No such luck

No rest day for me today... at 6.45am a text came through asking if I could work today... I debated it, and then while I was making my daughter's lunch, found enough for me to have for lunch too, so said OK.

It was back to Nursery - big jump again from Year 6, right back down to the little kids.

Played all morning with letters, threading games and reading stories.  Took them out for a half hour play on the Pirate Ship, and then Mandarin.  More of the same after rest time this afternoon.

Good day in all!!  Please let me have my rest day tomorrow!!

Eleven Days

I have worked 11 out of the last 12 working days!!  Have easily surpassed my one day a week for the term goal!!  And have 2 days lined up for Nursery in December.
Tomorrow I am booked in for a facial and a bit of me time!!

Year 6

And after 6 days in Reception, I jumped up to the Junior School (different campus) all the way to Year 6, where I stepped in for 5 days to cover a new Daddy!!  One week of paternity leave to welcome that new bundle of joy into the world....

What did I do with my Year 6s...

English –

We spent 3 lessons writing a newspaper article on the skipathon which was held on my first day to raise money for the school's sponsored Panda. Although I outlined the structure and the five Ws a number of times, there are still some quite light on in content.  We have not printed these out, and some students probably still need a bit of time to finish this off.  Provided a rubric to measure success of article, but not sure that it was really met. 

Using an article from their text book, the children rewrote it from a different perspective. This was quite a challenge as they needed to determine what was important from the original article, and what might have been speculation.

They also sat their long writing assessment but luckily I was advised not to mark this, and leave it for the usual teacher.

Maths –

Introduced percentages and talked about reducing prices by a discount and working out what an original price was when we knew the discounted price.  This was a bit confusing for the class initially, but they grasped it, and worked it out.  Sales tax was confusing for them, I guess because they are not exposed to a GST or a VAT on a daily basis.  They used Maths +7 text book, and they did some problems in their workbooks.  Marked classwork from yesterday and today.  I had a bit of fun reminding myself how to use the Smartboard software - and created some slides for this.

Last week, we had the computers booked one day, so they wrote their own word problems. 

ICT –

The kids designed posters promoting safety and stranger danger. 

PSHE –

Remembrance Day on Friday – read poem Wearing a Poppy.  Considered what the poppy means to the class, and wrote 1-2 sentences.  Decorated the page in their books.

Topic –

Had the laptops booked, and researched 20^th Century inventions.  Used a prompt sheet to list 3 inventions, and then pick one of those as being most important, and then list 5 reasons why.  

Science –

Finished off cover pages in their workbooks and did KWL and vocab. Discussed circuits. Gave them a glossary sheet (one of mine from last year).  Long discussion about circuits, and switches and lights. 

Worked through the BBC Bitesize website, solved the circuits game with a few attempts, and could explain why, etc.

Great week - enjoyed being back with kids who know how to line up, be quiet, have a sensible conversation, can sit up and can organise themselves for a while!!

Reception

Halloween week, it was back to Barn Owls for me...

We read most of the Winnie the Witch books (fabulously illustrated by Korky Paul) and made spooky craft with a tonne of glitter:

• Spiders with 8 legs (lots of practising counting to 8, counting 2 groups of 4). 
• Witches hats
• Wands
• Pumpkin masks - except that cutting out wasn't one of the kids strengths, so we ended up with a few carrots instead!

We also focussed on the sounds: s m c a t o g p, and played a wonderful game called 'Caterpillar Jump', where the children jump up and down the caterpillar body depending on which sound has been called out.  Fantastic because can be also played where one child calls out the sounds, and another jumps, and also with help from the teacher.

I listened to all the children read, and changed their readers, and introduced the CVC books to them.  This means Consonant Vowel Consonant and is a book with pictures unrelated to the 3 letter words from these sounds. For example map, sat, top.

We did a writing exercise, which for a lot of the children is still just practising mark making, and so includes drawing, and copying words. 

4 out of 5...

Last week I was out to dinner with some friends and I indicated that as far as supply work goes, I was hoping to have 9 days of work between the start of this term and the Christmas holidays which start on 9th December... that is, 1 day a week between now and then. And then this week I had 4 days, I would have had 5 as well, if I hadn't been committed to something else on Tuesday!  So I think I'm going to absolutely romp it in for the next few weeks!!

So I had Monday in Reception Barn Owls, Wednesday in Reception Robins, Thursday morning in Year 1, Thursday afternoon back in  Reception Robins and Friday in Year 1 all day, and Reception Flamingoes when my Year 1 class were in specialist classes.

