they were evaluated. This guaranteed that every project was observed three times. In between the judging times, students also made time to eat their lunch and visit "Community Street", a row of tables that students could visit for information on different topics. 

The young people really enjoyed the workshops they attended. One was by Archives Ontario and the fabulous Hafiz Printer, and the other session was by TDSB Eco-Schools. It was nice to participate in interactive, collaborative activities.

May is hectic and getting the project "fair ready" was a bit more extensive than I expected.

Our students are so accustomed to designing digital projects that it is quite a shift for them to create physical display boards. It took them a long time to plan, cut, layout and stick on the text and images. We only entered four projects with six participants and I'm glad there weren't more that needed my attention. Their projects had been completed since first term, but for some of our teams, they put the finishing touches on their boards the actual morning of the fair! (This stressed me out a bit, I won't lie.)

We also took an unconventional approach to determining our entries for the regional fair. After we had our class project presentations, we actually asked students to self-nominate. That way, we knew that the participants were truly interested in participating. 

It will be a few weeks before we hear the results of the judges' decisions and whether or not any of the Agnes Macphail P.S. students will be selected to move on to the provincial fair and celebration. I know that the organizers downplay the competitive aspect, but it is a big attraction for my students. Big thanks to Melissa Moorehouse, the coordinator of the event, for making all the arrangements. I told her that I'd praise the way this event was run to any and everyone who'd listen, so this is my attempt to share the good news. 

STEM Class Choices: Build or Code?

I had a completely different blog post in draft but when I looked through my photos from the past two weeks, the dominant subject was from my recent STEM lessons. The other post can wait.

STEM Class can be wonderfully open-ended. There are STEM expectations in the curriculum, under the subject of Science, but they are not as narrow as the other Science strands. You aren't required to make, build, or code specific things. This is what the Ontario Ministry of Education has to say about STEM on its website:

K–12 STEM education is the study of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, including cross-curricular and/or integrative study, and the application of those subjects in real-world contexts. As students engage in STEM education, they develop transferable skills that they need to meet the demands of today’s global economy and society.

STEM education helps students develop an understanding and appreciation of each of the core subjects of mathematics, science, and technological education. At the same time, it supports a more holistic understanding and application of skills and knowledge related to engineering design and innovation. STEM learning integrates and applies concepts, processes, and ways of thinking associated with these subjects to design solutions to real-world problems.

Engineering design and innovation engages students in applying the principles of science, technology, and mathematics to develop economical and sustainable solutions to technical and complex societal problems to meet human needs.

Among the transferable skills developed through STEM education are computational thinking, coding, design thinking, innovating, use of the scientific method, scientific inquiry skills, and engineering design skills. These skills are in high demand in today’s globally connected world, with its unprecedented advancements in technology.

Approaches to STEM education may vary across Ontario schools. STEM subjects may be taught separately, but with an effort to make cross-curricular connections a part of student learning. Problem-solving application projects may be designed to combine two or more STEM subjects. Alternatively, content from all four STEM subjects might be fully integrated to reinforce students' understanding of each subject, by enhancing their understanding of the interrelationships among them, and by providing the opportunity to apply a spectrum of knowledge and skills in novel ways in real-world contexts. As STEM education is implemented, it is important to engage diverse perspectives and ways of thinking. including those inherent in the arts and humanities. Diverse perspectives engage students in a  variety of creative and critical thinking processes that are essential for developing innovative and effective solutions that impact communities or ecosystems.

A robust K–12 STEM education enables Ontario educators and students to become innovators and leaders of change in society and the workforce, and creates opportunities in our diverse communities to foster integrative thinking and problem solving.

So, how does an educator prioritize a particular approach? For Term 2, the Grade 3 team in particular requested that I focus on coding. The reason was that there are coding-related questions in EQAO that the students sometimes stumble on, and the teachers really wanted to address that need early with targeted lessons on coding concepts.

Coding

When I last mentioned my coding lessons, my students were struggling a bit with describing and recording their coding for their robot coding mice. They like using the technology, but they tend to rush through their thinking without remembering or properly documenting the process. I've bought some more Botleys and Coding Mice so that we can have smaller groups to practice.

