An inquiry-based project to map the land in your community. The key concepts in this unit are grounded in Indigenous beliefs of interconnectedness, connectedness, and respect for all things.

The driving inquiry questions for this unit are:
1. How can respect for the land be shown?
2. What do we look for when setting up a camp?
3. What stories or teachings are connected to key locations in and around our community?
4. How has the land around our community changed over time?
5. Who do we share our community’s lands with?

Introduce core SEL competencies to teach students how to practice compassion and empathy, identify emotions, and exercise growth mindset.

Compassion is an important social-emotional skill that begins to develop in early childhood and is essential for lifelong health and success. Learning compassion increases a student's sense of wellbeing and improves the learning environment for all learners. By developing empathy in children, educators lay the groundwork for long-term understanding of diversity, equity and inclusion in the classroom(opens in new tab) and in life. Compassion education is important(opens in new tab) because it helps to build key social-emotional learning competencies, such as:

- development of the understanding of self
- social awareness, and
- relationship skills

With interactive online activities and robust offline lesson plans, The Compassion Project provides invaluable resources for teaching empathy in the classroom. The Lower Elementary Compassion Course has three online lessons; Compassion Playground, EmpathEyes, and Mindful Maze.

Sun West School Division: To access The Compassion Project: Lower Elementary, log into EVERFI through your clever account.

The Compassion Project for Character Development PeBL from Everfi

With so much emphasis placed on improvements in math and science, skills like compassion often receive less classroom time. This unintended trade-off may be short-sighted, as compassion is an important social-emotional skill that begins to develop in early childhood and is essential for lifelong health and success. Learning compassion increases students’ own sense of wellbeing and improves the learning environment for all learners. EVERFI’s new SEL program, The Compassion Project, is the first comprehensive, no-cost program designed to help educators facilitate lessons around fundamental SEL skills for students in grades 2-4, focusing on the complex but critical skill of compassion.

Grades 2-4 and about 45 minutes.

This Course Covers
Understanding Compassion
Self Compassion
Practicing Compassion

Grab a tissue and watch the video.

What a wonderful gift to give your students.

Enjoy.

Explore moods and emotions using drawing and creativity!  These mindful moodles will help students get in touch with their emotions. Thank you to Smiling Mind for the these great materials. 

Summary:
-after a mini unit on pencil sketching, have students sketch a Saskatchewan scene. Be sure students do not include a lot of detail.
-photocopy the sketch
-use primary colours to paint the picture
-allow the students to use the paints to create secondary colours
-paint the second picture using only the secondary colours.
-display the two art samples
-look at and discuss various Sk art and talk about colours
Outcomes:
CP6.11 Investigate and use visual art forms, images, and art-making process to express ideas about identity.
CP6.12 Demonstrate increased skills and problem-solving abilities in a variety of visual art media.
CR6.3 Examine arts expressions and artists of various times and places.

This resource examines what deeper learning can actually look like in a classroom. Helpful diagrams of what you will see in a classroom along the way are included.

INTRODUCTION
INSIDE THE CLASSROOM
• Applying Content Knowledge
• Working Collaboratively
• Communicating Clearly
• Thinking Critically 1
• Developing an Academic Mindset
• Learning Independently
GLOSSARY
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

For the past two years, Dinsmore Composite School has been developing a mentorship program for K-8 as part of the school timetable. The purpose of the program was to provide opportunities for older students to develop leadership skills and to foster collaboration, communication and problem-solving skills among all students. The planning and implementation process as well as an overview of the learning outcomes and activities will be highlighted. Participants will be invited to share their own experiences with mentorship in their schools and classrooms.

This rubric was created for the final project for an ELA Indigenous and Norse Narratives UBD unit plan. Throughout the unit, the grade nine students read legends to the grade three students (the benefits of being in a K-12 school). As we read through narratives and legends in the class, students began to discover ideas for their own personal narrative or legend. I asked the students to make the legend for a grade two or three reading level. I asked them to do this because we planned on reading the stories to the grade three students. The grade three students were also incorporated in drawing the pictures for the story. This developed the students’ collaboration skills because they needed to be aware of the grade three student’s thoughts and how they learn. This assignment also asked the students to develop their communication skills with the grade three students, as they would need to describe their idea for pictures to the grade three students. Throughout the unit, the students developed their own character because they had to be more aware of their actions and language around grade three students. I believe it helped student’s realize there are younger students within the school who look up to them, even if they are unaware of it.

