A Practical Tool For The Elementary Classroom

It is a bit overwhelming when you first look at it, but Loretta Van Brabant's year-at-a-glance chart tells her everything she needs to know about what she is going to teach her Grade 3 children from September to June at St. Teresa Catholic School in Edmonton.

On 11" x 14" paper, the chart has the months of the year going down one side. Across the top, the first column contains the themes used to integrate the subject areas (e.g. friendship, the past, fantasy, animals). The other columns are for each of the subject areas.

The idea for the chart stemmed from Van Brabant's notion that it would be much easier to teach the elementary curriculum - and that the curriculum would be much easier for the students to follow - if she took advantage of the connections between subjects. "I thought things were disjointed, so I put chunks together to better build upon learning, which builds success." She has also found that this big-picture view makes it easier for her to evaluate her students. "I get a more well rounded view of the kids."

The key, Van Brabant says, is to know the curriculum and then to think about how best to present it at the children's level. "You should also look at what kids would have learned the year before, and then, what they would need to learn the next year." Another thing she does is write down general and student-learning expectations for each subject area, and look for the commonalities among them.

The grid helps Van Brabant keep track of what she has to get done in any given unit. At the same time, having everything plotted out means that it is easy for her to see how she can move things around in her schedule when she needs to be flexible.

Van Brabant admits that developing her first grid was very difficult and time-consuming. In subsequent years, however, it has gotten easier as she has learned from previous years. She says that this integrated approach is easy to implement in primary grades, because she is with the students almost all day. It also works well in team teaching situations, as team members can be sure their efforts are complementary and there is no duplication.