I am enjoying working with this age group, and observing them as they learn to read and write, I think especially because of my own daughter, and I know now where she's up to, and what she could be capable of!

Back to my old school

I was asked to cover at the school that helped me get my teaching career off the ground... where I did all my pracs, and where I taught Year 6 for 4 months at the end of the last academic year.

I taught in Year 3, and saw loads of kids due to the streaming / setting policy that sees classes mixed up for numeracy and literacy, as well as having a regular homeroom group.  It was lovely going back, and seeing my teacher friends, but the real highlight was the number of my now Year 7s who came to see me and tell me how they had settled into secondary school!

And two days in Nursery...

My first week as a supply teacher was quite a lot of work... after a day of recovery on Wednesday after my big day in Reception, I was called in the evening asking me for the following days, in Nursery.  After discussing with the Deputy Headteacher that I'm technically not trained in Early Years, agreed that I was prepared to give it a go... and because of some long standing plans went out for dinner, coincidentally with some teachers from the school.

The Librarian who had invited me to go along said to the other teachers, that she'd invited me along because she knew that over time I'd be part of staff anyway... but funny enough, and quite reassuringly actually, two of the four Nursery teachers were there, and when I said that I was going to be at school again tomorrow in Nursery it prompted a lot of speculation about which teacher was missing (which I didn't know).

Arriving at school on Thursday morning, found out which class I had, and also was lucky enough to have support from a Mandarin co-teacher that I knew, as she had been my daughter's Mandarin teacher two years earlier.  She was so capable with the routines, and because of the young age of the children helped so much with reassuring them that everything was fine, even with this strange new teacher - me.

The absent teacher had left a nice activity for the children to do, and it is quite well managed as the children have the flexibility to choose when they do it, and then can do other activities around the classroom.  There are trainsets and dollhouses, a home corner, blocks, a book nook and puzzles to choose from.  The children can just help themselves to find whichever toy they would like to use, and the children see what other children are playing with and then float between the different activities.

The activity we did on Thursday was gluing the penguin (we were the Penguin class) lifecycle on a piece of card.  The children had to take an egg, a chick and an adult and put them in order.  But they could almost go anywhere, and you could work the order out!

Moving the children around the school was tricky, keeping them walking together, and in the same direction, and quiet. Over the two days they had choir and library, both of them are upstairs, and that was a challenge.  Library was tricky too because they have to take their shoes off... But lots of time is spent shepherding them around, in and out of the playground, in and out of the lunch hall, don't forget your hat...

On Friday, the teacher had left no planning, so I did a collage activity to make a flower, and then had them draw a flower on a similar size page, then stuck them side by side on a piece of card.  The end result was lovely, ability levels varied significantly, but they did look really good!!

After lunch each day, the Nursery children have an hour of scheduled quiet time.  While the children are in the playground, the class ayi lies out mats, each with a pillow and a blanket, closes the curtains and turns off the main lights.  The children come in from the playground, wash their hands, take off their shoes, have a drink of water and then lie down on the mats, and listen to some soothing music.  Some children fall asleep straight away, and others take a bit of persuasion, but on the two days, 14 out of 15 children slept soundly for at least 30 mins. Once asleep they looked just beautiful, with such an innocence, losing all self consciousness, they slept so contentedly.  As each one finally dropped off, we tucked their blankets around them and let them rest.

Waking up was gentle too, opening the curtains and letting just the sunlight slowly filter in. They then played or had a snack and then it was time for the last clean up of the day and a story before they were picked up.

I was initially terrified of the thought of teaching Nursery, but they were sweet kids, I'd do it again!

Supply Teaching

At 6.45 this morning I was lying in bed preparing my kids about getting up and getting ready for school, when my mobile rang, with a local, but unrecognised number... I answered somewhat suspiciously after all who would call me at that time?  Oh - welcome to the life of a supply teacher!  It was the Headteacher at my kids school, wanting me to teach a Reception class for the day.  After confirming it was not my daughter's class I didn't hesitate, and accepted straight away - I didn't ask any questions - what time? what responsibilities? etc.  Just immediately sprang into action, showered, dressed, made lunches, packed bags, collected stuff that I might need, downloaded age appropriate music to my iPod (OK - my husband did that!), breakfasted, dressed the kids, loaded the buggy and set off, by 7.45am.  On the way, I texted a collection of people to rearrange plans for the day.

