The Best Laid Plans

I had organised my third prac to start today but it was not to be.  The supervising teacher took a leave of absence and I could not be placed at that school otherwise.

Never mind.

My husband had a work trip away, my car has a flat battery and uni scheduled an exam within the first week of my supposed prac so maybe these things happen for a reason...

I have a backup plan in motion and I am looking on the bright side.  At least I will have time to study for that exam now!

Trimester 3, 2013

I am half way through what will be the last summer of study for my current degree.  To say I am excited would be a slight understatement; the end is in sight and I am happy about that.  I am doing three units over the Christmas period and in between the end of school year rush, my finishing work, holidays, family and practicums three units is enough!

The units I am currently doing are:

EDAE224 Creative Arts Curriculum 2

EDSE213 Science and Technology

EDPE346 PDHPE - Health

After I finish this trimester I only have 6 units to go for my education degree and 3 units to go for the post graduate Theology certificate.  To borrow a phrase from Santa, I have made a list and checked it twice and all is looking well for 2014.  Merry Christmas indeed!

PREX902

I have just finished my second practicum placement, or PREX902, and it was a wonderful experience for me.  The school I went to had 30 students and two teachers.  My supervisor was the Principal and my class was 17 students in years 3 to 6 so was a multi-stage class.

I loved this small regional public school as it was VERY similar to the primary school I attended as a child.  It was very interesting for me to experience a school like this from the inside and compare the experience to the memories I had as a student some years ago.

Technology did not feature in the class room at all.  I was prepared for this as when I visited initially to have my paperwork signed I saw the layout of the classroom and made the decision to practice my handwriting before I started!  The layout of the tables suggested to me that the students did not do much work in pairs or groups and this was the case.  I tried to implement as much small group work as I could for the collaborative learning opportunities and as you can imagine this was pure chaos at first! 

I did learn a lot in this class.  My handwriting is much improved and I discovered that mulit-stage classrooms are not that different to any other class in terms of having to teach to differing levels of ability and it was not as bigger issue as I feared it may be.  I was also worried that there would be less teaching time due to the end of year rush but this was not the case.  Assessments were largely done before I started and I was given free reign with science (electricity) and HSIE (gold) and sport (tennis) and team taught maths.  I also took on some grammar first aid which was needed for some students.

My final report was wonderful and I am almost embarrassed by how well it reads but I have worked hard both on prac and with my studies so I am proud of myself for my efforts too.

edit: I have since received a letter from the UNE prac office to congratulate me on my prac report which was a nice surprise in the mail. 

The school has asked me back to do my next prac in the adjoining K-2 (Early Stage 1 and Stage 1) class next year which will be nice as I will be familiar with most of the students and the school routine so I will be able to jump right in with enthusiasm.  

Trimester and Semester 2, 2013

This year is just flying by.  It is already half way through Trimester 2 and I realised I had not posted a unit update yet.  This trimester will see me finish the last of my elective Key Learning Areas (KLA's) as I am doing my fourth HSIE unit and my second English unit. I have enjoyed the electives a lot and am sorry to only have core units left, even if it is nice to tick more things off the list.

ENCO310 - Picture books and Fantasy

HIST151 - Modern Australia

EDLT217 - Planning and Assessment for Learning

EDLT320 - Differentation for Talent Development

In other slightly exciting news I was accepted into the University of Newcastle to study Post Graduate Theology through the Broken Bay Institute concurrently with my UNE education undergrad degree.   I am only studying one unit at a time which should see me graduate both degrees at the same time at the end of next year.  Things are busy, but manageable.

THEO6002 - Origins and Development of the Early Church

This unit covers the period of time before HIST111 - Medieval Europe; as such I am really enjoying studying this period in greater detail.

Trimester 1, 2013

Trimester 1 at UNE started at the end of February so I am a little behind with this post.  In addition to having started casual work this year I am still studying full time.  This has had its challenges but so far I am happy with the way things are coming together.

I am studying:
HIST150 - Colonial Australia
EDSS324 - Teaching HSIE/SOSE
EDPE247 -Teaching PE in Primary PDHPE
EDME258 - Maths: Space, measurement and number

My favorite unit so far is PE.  This may have something to do with having just been away for the intensive school which was a lot of fun but also because I value the role of physical education both in schools and homes.  I have also been enjoying the History unit.  I am more of an ancient/medieval history fan so there have been large gaps in my knowledge that are slowly filling in with this unit.

Intensive School

These school holidays have been a little bit different in our house.  I packed up the car and drove to Armidale for the EDPE247 intensive school at UNE.  I had been looking forward to this for so long!

The New England district in New South Wales is so beautiful in autumn; such a wonderful time of year to visit and the weather was glorious while we were there.  I loved seeing the autumn colour.

Booloominbah is such a wonderful building.  I had afternoon tea here one day and spent a bit of time wandering around the gardens.  This is the lawn where they hold the graduation ceremony so I am looking forward to the day I stand here in a more official capacity.