I'm also partnering with the Grade 1 class for an integrated coding and social studies unit involving Ozobots. In two weeks, this partnering unit will be part of the Demonstration / Observation class I'm hosting for other teacher-librarians in my school board. Thankfully, we have enough Ozobots that every student has their own (thank you Macklin P.S. for the loan!) and the immediate feedback based on the actions the robots take based on the code helps us shape subsequent lessons. For instance, we realized the students needed more practice with their line drawing before we got into the color coding sequences.

Photos from 1st Week Together

Photos from 2nd Week Together

Building

We recently installed storage shelving in the STEM lab for projects, and the students missed using the Chomp Saws. What I thought would be a single-class challenge turned into a month-long investigation. Inspired by the book stand one of the teachers made at my cardboard session at the TDSB Eureka conference, I asked my students to build a book stand using only cardboard. I had to finally tell the students that they were no longer allowed to modify their designs, even if it wasn't yet working. 

Here are some of the designs that worked.

I need to return to my coding lessons as EQAO nears, especially to review the idea of repeating loops and different coding directions. It's tricky to find the right balance between the math-heavy coding and the engineer-influenced building, since it takes a long time to do either. Ideally, I'd design a challenge that includes both coding and building simultaneously, so it isn't an either-or dilemma.

Grade 7s

 I graduated teacher's college in 1996 with credentials for teaching primary and junior division students. I became qualified to teach in the intermediate division in 2008, with my "teachable" (the subject area specialty that intermediate teachers are required to have) in Dramatic Arts. 

It isn't often that I get to teach the Grade 7s or 8s on my own. My Guidance periods this year are with the homeroom teacher present. It is true that when I first came to my current school, part of my assignment was teaching Grade 7 math, but that was an anomaly. During the COVID pandemic, I started out with a Grade 6-7 teaching assignment, until reorganization removed the Grade 7s from my class. I see the intermediate students when their teachers and I collaborate on a unit together. However, we've made arrangements this term, related to the requirements that the Human Sexuality unit be conducted in a single-grade setting, so that I get to teach the Grade 7s both for Health and History. 

The Grade 7 cohort this year at my school is a wonderful group. They tend to be on the quiet side and we have some quirky characters in the mix, but it really is a pleasant experience to teach them. I'm working hard to ensure that the teaching strategies I employ suit pre-teens, with their personalities, priorities, and preferences.

Grade 7 Health

I am beyond overjoyed that I was able to locate - thanks to Lisa Daley and the help of the patron saint of lost things, Saint Anthony - my Plicker cards. Tangential story here: there are a lot of superstitions related to the powers of Saint Anthony. My sister and I visited his museum when we were in Portugal, and my mother instilled in us a great fondness for this particular saint. I will say this: whenever I say a prayer to Saint Anthony to help me find something I've lost, somehow it works out! I didn't want to bother Saint Anthony for help finding something as insignificant as these cards, but they had been lost for five years and I really wanted to use them for the Grade 7 Health lesson. I prayed, made some inquiries, and Lisa found my Plicker cards in her classroom.

The reason why I was so gung-ho about using these Plicker cards is because it's a way for students to provide answers in a way that respects their privacy. The student rotates their individualized QR code to indicate their answer, and no one can tell the difference except for the teacher collecting the data. I am using the OPHEA lessons, one of the few times where I follow someone else's plans, and some of the discussion topics can be awkward for students. Here's a sample of our survey questions, with the results. (For health, I taught the 7s from the 7-8 class separately from the 7s from the 6-7 class, because of how the timetable works.)

Another point of pride is that I was able to set up all the resources beforehand, such as Padlet to prioritize our class norms, handouts with definitions, and chart papers and sorting sentences so no one had to worry about writing. I also used the translation app on my phone to explain certain terms. Our first lesson went off without a hitch. I will review the diagnostic assessment results from Plickers to see if there's more need to simplify or explain things. The OPHEA documents presume a lot of prior knowledge from the students that might not be there.

