My name is Elise Twyford and I am very excited to be teaching Kindergarten this year. We are going to have lots of fun learning and growing in our classroom!
To tell you a bit about myself, I am a mom of two girls; Gwyneth who is four years old and starting kindergarten this year and Evelyn who will celebrate her second birthday later in September. Family is very important to me, it is my hope that we can welcome families into our classroom to support our students’ minds, bodies, hearts and spirits.
I have been teaching for 11 years. I have been at the First Nations School of Toronto for seven years with my previous teaching being at a school in Scarborough. I pride myself on teaching the whole child. This year I want to focus on further building our students’ emotional and cultural intelligences. The wellbeing of our students and classroom is very important for our readiness to learn. We will be supporting the students’ learning through their interests to help them find their happiness.
CLASSROOM
Ms. Twyford's Connected Classroom
We are a Full-Day Kindergarten program at the First Nations School in the Toronto District School Board.
We follow the Ontario Ministry of Education's curriculum for Kindergarten (2016) but look at the curriculum through an Indigenous lens. You can find the curriculum here.
Our school has a specialized mandate to infuse Indigenous ways of knowing throughout the school. Students receive Ojibwe language and culture instruction and have access to cultural teachers and Elders. Below is an example weekly plan:
TEACHER
Our school has a long history of providing Indigenous education. This documentary traces the school's early history: