Book nerds invade Harbourfront

On Monday we worked with a JK/SK class all day. In the morning we did painted faces and in the afternoon we did clay. This is my first time seeing both those programs so I shadowed and assisted where I could.

Forest of Reading is an amazing two-day festival that celebrates young people's authors. Over the course of the two days 8,000 young people invade Harbourfront to cheer on their favourite authors. I worked with the school visits team on Tuesday and Wednesday to run a drop in accordion bookmaking workshop. I hole punched so many holes to bind the books that my hand stopped working temporarily, but it was a really great day! Although these books are slightly different than the ones we do in our regular school visits program I've made enough of them to know what to do. I taught several of the sessions and co-taught others. I really love this program and its great to feel confident teaching it.

On Thursday I worked with Anne on two half day lino print programs with grade 7s. This is the first time that I've seen the program so I shadowed and assisted but didn't do any teaching.

On Friday we had two half day painted faces programs with JK/SK. I've seen this program before. I watched Anne in the morning and then taught it in the afternoon. Anne still did the intro, which is a history and background that I haven't trained on or memorized yet and I did the demonstrations. It was really fun.

Although I work primarily with Anne I have had many opportunities to work with other teachers. It's interesting to see how each teacher adds their own spin to things. The nice thing about school visits is that there is no lesson planning. The lessons are created and then teachers show up and teach them. No one is going home at night and planning lessons for the next day. The downside to that however is that you are teaching the same thing over and over and it is not authentically yours. I like seeing how different teachers interpret it and develop it in their own way.