Grade 7 History

Lisa Daley and I co-planned and co-taught this Grade 7 History unit together and the goal was to make history accessible and interesting. It's a shame that the Grade 7s are working on their inquiry projects at this time of the year, because they won't be able to participate in the upcoming Heritage Fair. I took students in 2023 and other educators took students in 2024 because the GTA Resource Fair was on the same day. Even though the inquiry questions may seem frivolous or unusual, we deliberately designed the question generating process to be more guided and centered on student interests and expertise. It's nice to see their passions and hobbies reflected in their questions. 

My time with the Grade 7s will be interrupted a bit this week, between Track and Field and a field trip and other classes taking priority. I hope they are enjoying their time with me as much as I am enjoying my time with them.

Poutine!

 I wrote a similar title for a similar blog in January, discussing our experience cooking bannock. In March, we ate real and made pretend patties. In April, we read the Blue Spruce nominated book, The Girl Who Loved Poutine and, naturally, the students wanted to cook poutine. 

I took my own advice from my bannock experience and it paid off! I asked one of my adult volunteers, "Miss Christine", to help out and she came for two afternoons to assist all five primary division classes. I bought extra fries, used frozen french fries to save time, and cooked them in a deep-fryer while the students prepared the gravy and cheese. I couldn't make it as authentic as it should be, because cheese curds are expensive. We used white cheese and the students cut them into cubes. Here are some photos (without faces) of the experience.

Mentoring and Leading in Tumultuous Times

The unofficial theme of this past week was leadership. In addition to my regular teaching schedule, I conducted three demonstration lessons for my mentee, began the spring sessions of the York University Teacher Librarian Additional Qualification courses, and hosted a fellow teacher who job-shadowed me for the day. Two of my friends went through the process of becoming eligible to serve as a vice-principal and heard the results last Friday. 

It made me seriously consider all the factors associated with being a leader in times of uncertainty. 

(Note: this photo was taken by my primary ESL students for us to use in our shared writing story book. I don't have a ton of images to go with this blog post, so this "supposedly deep-in-thought" visual will have to suffice!)

What does it mean to be an education leader in 2026?

There's a difference between being a leader in an official capacity, as a principal, vice-principal, or chairperson (POR), and less formally identified leadership. I consider teacher-librarians to automatically be de facto leaders, by nature of their position and responsibility in the school. (The sad fact is that often, TLs feel more like on-call supply teachers than curriculum, teaching, or resource experts.) Our official education leaders have so many responsibilities foisted upon them, many of them managerial in nature, that makes it difficult for them to serve in other capacities. There are meetings to attend, statistics to gather, and reports to generate. It takes concentrated effort to prioritize the people in the building, be it staff, students, or families. I don't want to be overly critical of our teacher-training programs or the courses that shape future administrators; it's too simple to place the blame on these institutions or courses for "not adequately preparing" people for the realities of the job. To be an excellent leader, you must understand policies and procedures but it's also about "People Power", to name-drop one of the Learning Blocks from the York U TL AQ. Knowing how to defuse a conflict or help a teacher improve their professional practice involves delicate, diplomatic conversations that are often learned through experience. I want to thank both the official and unofficial leaders that surround me with making the time to have conversations about how to accomplish those human resource goals in compassionate and thoughtful ways. 

Why do we struggle with balancing the quantity and quality of teachers?

This past week, there was a press conference that announced the decision to change the length of the teacher preparation training time from two years to one year. You can read or watch about the announcement on The Globe and Mail, CTV, and CBC. (It's worthwhile to note that many press conferences filmed in schools are situated in the school library, despite the fact that many school boards are cutting their school library staffing numbers. The irony is not lost on me.) 

It was switched in 2015 from a one-year program to a two-year program to address the teacher surplus issue. Now in 2026, we are facing a teacher shortage. 

There is a constant shift back and forth between having too many teachers and not enough. Back in 1996 when I graduated from the concurrent Faculty of Education program at York (which was a three-year commitment), it felt impossible to obtain a full-time position. I was a supply teacher for several boards before getting an LTO and then my permanent position. 