Plan for the Unexpected and Help Relieve Stress
Having to cover a class last minute? Need an emergency sub plan? Check out these easy, FREE activities from the CharacterStrong curriculum! Amidst this crazy time, the resources will help you pre-plan for the uncertainty of an educator absence or staff shortage.
Includes resources for:
- Prek-2
- 3-5
- 6-8
- 9-12

These visuals teach students to identify their emotions, and then take action! It's not enough to know that you're anxious or angry - you need to learn what to do about to manage your emotions or self-regulate. Thank you to TeamBCSD for sharing this resource on Twitter! 

Courses for ALL grades and ages!

ELEMENTARY
*Word Force - teach reading skills to Gr 1-2
*Compassion Project - teach empathy Gr. 2-5
*Healthier Me - Gr. 1-4
*Vault - Financial Literacy Gr. 4-6
*FutureSmart - citizenship & finance Gr. 6-8
*Ignition - Digital Citizenship Gr. 6-9
*SaveUp - Saving for the Future Gr. 6-8
*Future Goals - Hockey - STEM Gr. 4-7
*Sustainability Foundations - many options Gr. 5-9
*Endeavor - Career Exploration Gr. 6 to 9
*Character Playbook Gr. 7-9

HIGH SCHOOL
*Get Digital - Safety in the Metaverse
*Venture - entrepreneurship
*Data Science
*Money Moves
*Vaping
*Prescription Drugs
*Mental Wellness
*Honor Code - Bullying Prevention
*Alcohol Edu
*Financial Literacy
*Financing Higher Education
*College & Career Readiness

Access all Everfi programs via the Clever portal at Sun West.
For help launching programs with your students contact Jesus Grisanti Clavier

Do you have students who struggle to prepare for exams? suffer from test anxiety? need some new tips?
This resource has everything you need to run an exam preparation and study skill "crash course". Included in this resource are a teacher powerpoint, student study guide booklet (that pairs with the powerpoint), a parent newsletter (supporting your child during exam time), and additional information on overcoming test anxiety.

Teaching materials to support high school students in valuing and embracing diversity and inclusion.
Lesson plans included.

This is a great video to introduce the idea that failure isn't failure if you keep on trying. It's only failure if you quit.
This can be used to introduce PBL, genius hour, or any time your students are struggling or want to give up easily.

Consider having the students watch the film, then give them a reflection question. Have them re-watch the video with your question in mind and then respond.

"A new tool for anyone seeking to improve their ability to focus."

Users progress through timed steps, with self-regulation activities embedded in their progression.
This tool can also be used with groups to encourage better focus.

Focusable is free - but there is also an upgraded version available.

One of the daily challenges of life is: “How do I get people—including myself—to do what I want?” The Four Tendencies framework makes this task much easier by revealing whether a person is an Upholder, Questioner, Obliger, or Rebel.

Students can practice matching words to the correct definition, and donate rice at the same time.

For each correct answer, the United Nations World Food Programme donates 10 grains of rice to a country in need. How’s that for combining word learning with social goodness? When a student plays, there is a visual display of rice (see image) which is added to a bowl each time the student makes a correct response.

Free Rice includes subject area lists in Geography, Science, Math, and others. It is leveled so students can play at just the right level of challenge for them.

If you have an error message just copy and paste this url into your browser: https://freerice.com/categories

Ditch That Textbook has tons of great ideas to support teachers in their busy classrooms. One of the many resources offered are FREE templates that will save time and engage students in their learning.To access these free templates (Google Slides and PowerPoint) head on over to  https://ditchthattextbook.com/resources/templates or check out the individual sections included in this lesson.