The new school year can be both exciting and daunting. Students are excited to see their new class but may be nervous about opening up to new classmates. Teachers have a new opportunity to inspire the next generation, but they have lessons to plan and supplies to buy.

We wanted to help break the ice with a brand new icebreaker activity for kids and a fun contest for teachers to win prizes. Keep reading to learn more and get cracking on this year’s lesson planning!

Breaking ground with our new icebreaker activity

We’ve launched a new Grade 3-7 activity called Design and power a community icebreaker. The icebreaker gives students a chance to share more about themselves while also problem-solving with energy and sustainability.

In the activity, students will work in small groups to design their own communities representing their personality as a piece of land. This could include their favorite things and places, as well as the elements of a community that are most valuable to them. While sharing with the class, students will also be tasked with figuring out the power usage of their community and decide what power source to connect it to.

The icebreaker is a perfect way to unleash your students’ creativity and open up their expression with a new class, while also setting the tone for a year of thoughtful discussions and teamwork. There are multiple options of complexity to help fit with your class’s needs, so make sure to add this to your list for the new school year!

List & Learn Contest for teachers

This year’s Back to School contest is a chance to do some creative lesson planning and share inspirations for a chance to win prizes.

In case you haven’t tried it yet, you can build lists of favourite activities right in the Power Smart for Schools website. To enter the contest, you’ll submit a screenshot and a description of your latest list for everyone to see and take inspiration from. We encourage everyone to share their thoughts behind the list they’ve chosen, including how it connects with the curriculum for your newest class.

To help buy all the supplies needed for your new list, you’ll have a chance to win a Michaels gift card. The grand prize winner will receive a $200 Michaels gift card, and their list will become a unit on our website for other teachers to use! Several more winners will receive a $50 Michaels gift card to kickstart their lesson planning.

Contest begins August 18. See contest page for more details and official rules. We also provide tips about making a favourites list below.

Enter the contest now

Create a Favourites List

To start a new list, go to any activity or unit on the Power Smart for Schools website and press the green Save button. A pop-up will prompt you to save the activity to an existing list or create a new list to add it to. If you create a new list, type in a name and press Submit.

• See your lists

You can see all the lists you’ve created on the Dashboard page. You can navigate to your Dashboard from anywhere on the site by clicking on your name and then selecting Favourites lists from the drop-down.

• Adding and removing activities or units

To add or remove an activity or a unit from your list, go to the activity or unit page and then press the green Save button. You will have the option to press Add to list or Remove from list to add or remove it from each of your lists. Note that each list can contain both activities and units.

• Edit or delete a list

From the Dashboard, click on a list to open it up and see what activities or units you’ve added to it. Click on the icon next to the list name to rename or delete the list if necessary.

• List how you like

Lists are only seen by you, so you can build lists for any purpose! Here are some examples of why you might make a list:

• Bookmark activities and units that you’re interested in
• Build a lesson plan for the school year
• Collect activities that explore one topic or theme in-depth
• Prepare for the curriculum of each grade that you teach

New units for the new year

We’ve published several new units this year to cover critical topics like conservation and drought. Add these to your lesson plan to cover all the topics listed in the Curriculum fit—and check them all off your to-do list!

• Hydroelectricity and water use (Grade 2)
  In this unit, kids learn about how water creates our electricity in B.C., the meaning of drought, and get thinking about how to reduce their water usage.
  
  
• Women in STEM, then and now (Grade 5)
  Students will learn some amazing examples of STEM innovations created by women, then they'll study the work of Mary Jackson, and finally they'll
  
  
• Hydroelectricity and drought (Grade 9) 
  In this unit, intermediate students study drought and its impacts in B.C., and learn to build a fog net as an example of the innovative solutions we can implement to manage water.
  
  
• Women in STEM, past and present (Grades 8-10) 
  Intermediate students look at some of the amazing innovations developed by women in history, including Eunice Foote's studies of the greenhouse effect. Then investigate careers in STEM, encouraging everyone to pursue their passion for the sciences.