Is a year enough time? Most would-be educators state with certainty that they learn the most during their practicum placements. I was a host teacher in 2020 and in 2021 and I learned a lot from having to articulate how and why I teach the way I do. It's unusual for a teacher-librarian to be a host teacher because most faculties want their teacher-candidates to be placed with classroom teachers. Host teacher placements are decided on a volunteer basis - if a school agrees to have student-teachers in the building, then it is completely up to present teachers to offer their class as a practicum training ground. Let me also address the "elephant in the room": there are some host teachers and/or some student teachers who aren't exemplary educators and it can be difficult to dissuade them from continuing along this path. Disqualifying a student-teacher (or even an "inferior permanent contract teacher") takes a great deal of effort and sometimes the battle isn't worth the result, but it does mean that sometimes there are teachers who don't have the disposition, attitude, or foundational skills to do as well as one might hope to learn the ropes or do the job.

Getting new teachers in is just half the battle. We need to be able to keep them and grow them as well. It takes time to develop into a competent educator. I look at some of the lessons I taught in the beginning years of my career and cringe a bit, although I also examine some of the things I did during that time and wonder how I was able to produce something so great when I was still so green. I know I sound like a senior citizen when I say this, but back in the old days, we used to have entire departments devoted to helping new teachers. Jim Strachan provided such wonderful resources. Now, we have to squeeze in time during after-school or lunch sessions. Heck, in 2016, TDSB hosted a Beginning Teacher Conference, during the day, with release time and everything. 

In addition to the large number of teachers about to retire, there are a lot of principals and vice-principals getting ready to leave the profession and we don't have replacements ready. We want to make sure that we aren't just placing a warm body in the role so we need to make sure the best candidates are selected. However, the process for moving from a teaching to an administrative role in schools is a grueling one and many potentially great aspiring administrators become discouraged. Vice-principals and principals shape the culture of a school in significant ways, and their impact on the teaching staff cannot be underestimated. 

How might we support our current and aspiring leaders in education? 

I'm a big fan of mentorship, and not just because I took my Mentoring AQ course. Spending time, in person with others to learn from them is such a powerful thing. I was connected with Salma Nakhuda for my Mentor AQ course and I continue to learn from her. She pushes my thinking and because are friends, she will tell me things that might be hard to hear but are important for my learning. (For instance, read a bit about what she says about representation in school librarianship in this article called Belonging in the Profession from Canadian School Libraries Journal).

I so enjoyed having Brenda come to job-shadow me on Friday. She saw the good, the bad and the ugly during the course of a single day. I didn't ask her which things fit into what category; in my opinion, the good stuff was the social studies lesson and seeing adult volunteers and student helpers in action, and the bad stuff was having to decide who was going to cover unfulfilled supply coverage (which partly meant making myself an OT). I was delighted to discover that Brenda is actually enrolled in one of the Spring 2026 York U TL AQ courses I'm teaching! This means that we can continue to talk and learn from each other, even after this visit (which was arranged through an ESL itinerant, before Brenda signed up for the course). 

It's all about relationships. Potential VPs need actual VPs to help them understand the nuances of the job and navigating the process for being chosen. New TLs need veteran TLs to turn to if they have questions. Doing this without burning out the people can be tricky. I know that the TL board facilitators have tinkered with different ways of offering support. This year, there's a list of potential mentors and new TLs can reach out to the mentor of their choice. This is nice because it puts the onus on the person who wants help to meet their needs.

I've written about this before, in my Treasure Mountain Canada research paper called Climbing Mountains: Methods for Mentoring Teacher-Librarians. In this report, I shared three wishes:

1) Encourage TLs to receive mentorship training (like in the Mentor AQ).

2) Get school board departments to find ways, via teacher-librarians, to support new teachers.

3) Diversify the types of mentoring opportunities available.

Unfortunately, ten years after writing this paper, none of these recommendations are close to reality, and there's even less available now for potential leaders or new teachers. I will continue to do what I can to help.

Spring Partner Units

 This school year, thanks to borrowing a bit from my guidance allocation, I have some slots open for collaborative teaching. The winter months weren't great for these "partnering" units, because of the demands of course selection, conferences, and other responsibilities. However, the scheduled cooperative teaching times seem like they will be quite fruitful. Here's a quick overview.

Grade 5-6 Language Arts - Biographies with Brenda Kim

All teachers have subject areas where they excel. For Brenda, it's mathematics. For me, I love language arts, media and social studies. I'm grateful that Brenda lets me into her class to support her with this latest unit on biographies. Ironically, I'm using an early years technique in this junior division classroom. We launched the unit by exploring my old Story Bag. The students pulled out objects and then had to infer how they all connected to a single person.

