At our first Pro D-day in September, we spent the morning exploring literacy through the First Peoples Principles of Learning. We had the support of district consultants. We spent the afternoon extending our literacy learning as it connects to SEL (Social Emotional Learning) with the support of our district coordinator of mental heath and SEL. We focused on building community and taking care of self, other and place-for students and staff. 

We began the day outside exploring aspects of the walking curriculum. Staff explored how to build in opportunities for oral language as part of outdoor learning. They started the walk with a guiding question and then ended the walk with a reflective prompt using three key themes. Examples are listed below:

Welcome: (Before walk) Where do you feel welcome in the outdoor space? Notice things that make you feel that way (After walk) Go to a space you feel welcome and sit alone and close your eyes. Listen and feel.

Growth: (Before walk) What is growing and how do you know? How does growth appear? (Growth prompt after walk)Pretend you're a reporter and make a "breaking news" story about one or two examples of growth.

Neighbour: (Before walk) Who are our non-human neighbours? (Neighbour prompt after walk) Invent names (not real names) for the animals you encounter. Make them characters in your own story.

We later explored ways to further strengthen oral language using various thinking routines. One example of a thinking routine using 4 key questions is when we ask students to respond to a variety of selected images using key questions. Please see the photo examples included in this post.

What do you see, think, wonder?

How are the images connected”

What might the story behind the pictures be?

What’s the big idea?

We also spent time looking deeply at our school literacy data to determine next steps to improve student learning.