Got to school, and dropped off my son's stuff in his classroom, but kept him with me, then my daughter's stuff in her classroom and dropped her off in the playground.  Then five minutes before the bell rang, dropped my son off in his classroom and went to collect Reception Barn Owls.

'Who are you?', 'Where's Miss A?', 'Why?' and took them inside and asked them to sit in a circle on the floor.  I introduced myself and then played a circle game to learn all the kids names.  Four had been in my daughter's class last year, and one is the son of a friend of mine, so there were only ten to learn. One had lost a tooth, so he was easy to remember.

The teacher had left a great plan, which was really easy to follow.  Started off with some sounds for the letters, S, M, A and T.  The kids, who are 4-5 years old, came up with some great words. In small groups we went on a Sound Walk, listening carefully to the sounds we could hear around the school - the bubbles gurgling in the fish tank, the bell like sound when you stamped on the drain, the hum of the air conditioner, a car driving by going 'vrooom', children talking and walking and crickets screeching.  The children drew some pictures to describe what they heard, but it was a bit tricky as they were using clipboards and sometimes standing up.

I had to teach PE, and in my emergency teaching kit, I had my iPod and some speakers... we played musical statues and Simon Says, and then played with a parachute and some balls.  The kids shrieked with delight when they could run under the parachute and hold each handle.

At break and lunch, each time my daughter saw me, she sneaked up and gave me a cuddle, or took my hand.  I think it was quite novel for her to have me around all day!

At the end of the day, they had a fruit snack and then after packing their bags ready to go home. I read them 'The Gruffalo'.  I love this story, and can think of so many learning activities to build on from this book.  Today it was just the end of the day story though.

After all the kids had gone, my daughter was delivered to my classroom by her Mandarin teacher.  And we went home together, after our day in Reception.

I came home, exhausted.  Had dinner home delivered...

School's out!

I made it through five months of full time teaching to be ready to enjoy the long summer stretching ahead! I started immediately after the Chinese New Year holiday with my internship as my last practical hurdle for my Grad Dip, and rolled straight into the maternity cover position (in the same class) towards the end of March.

During this time, I have developed my own behaviour management techniques, practised planning individual lessons and units, delivered some real winners in class, and had some lessons fall flat on their face.  I have put it all down to learning for me!

I don't have a permanent job, or my own class after summer, but I will continue to offer my services as a supply teacher both at my school and at my husband and kids' school. I hope that in the next 12 months I am lucky enough to get a broad range of experience across different year levels and teaching different subjects.

I think this will be a good career choice in the end, just need my own kids to get a bit older so that I can go to school every day too!  Not that I want to rush them growing up!!

Now to enjoy that summer holiday...

Apple Tree

The teacher I'm replacing had a Star of the Week award, which I never quite knew how to do, so I turned it around to the class to take responsibility for it.

Star of the Week from the Apple Tree

This tree, made from cut out hands of all the class, has had a couple of reincarnations since it started as the classroom Christmas tree.  It became the Chinese New Year wishing tree, and then was incorporated into an Earth Hour display, and now, in passing the responsibility of Star of the Week to the class, has now become our Star of the Week tree.

Next to the tree there is a plastic pocket full of apple cut outs. Class members write the name of another classmate on the coloured part of the apple, and then on the flipside write why that person has been nominated, then hang it on the appropriate branch.  This example is one of mine. 
At the end of the week I pick all the apples off the tree and work out who has the most nominations, or the 'best' nomination and then announce the "Star of the Week"!

The Perils of Googling

Today, one of my sweetest kids, a nice polite boy, who always looks like his legs are too long for his trousers, and also one of my shyest (most shy?) was finally up to do his book review in front of the class.  He is in my Literacy class, out of EAL at the beginning of the year and unfortunately for him, he was straight up after one of my most literate and confident kids.

He did a review on a book called Franny K. Stein: Mad Scientist - about a girl inventor, and his plot synopsis, character development and thoughts on the book were well structured and although he read it rather than talked it, he maintained an air of composure and bravery all the way through his presentation.

Then, suddenly I was knocked for six - he launched into a discussion about the author, and instead of talking about Jim Benton, he gave a full biography of J.D. Salinger, or in the way of a typical Year 6, Jerome David Salinger. I couldn't mask my surprise when he said that J.D. Salinger was the author, and we examined the cover of the book, only to see the name Jim Benton, one of the other kids in the class suggested he'd used a pen name to write Franny K. Stein. So I stifled a giggle and let it slide.

