When it's raining or too hot to play safely outside at recess times we always have a routine for spending our playtimes inside together with a little chaos as possible. I try to give the kids as many diferent types of options as possible to cater for kids' differing needs for a playtime inside - group, partner and individual options; physical, creative and intellectual 0ptions; passive and active options. With this one, I made thesoptions as cards to allow more flexibility. Sometimes it wasn't possible to have all options running. Luckily we had access to a carpeted corridor outside the classroom so the kids could play downball and skip and build with planks. I could move options in and out of circulation as the day's circumstances needed.
Link to Hot n Wet Day Inside Options Nice spelling activities to use at the beginning of the year before the real spelling lessons happen. Easy to pull out kids for assessement while these activities are happening. Same activities could be used for kids' favourite singers, actors, footy players etc. Link to slide: Playing with Our Names
Blockposter is a great site for uploading images so that you can make large posters. There's lots of options and it's very easy to use. There's no sign ups and it's free unless you want the more detailed options. It renders a PDF in your choice of size that you can download and print, putting it together like a jigsaw. You can get even more variation by printing in either A4 or A3. I printed and laminated a big world map that we've used in our classroom for years and having a visual reference for places in the world that's so easy to access has been a boon! It's also been great for those large spaces in classrooms or corridors that need big impact. Just a quick note on maps. I always use the ones that most accurately portray the size of countries in relation to each other. Quick tip: If Greenland looks as big as Africa, find a better map! Example of a blockposter PDF Blockposter too hard too easy 3
Celebrate the beginning of the footy seaon with a wordfind. AFL Wordsearch doc
I use https://puzzlemaker.discoveryeducation.com/word-search to make word finds. Easy to use. Works best when the students work as a class to develop a list of what real and fake reading look like. When complete, it can be a useful chart to have on display so when students aren't focussed at reading time, it can be used to redirect them back to 'real' reading.
Link for slide show: Real and Fake Reading These 2 Reject Shop (or maybe KMart - I can't remember!) shelves have been with me for years and been used for anything and everything. I liked this idea...
For those making slide shows that contains all the learning in a day or a week, these title slides may be a time saver for you. There are 46 that can be copied and pasted into your own.
Link to Google slide: Daily Slide Show Title Slides w Sayings I found the easiest way to deal with all the notes, forms, assessments and paperwork that landed on my table was a vertical file. Having categories to slide sheets into prevented the dreaded stack of paperwork growing to mountainous proportions until it eventually toppled - especially when you were looking for something!
Apologies for my obvious OCD in the photo! And I didn't really use the alphabetized names of all the students so I wouldn't bother with the pink part again. Handy list for kids to make of the books they'd like to read. Helps a teacher learn their students' likes and dislikes and to source the books. The bookshelf pictures can be used as a record of what books students have finished. You could even use a colour coding system for recording what students thought of books and whether books were finished or abandoned. Kids can take great pride in filling in their bookshelves. Books to Read link to download (word doc)
If your school isn't using Matific for maths (Australia and New Zealand), you are missing out! It is brilliant and helps teachers in so many ways. Matific gives you lots of options for setting up classes and groups within classes and setting appropriate work. We don't use it everyday but it is always an option for any spare time in maths lessons and 'Matific Friday' has become a regular session.
The kids can access it from home as well so when parents ask what they can do extra at home or what work the kids can do if they're going on holiday, Matific is always a great g0-to option. The activities are 'game-like' but the maths is real and really make the kids (and me too!) think. My co-teacher Matt was showing me that while the kids are working, he can check on their progress in real time and even see which kids are inactive - no room for slackers with that tool! Each year they have a 'Matific Games' week.I think they call it an Olypmpiad now where schools can compete. Our kids get right into it and I open my classroom at playtime and lunchtime each day for the week so any kids in the school that want to do extra can. For each day, my room is chockas with kids and we check the live leaderboards religiously! This one's called 'Two Stars and a Wish'. Works as a good reminder of what should be checked in a piece of writing before kids come to you saying they're finished! Works best if you come up with the categories as a class.
I've always loved doing classrooms for Christmas. It's the most tiring part of the year, everyone's exhausted and it's a lot of effort for a couple of weeks before you have to pack it all up again, but somehow it is always worth it. The kids come in on the Monday after I've spent the weekend setting it all up and they are just overjoyed and it gives us all that little bit of extra spark to get through to the finishing line. I like to make the classroom just as functional as usual but with a Christmas theme; Christmas books to read, Christmas writing ideas (including KK / Secret Santa cards and letters) Christmas poetry for reading and for handwriting. resources for spelling Christmas words, nativity art to used as provocations in RE and plenty of craft ideas that inspire collaborative and creative work. Our technology inquiry unit culminated in the kids designing and producing packaging for their KK gifts.
Books I cleaned off the bookshelves and gave to the school - also known as - the reason why it took me 23 years to save for a new car... (aaand my bookshelves at home are still full!)