Based on the objects on the chair, can you determine the identity of the famous Canadian? It was Sir Fredrick Banting, who helped discover insulin as a way to treat diabetes. The groups brainstormed ideas and shared them, before we then read an excerpt from the Yellow Cedar nominated book Fred and Marjorie. 

After this group "Minds On" task, we then gathered into guided reading groups to read a bit about the person our school is named after, Agnes Macphail. This is where Generative AI was useful, because it made for me paragraphs at different reading levels. I still had to edit the final results, because Gemini decided to invent a term that doesn't exist (bronze ceiling vs glass ceiling), and the "easy" reading level wasn't easy enough for our multilingual learners. 

I'm relatively pleased with how this "unit launch" went, because I feel as if Brenda can carry on without me in the class. The students can continue to read in their guided reading groups, annotate their reading, and then generate a list of objects that they could use to represent Agnes Macphail. The students can do a few more guided reading passages like this before beginning to write their own biographies.

Kindergarten Social Studies - Indigenous Culture with Ms. Chiu

Ms. Chiu launched this unit in advance by sharing the book Métis Like Me with her students. I jumped in with a lesson where we co-created a physical definition of culture with the students. (Big thanks to Ethan and Nashmia for their contributions!)

Culture is "the sharing of a way of life of a group of people". (This definition was one I found that was the simplest, from this source, but is similar to this one from Time for Kids, or Britannica Kids.)

• For "sharing", our hands go back and forth, like giving and receiving
• For "way of life", our arms circle up like a rainbow
• For "group", our hands join together
• For "people", we wiggle our fingers

For little kids, it's always good to start with what they know and concrete ideas. We talked a bit about how we can be part of more than one culture. We talked about their teacher and ECE's cultures. Eventually, we will get them to look at their own culture and compare it to Métis culture.

As you can imagine, we couldn't talk about this for too long. Little bodies get restless! However, I was able to take a small group to play with a game that I originally did with a Grade 5 class. It actually does a nice job of visualizing aspects of Haida / West Coast Indigenous culture in a digestible way.

In this game, (Native Northwest Stacking Blocks Balancing Game) the object is to balance the salmon fry and eggs on the back of the adult salmon without falling over. The art is by Paul Windsor. Paul Windsor hails from British Columbia and is Heiltsuk/Haisla.

This game demonstrates what's important in Heilsuk / Haisla culture - nature, salmon, the relationship between the generations, and balance. Ms. Chiu, Mrs. Isidro, and I will continue to figure out the best way to use three adults in this learning environment.

Mentoring with my Mentee

In February, I was asked to be a mentor to one of our new teachers. We attended a Family of Schools Mentoring Evening. (During that event, even I learned about a new learning activity technique that I tried out with my Grade 6 social studies students, called "Quiz Quiz Trade". It was quite useful!)

(I didn't get permission to post his photo on my blog, so I blurred his face.)

Professional learning shouldn't be a "one and done". I realized that I needed to do more to support the professional growth of our beginning teachers. Thankfully, my mentee was willing to allow me to "insert myself". First, I observed some of his lessons. This coming week, I'll model some lessons, based on what he indicated he'd like to see demonstrated. The week afterwards, we will co-teach. 

Grade 1 Math - Coding and Robotics with Mrs. Hajiani

I haven't started to plan this lesson yet with Sheri, but I feel as if I've got a good foundation already because my Term 2 focus for STEM this year has been coding. Thanks to guidance from the primary teachers with EQAO students in their portfolios, I've been working on coding so that they can tackle that portion of the EQAO test with confidence and familiarity. I'm struck by how spiral many curricula are - parts about repeating loops in coding for Grade 3 are simpler versions of the expectations in Grade 7. 

I am keeping my fingers crossed that these learning opportunities go well. Happy Easter to those who celebrate. I'll use this time to prepare for these upcoming lessons (as well as the Spring 2026 session of York University's TL AQs - thanks Francis Ngo and Anna Jupp for arranging for time to improve the course content).