On my way home I was thinking through how he would have mixed those names up, and then it hit me... J.D. Salinger wrote Franny and Zooey. So I googled "author of Franny", and sure enough - J.D. Salinger came up as first billing on the Google results list, and poor old Jim Benton was all the way down at #5.

QCT Standard 6

Some time ago, I said that I needed to write about my first experience of being the 'teacher' at a parent teacher interview... then I got my results for for my ePortfolio, and decided that this entry about QCT Standard 6 met that criteria, and made for a good post anyway... and for the double award: I've never posted twice on one day... 


Support personal development and participation in society

---

Beliefs:

I believe in creating a reciprocal learning environment where the strengths of each student are fostered and used.  By using positive and consistent behaviour management strategies, a culture of respect between students and teachers can be maintained.  Developing caring relationships, and helping to nurture students to develop into moral citizens, who care about others and themselves is also one of the responsibilities of being a teacher (Danforth and Smith, 2005)

Situation:

One of the girls, in my Year 6 class was upset because her friends ‘were avoiding’ her, mostly during my classes where they ‘suddenly didn’t want to work with’ her. This coincided with the start of summer, and the return of 30 degree days and high humidity.  I closely watched the interactions of the class, after she confided in me, over the next few days.  I also mentioned the issue to one of her other teachers, curious to see if it was the case in all lessons.  Her teacher for numeracy and literacy, which are timetabled before morning recess every day, indicated that he hadn’t noticed any problem.

A couple of days later, after lunch the class came in, and in helping her with some work, I noticed that she had a rather strong body odour.  Almost fortuitously the next day, I overheard one of the other girls in our class commenting on it too, a bit gossipy, but I let it go then, and determined that I would need to deal with the body odour issue independently.  But I wasn’t sure how yet.

Results:

At parent teacher interviews, I was speaking with her mother, who also brought up some of the social issues experienced recently, and how she hated to see her daughter, and only child, upset.  I took a deep breath, and brought up the body odour issue, and mentioned that with the change of seasons, the possible start of puberty and the upcoming school trip to Beijing, maybe it was time to start using deodorant.  This was tonight; the relief that washed over her mother’s face when it looks like it is possibly such an easy solution to returning her daughter’s happiness was intense.  For me, it also seemed like the direction to take should come from home, when she is part of a loving and caring family, especially with relation to personal hygiene.  The final outcome?  I don’t know, but I hope it works out for her, it’s only been a short time since summer started, and she really is a lovely kid.

Relate:

In time I hope to develop further thinking skill strategies to enable the student to reflect on their behaviour and wellbeing, and how it impacts others.  I hope to be a teacher that encourages students to take ownership and responsibility for their own growth and development to move into contributing roles in society.

References:

Danforth, S. and Smith, T.J. (2005). Engaging Troubling Students: A Constructivist Approach.  California: Corwin Press

And FYI - the outcome... it worked: she had a great time in Beijing, and has come back with a big circle of friends again! Happy days! 

Well, I think I'm officially a teacher...

Today I got some good news.

Approximately three weeks ago I submitted my ePortfolio which was worth 60% of my final grade for my final subject of my Graduate Diploma of Teaching.  Today I received the result.  I got 88% - or 53/60.

Now, the pass grade for this subject is 50%... I'm sitting on 53%... so for my final assignment, which is out of 40, and is a seminar presentation and is in two weeks yesterday, and I've barely started, suddenly, I'm not so panicky...

FYI - my topic is TCKs - or Third Culture Kids... I'm not quite sure how or what I'm presenting yet though... was going to start it this coming weekend!  Hooray!

So - even though I've been responsible for a class for the last 4 months... I think this makes me a real teacher!!

What a week!!

This week has flown by with the due date of my second last assessment looming,

Monday: 
Literacy and Numeracy - SATs revision, especially for my Literacy class.
Evening - assignment

Tuesday: 
SATs Testing - Literacy, Numeracy; Science - set up an experiment involving bananas decomposing in the classroom; ICT history lesson on research - find 20 interesting facts about Africa; started marking SATs papers; Playground duty
Evening - Parent Teacher Interviews (my first on my own, and worth a post soon), assignment

Wednesday:  SATs Testing - Literacy, Numeracy and Science; Marking SATs papers
Evening - assignment

Thursday:
KS2 SPORTS DAY - stood all day in the sun, determining places in track events; Playground duty
Evening - supposed to finish off assignment, imported all text into ePortfolio system, but unfortunately fell asleep when putting son to bed and woke up in his bed too close to midnight to do any more.

