Artifacts and Reflections

This section is a holding space for you to keep specific artifacts and accompanying reflections that you believe are relevant to the other tabs in your eportfolio. You will also want to include artifacts that demonstrate your personal and scholarly growth. You will add to and delete artifacts from this section over time. ePortfolio includes an about me space, a blog, and a space for artifacts. The ePortfolio is a space for students to decide what they want to show case and explore, so this template is just a starting point for students.

The point of the ePortfolio is for the student to think and see how their identity, culture, and education are interconnected. Students have a space to reflect on their learning, experiences, identity, and culture. Students can make their learning visible, to see their progress and to set goals for the future.

Reading for Learning

In this section of my blog, I would like to share a few of the books and resources I find and have used along the way. Some of these books I have used in my practicum so I will include how and where I used them. As I am a reader at heart and have been all my life I love the ability that literature has to tell stories, teach important lessons and be a vehicle for connection whether it’s with others or inwardly with ourselves. So coming from this I hope for this page to be a continuous thread of shared literature all gathered in one place .

“How Full is your Bucket?” by Tom Rath and Mary Reckmeyer

This book was one of the first books I used in the classroom and looking back now I love that this book was the one I used to set the tone of my teaching journey given the books meaning. This book is quite popular in the teaching world as the story is used to show how we all have metaphorical buckets that represent how we feel. With every bad situation that can happen in a day our buckets can empty, but they can be filled through kindness. I used this book for a Pink Shirt Day lesson in my grade two class and I found that the students really understood the messaging of this book and it helped them visualize how kindness can work. I also really liked the emphasis that this story had on how kindness can work both ways and how doing kind things for others not only fills their buckets but our own as well.

“It’s Falling, Falling” by Ji-an Yang

This book I had used for my grade two class during practicum to start learning about Gravity. Before I really got into lesson planning I didn’t think that reading stories would connect to science and math, but my attitude has pleasantly changed since then due to this book and a few others. This book nicely blends scientific learning content with a whimsical story and is very well suited for a grade two-aged class. Even though this is technically a science book it adds in moments of humour to keep the kids really engaged. This book also has a nice glossary section at the back that is nice to add in to get concrete facts for the students to explore in addition to the narrative.

“Be You!” by Peter H. Reynolds

This book is such a sweet read. This book I actually did not use for a lesson but I was lucky enough to have my coaching teacher and class gift it to me at the end of my first practicum. This book, as you might have guessed from the title, is all about being yourself. This book has such great meaning and has a takeaway on each page. For example, some of the things it tells the reader is too; be kind, be adventurous, be connected, be persistent, be curious, be patient and so on. My class said they gave this book to me as their advice going forward in my teaching journey. I will cherish this book for the rest of my life because not only is it connected to the memories of the first class I was able to teach but also because it is so real in that we all need a little reminder sometimes of all the things that make us who we are, and that who we are is and will be great. My class also made a word cloud for me with all the words they associated with me and things we learned together. I would recommend this book to anyone at any age, as it has such a universal meaning. From an educational perspective, you could use this book to teach some social-emotional learning and to talk about how everyone should be supported and secure in being themselves.