The last couple of weeks have been so much fun! Unfortunately, I had to miss doing the Wolves in the Walls VR activity because of car problems. However, the previous week, we had practiced in class, and it was my first experience with VR. The best word I have for it is “trippy!” I had never experienced such a strange combination of sensory loss and heightened awareness before—my vision and hearing felt incredibly sharp, yet at the same time, I felt strangely disconnected from my body and physical surroundings. It was an odd but exhilarating sensation. I can definitely understand how some students (especially younger) might find it disorienting or even uncomfortable, but at the same time, it’s such an exciting and immersive experience. I really wish I could have participated in the full activity with the students at GT, but I’m grateful that I at least got to try it out in class.

The following week was another first for me – creating my own teaching resources! We were in another Kindergarten class, and I had the opportunity to lead my own literacy centre. To prepare, I designed a worksheet using Canva, which ended up being a much more time-consuming task than I had anticipated. I quickly realized that I still have a lot to learn about the platform. For example, I struggled with resizing a text box and eventually gave up, opting to create my own lines instead. Looking back, I probably made the entire process harder for myself than necessary. 

The goal of the worksheet was to help students connect images to three-letter words by placing the correct letters in a box below each picture. One of the trickier parts was making sure that the words I chose only included letters the students had already learned. After some trial and error, I finally got everything to work and ended up creating four different worksheet variations. Some of the words had letters pre-filled to provide a bit of support, while others required the students to figure them out on their own.

During the activity, I was inspired by Adrienne Gear’s Powerful Thinking and made a conscious effort to model my own thought process for the students. Rather than simply telling them what to do, I verbalized my thinking: “Hmm, I see a picture of a cat. I know ‘cat’ starts with /c/—what letter makes that sound?” By slowing down and sharing my reasoning step by step, I noticed that students became more engaged in figuring out the missing letters on their own. They started listening more closely to the sounds in words and applying their phonemic awareness to the task, rather than just guessing. Seeing them develop confidence in their own thinking was incredibly rewarding.

I was beyond thrilled with how successful the lesson turned out to be! The students were super engaged, and I could see their excitement as they worked through the activity. The best part was once they finished, a few of them decided to create their own “fill in the blank” words on the back of their worksheets. Seeing them take that initiative and extend their learning beyond the given task showed me just how capable young learners are when given the right scaffolding and encouragement.

Reflecting on this experience, I see clear connections to the British Columbia Kindergarten curriculum, particularly in Language Arts and Applied Design, Skills, and Technologies (ADST). The literacy centre supported the foundational literacy goal of recognizing letter-sound relationships and associating them with words and images. According to the curriculum, students at this level develop phonemic awareness by identifying sounds in words and using strategies to make meaning from text. By engaging in the worksheet activity and thinking aloud, I helped students build these essential early reading skills. Similarly to my previous experience in Kindergarten, I think we were following the Big Idea of “Playing with Language helps us discover how language works”, The curricular competency could be “Use developmentally appropriate reading, listening, and viewing strategies to make meaning”, and the content could be “phonemic and phonological awareness”. 

Additionally, designing my own teaching materials aligns with the ADST curriculum, which emphasizes using digital tools to create content and solve problems. Even though I encountered challenges with Canva, the experience reinforced the importance of persistence, troubleshooting, and refining my approach to designing effective learning materials. In this instance, I was 2x the student (both in my program and my learning following the BC Curriculum!). It also highlighted the value of creating resources tailored to students’ specific learning levels and needs.Overall, this experience deepened my understanding of how young learners develop literacy skills and how modeling thinking can make a huge difference in their ability to approach problems independently. Adrienne Gear’s Powerful Thinking helped me shift my focus from just delivering content to actively demonstrating how to think through challenges—a skill that extends far beyond this single lesson. Moving forward, I want to continue exploring ways to make my teaching more intentional, ensuring that I’m not just providing answers but helping students develop the tools to find them on their own.