Friday:
SATs Testing - Literacy and Numeracy - mental maths, lesson finished with several maths games in groups; Marking SATs papers; Assembly.
Evening - finished formatting ePortfolio and submitted.  No wine.

Now for a bit of a break this weekend... we are off to have a family portrait today by a famous (well in China) photographer - "Gang of One", a birthday party, visiting a newborn baby, catching up on home duties, and planning for it all to start again on Monday!

Full Time Teaching

Planning, preparing, searching for resources, remembering when and what to set for homework (mandated by the school for Year 6), assessments, marking, behaviour management, wall displays, one-on-one time with students, group work, playground duty, staff meetings... I'm exhausted just listing it... and on top of it all I still have to finish my assignments for my last course, before I'm a real true blue teacher and do my Mummy job to my two small babies - I'm exhausted.

So sorry teaching blog... I'll check in again in a while!  Hopefully after I finish my next assignment, but before the end of term!!

Internship is over!!

Wow, time has flown!!  Can't believe the four weeks of my last prac ever are up already!  Had a great internship overall, culminating with the class presenting their assembly on the last day.  The children did really well, prepared the whole thing, with only guidance regarding costumes and props and tightening up the script.  I ran the powerpoint presentation which provided the backdrops during the performance, so couldn't see the final show, but knew that from their buzz afterwards and the audience reaction they did it well!!

I have really enjoyed teaching numeracy, I think I was able to use a lot of what I learned during my summer numeracy subject to help.  It was amazing as well, from the constructivist approach applied in that subject how that really flows through into other subjects too.  I liked having the freedom to run through a couple of topics in numeracy, at my pace, and my way.  I recognise that I need to plan for homework a bit more.

I also took on a few classes in literacy, although this was really in conjunction with my mentor's planning, as she had already organised the sequences for what has needed to be covered until now.

During the internship, I have also had the opportunity to experiment with a few things on the school moodle site, although I wasn't able to do much besides add things like spelling words, as format was largely predetermined.

I also attended a parent teacher night, and I enjoyed meeting the parents and observing the techniques used in discussing behaviour and performance of each child. I have also reviewed reports which have been written over the last few weeks and will be sent home next week.

My mentor starts her maternity leave this week, and so I will continue with the class as teacher.  The school have given me a fantastic opportunity to get this experience, as I finish my last assignments and then get ready to start my new career as a teacher!

High Distinction

I am proud to announce that I received a HIGH DISTINCTION grade for my USQ Semester 3 course 'Foundations of Numeracy'.

This was a lot of work, the assignment work was to create a wiki on 3 segments of mathematics studies - Operations, Whole Numbers and Fractions.  And for this I got 46 out of 50.

In my whole Graduate Diploma this was the only subject I had to sit an exam for, and got 80%.  I found it a bit ironic that for the whole of this course I have been able to submit everything online from China, and the one time I needed to show my face I happened to be in Southern Queensland, admittedly not exactly where the USQ campus is, but Southern Queensland nonetheless.

I was on holidays in Australia while completing most of this subject, and on the Gold Coast for the exam.  The week the wiki was due my sister and Grandmother had come to visit me and the kids as well, so most of it was done in the late hours of the evening.  So with many other distractions this result is particularly pleasing!!   Hooray for me!!!

Last prac....

Started my last prac, or internship this week, back in the same class as for my prac in August 2010.  Truly in the downhill run now, with just the one course to complete for my Grad Dip!  

Monday was mainly observation and just getting to know the kids again, with a little bit of small group teaching in numeracy. 

Tuesday we went on an excursion to the 'Children's Technology Workshop' where the kids built bridges reinforcing what they'd done in Science recently on forces.  So nice gentle introduction back into school life. 

From Wednesday I taught numeracy, and will be teaching this every day, and Science, which although only twice a week I am responsible for the new topic 'Seeing Things'. In their Topic (History / Geography) slot at the moment the class is working on their presentation for their assembly.  Each class is responsible for one assembly a year and ours in on my last day of prac.  Being Year 6, they are expected to work quite independently on this, and ask for specific assistance with props, costumes or scripting. 

It's been nice being back in the class, and I am amazed that the kids have grown so much since the beginning of the school year back in August.

Algebraic Equations

This video is part of the resources for Foundations of Numeracy, and I think it helps make algebra clear for anyone!!

I'll definitely remember the technique for if and when I need to teach algebra and solving for X!!