During the week we participated in creative arts and music, dance, games, gymnastics and also did a coaching workshop for Soccer.  I enjoyed it all so much and have decided to further my soccer skills through an FFA training course.

Our group was amazing.  We had known each other online through our studies but for many of us this was the first time we had met in person.  We had such a great time and I know many of this crowd will be long term friends as we finish our studies and start our teaching careers.

The day the intensive school ended they had a trivia night at the uni bar.  To mark the occasion I went for a quiet drink and had some fun.  It was a nice way to wrap the official work even though I did stay on campus an extra two days to get some more work done.

Term 1 of School Starts as Trimester 3 of Uni Ends

During the Trimester break I called in on campus to pick up text books for the next lot of enrolled units.  I took both children with me.  We ran into Blake from Student Support and he gave them both Chuppa Chups and stress balls (and stress brains).  The combination of a water fountain to splash in and free Chuppa Chups has both small children planning to head off to university without delay as obviously it is a lot of fun.

I have settled in to work well and am enjoying it a lot.  It is fun to have my own area and I like working working with a diverse range of children in both ages and abilities.  It can be hard to keep the larger group on track at times and still have fun but luckily I had some of these same children while I was on practicum at this school last year so I picked up some behavior management strategies that I know they respond too.

iPad

Guess what I got for Christmas this year?  Ok, the photos and title give it away so I think it is safe to presume I got an iPad.  I have been wanting one for awhile so I combined this years birthday and Christmas into one good present.

While I was on Practicum I made a note of a lot of apps that they used in the classroom.  I saved some to my wishlist in iTunes and downloaded a few when I got to the end of the month with data still on my internet plan.  I am such a planner when it comes to some things.  By the time I synced this iPad for the first time I had apps ready to go both for my study and teaching.

I took advantage of the Apple sale and bought an iPad and apple branded case together.  Because I am SUPER dorky I decided to use the free engraving option and I got the University of New England's' motto laser engraved on both the iPad and iPad case too.

I got an iPad 4 with Retina display with the WiFi and 32GB option.  I possibly should have gone bigger but I still have a lot of available space so think this one will be suit my needs for some time to come.

I will have to review some apps over the summer as I have found some really great ones that I think are a 'must have' item now.

About Face...

...Awhile ago I mentioned that I had transferred into BEDK12 so that I could be a qualified primary AND secondary teacher.   A lot has happened since then but the upshot of it is that I have elected to continue with BEDPRM and focus on primary.

When UNE sent a lovely person to visit me while I was on prac they expressed some doubts on the wisdom of spending the same amount of time studying to get a watered down version of two degrees.  The thought was I would be a better primary teacher if that is what I studied alone.

Another issue was that as much as I really wanted the extra English and History units offered in the new degree I was losing 7 units and adding up to a year of study.  This adds up, not only in extra units but also in extra time before I can be working.

Then the school I did my prac at offered me 6 months work next year.  I am really excited about this.  The course rules for the new degree would make taking this job very hard as pracs are built into units with very set times to complete them.  As it is now I have a large degree of freedom under the old BEDPRM rules to organise my pracs independently to suit work/study and family obligations.

So there you have it.  I am right back where I started but I am happy about that.

p.s. I bought some new text books from Amazon.  I love mail packages like this!

Trimester 3, 2012

 

The last week of my prac was also the first week for Trimester 3.  I was behind before I started but now, towards the end of week 3 I am caught up, mostly.

 

This trimester I am doing four units.  I decided to do as many units as I could given I lost some units when I changed degrees.  I am still determined to make up the lost time and complete my degree in four years or less.  I don't know if I will manage that, but I can hope!

 

My units are:

EDSP400 Inclusive and Special Education

EDUC403 Teaching for Cultural Diversity - NESB Students

ENGL101 Engaging with Literature

HIST111 Medieval History

 

The last two units are part of my major/minor units for secondary education.  So much reading, but so much fun.  Because the trimester has started I thought I would also take a photo of the business end of the texts, lots of notes, colour coded too.  I do enjoy this part of things!

Goodbye Prac

I feel so blessed to have had such a wonderful experience on my first prac.  This small school welcomed me from the first day and made me feel like I belonged here.  The students in the whole school, not just the class I taught made this experience wonderful for me.

 

 

I have learnt so much during the last 20 days, my confidence has grown as has my ability to manage a classroom and teach children.  I will always remember this class and all they taught me.  Thank you.

 

Postcard Art

 

For my last art lesson in the class I wanted to pick something quick, clean and fun.  I wanted to see the results that afternoon so I did not have to leave my ST with a lesson to finish after I had left.

 

I chose to do some postcard art.  I cut out pictures from magazines found in the storage room and let the children expand upon the various scenes using crayons.

 

They loved it!