Thursday after school, I was visited by a set of parents with a gift for me. Just a token of their appreciation, they said. I hope they know how much that meant. Then 5 minutes later one of the Dads came in saying thanks for supporting their son in making his First Eucharist. He made a point of showing his family's appreciation of the teachers coming to the mass Saturday night and being there for the kids. I went home that night feeling great, supported in my work and appreciated. I get a lot of intrinsic satisfaction from my job, and the kids always give you plenty of extrinsic. It's really great to know the parents think I'm doing an alright job too. I guess everybody needs feedback....
Over 25+ years of teaching, you come to a lot of realizations in education. The knowledge that educational fads come in cycles, the understanding no matter how much you do, there’s always more to do, the painful truth that you can’t ‘make’ a child learn. The one that comes first and pretty fast is how EVERYTHING revolves around the kids in front of you. They’re your number one priority. What you don’t realize straight away is how much you have to fight for that to remain your priority.
I don’t think it’s sinister or anything but often ‘education’ works against teachers putting their kids first. How many of us have come out of a ‘data unpacking’ meeting utterly deflated and ready to compromise all and everything we believe about teaching just so our wretched bar graphs and ratings look better? (And it never works!) How many of us have come back from an exciting professional development day ready to take on a new program that’s been presented to us as the magical ‘IT”? We jump in and get so wound up, that we forget the basics. Time to fit in this wonderful new program has eaten into everything good we were already doing and though we try to keep it all, that never works either and before you know it, it’s weeks before you’ve sat in front of your kids and read them a story. The CLaSS (Children’s Literacy Success Strategy) program of the late ‘90s, early ‘00s was a prime example and probably the worst example because it was mandated – if you were a CLaSS school you did CLaSS and you did it to the letter. When CLaSS came in, it was two hours of prescribed literacy activities and NOTHING else. The formula was set and thou shalt not deviate. Every minute was scheduled, accounted for and 10 minute timers became a ‘thing’. The day was to start with a whole class focus and woe betides the class that ‘wasted’ time with a class gathering, sang happy birthday, welcomed a visitor or shared news. Most good teachers did what they ought to – paid lip service to the program, used its benefits (and it did have benefits, but it was just sooo disempowering) and sneakily went on doing the things they knew were good for the kids in front of them. And ‘sneakily’ is the key word here. How wrong is it that teachers have to ‘sneak’ good teaching into their programs? I’ve always seen it as a flaw in my teaching that I was never able to do all the programs that were expected of me, as they were expected of me. I always had to adapt, to make them my own, and to secretly feel bad when we talked as a staff about what we’re doing, ‘cause I was never doing it the way the purists did. Now in my old age(!) I realize what I always thought of as a weakness is indeed a strength. I’m a wholistic teacher. I see the whole child, the whole class. I’m all about balance in the classroom and if that means certain ‘things’ get compromised I am absolutely fine with that. At the ripe old age of 50 I’m going to celebrate my sneaky rebellion and say the purists have it wrong – they’re out of balance. No I don’t teach maths exactly the way the school mandates. I’m still going to include number fact drill and basic knowledge in with all these ‘investigations’. No I don’t use the Literacy Pro program exactly as it’s meant to be used, but my word, the kids are enjoying the way we use it, are chewing up books like wildfire. No I am not going to jump into focussed reading groups before I am ready and before I’ve set up proper procedures in the classroom so that the kids will continue to work while I am taking small groups. Yes I am going to continue to take the kids out first thing for a game, a run. I’m going to keep inviting them to bring their pets in to show us, to play guitar for us, dance for us, even though we probably should’ve begun Literacy earlier than this! I’m going to spend 3 days of my holidays fighting with this ‘Word Journeys’ book (that the school’s decided we should be using) to make it mine, to make the program work in my classroom with my kids. No my assessment procedures are not perfect and neither is my collection of data. But I never have trouble knowing what each kid needs to learn next; I can always tell each one what they’re doing right and where to next. I never have a problem informing parents where their child is at. And yes, yes, yes, I’m going to remember to read to these kids every day, even though it’s often the first thing that goes when time gets tight. We all have to make our way each day. To get to the end – usually exhausted – but with a sense of satisfaction and purpose. That not only may kids in my grade have learnt a thing or two, they enjoyed being here. They felt themselves valued and they felt part of a group that values learning, sees both failure and success as a means to make the most of that learning, and values relationships where they both give and receive. Thanks to all the New Zealanders who've visited the site over the last two days. I've watched the stats counter go up and up with disbelief! Appreciate those who sent a message via the survey form. Hope you all find a little something useful!
Heaven is .... meeting your hero and finding out he's as wonderful as you imagined. Thanks Kym Lardner for a brilliant day.
We have a great art teacher who only words a few hours a week, but wow, she does some great stuff. Had to show some photos
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Marg: TeacherTime to Re-ignite the Site!! Archives
March 2024
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