Elmer - Art

In H.S.I.E we are doing a unit of work on 'who am I?' where we explore our differences and similarities that make us what we are.  I thought reading the book Elmer would be a good tie in and we made our own 'Elmer' parade for art.  The kids had a lot of fun with the paper, scissors and glue.  I put them all up for display in the hallway at the door of our classroom.  The idea came from Mrs Brown's Art.

World Teachers' Day

 

Friday the 26th of October is World Teachers' Day.  I was lucky enough to get a certifiacte and block of chocolate along with every other teacher at my school; I am grateful that I was included given I am not yet fully qualified but I was told that student teachers are just as important.

Water Cycle - Terrarium

To further our earlier lesson on The Water Cycle we again listened to the previously linked song via YouTube.  Then I loaded this interactive game of the white board and we all took turns to answer some of the questions as a whole class activity.

As a different way of viewing The Water Cycle in our classroom I decided to build a terrarium.  I had bought some plants at the school fete held the weekend before and I already had the rest of the equipment at home so there was little outlay. 

The kids LOVED this.  I let them all help put some rocks in the bottom so they had some ownership of this.  It now sits on the windowsill in their classroom and it attracts a group of students here and there as they look to see it working.  I love this, a lesson that stays with them throughout the week.

Water cycle

My year 1 and 2 class are studying water in science. We have been on a water walk around the school to identify where water is being used and how and we have assessed water using the 5 senses. In our latest lesson we looked at the water cycle.

I started by playing the this clip found on YouTube.  In linking the video here it has added the whole playlist, I did NOT play the whole list, just the first clip that ran for 3:16.

The children all really enjoyed this clip and it had the added benefit of allowing the students who are lower level readers to hear terms such as 'precipitation' and understand it. We filled in a blank worksheet which had a water cycle diagram. I asked the students on spelling list one and two to write 'rain' instead of precipitation and 'cloud' instead of condensation so it was suited to all levels in this class. The other students on higher spelling lists wrote the bigger words.

It was a big lesson for them as after we did this we went outside with my watering can which I used to simulate rain and we investigated and compared the effects of rain on different surfaces; sand, dirt and cement. It was fun. I only had one watering can so I told the class I was looking for my best listener at each point to help be the 'rain'. Worked well :)

Crayon Resist Art

For our last art lesson I did crayon resist art.  I knew my year 1/2 class had done that before so it would not take a lot of explaining in regards to technique.  Because in science we are studying water I set them the task of creating an underwater scene.

I found an example of this at Mrs. Browns Art:

picture

To challenge them I spoke about perspective and how drawing something in a different size can make it look further away.  I stood up in front of the class and showed them how tall I was, then I walked to the other end of the class and they all said 'you look smaller!'.  They had fun with that concept and I loved some of the pictures they drew.

 

RS 2012

Handwriting

I find it hard to write neatly on the blackboard.  I can't even show a picture of my writing on the Interactive White Board (IWB) until I practice more.

At the end of each week after the spelling test we make up a passage using spelling words from the four lists for that week.  Each student then writes this passage and illustrates it as part of their weekly handwriting task.  It is nice to have a task that includes all the students' together even though they have differing spelling lists and abilities.

List 1: wish, us.

List 2: near, each.

List 3: quietly

List 4: cicada.

I love the old blackboard still in this year 1/2 classroom.  It reminds me of my days at school and I am glad that even though there are now Interactive White Boards (IWB) in every classroom that some of the old things still remain.

Adjectives

I taught a lesson on adjectives to my Stage 1 class last week.  I started by describing what an adjective was and then I played them this Schoolhouse Rock clip called unpack your adjectives.

 

 

They loved it!

We had been looking at books written by Lynley Dodd so I based my worksheet on the book Hairy Maclary.  I put a picture of each dog on it and asked the students to 'unpack' their adjectives and describe each dog.  Because there was a few Hairy Maclary posters in one corner of the classroom I asked the lower reading group to sit in that corner so they could refer to the posters for help with spelling and ideas.

 

It was a fun lesson and to finish up I played another clip on the IWB that is full of adjectives, The Wonky Donkey.  This was a great way to finish as I know they are singing The Wonkey Donkey in music so they loved seeing the video.  I hope they think of adjectives everytime they are singing that song from now on.

 



Numeracy Warm Up

picture

 

Race to 100: The students worked in pairs and took turns to roll two dice, they had to add the total from their roll and then use the base ten blocks to record their score.  Each player had to add and trade up as their score got bigger with each roll of the dice. 

It can be a race to 50, or 100.  If addition and trading up is going well you can direct the class to start subtracting so that they have to trade down as well.  A simple activity that can be fun while students use mental strategies to trade while showing an understanding of place value.

Less than or Greater than: Still in pairs, students roll the dice and write down the number rolled in the thousands column of their laminated sheets, they roll again for hundreds, tens and ones.  They either model this number in MAB blocks or write it using a whiteboard marker.  Get them to read the number out loud to their partner and then work out whose number is greater than and whose number is less than their partners number.