Scooters, teaching and etc!

This week has been busy!

On Sunday my boyfriend and I bought scooters. The area we live in has a lot of outdoor areas, so it seems silly not to have an outdoor activity. Bikes would have been too bulky to store in the apartment and I don't think that I would be that great at it. Scooters seemed like the most practical option. We went to a whole heap of stores to find a scooter that would be appropriate for an adult. We were not having much luck at first, everywhere seemed to stock the Razor scooter, which was way too small. We were about to give up, when we found The Commuter Scooter at Kmart. It's a lot bigger and sturdier than the Razor as it's made for teenagers/adults. I was a bit wobbly at first, but after a while I got the hang of it. It's so much fun and a good work out too. My arms and legs were feeling the burn after the 2hr ride. We did attempt to go riding after work during the week, but I was too tired. I think it will be a weekend/no work day activity :P

On Monday, the technician from the internet company came out to fix the connection. Turns out the people who lived here before us took a cable out of the network cupboard, so that's why it was not connecting. There was also a cable that needed to be swapped in the building's cupboard. So we were not charged a fee as it was not our fault. Win!

On Tuesday, I had a year 3 class. I was originally told that I was on a year 5, so I had come prepared for that, but then it was changed. The teacher left work so I did not have to do any last minute emergency planning. It was a good day, especially because I had a bunch of students from my 2012 class :)

On Wednesday, I had the same year 1 class as I have had previously. It's nice to come back to the same class because you learn their names and get a picture of what their abilities are. Here are some of the lessons that I did with them;

* Reading Response - I love Dr. Seuss books, my all time favourite book is "I Wish That I Had Duck Feet". If you haven't read it before, it's about a boy who wishes for various animal parts because they would benefit him, however along the way he recognises that they would also cause problems for him. In the end he just wants to be himself.

After reading the book, students had to draw a picture of themselves with an animal part that they would like to have. Once the picture was drawn they had to label it and then write about why they wished for it. Students used iPads to look at pictures of animals to help them with their drawings. In the end students shared their response with the class.

* Time - Years ago, I bought one of those educational clocks. It's been very useful for casual teaching and even in my own class. I brought that in with me and we did o'clock times. After I did several examples on the clock, I picked students to come up and make some times for the class to read. Then we played a whole class matching game, matching pictures to the correct time label. Then they worked independently on a worksheet and then we finished off with a game of bingo.

*  Comprehension, Summarising - Elmer books are always popular with students, so I brought in Elmer and Wilbur. The version I have comes with a CD reading off it, complete with sound effects. After hearing the text, students summarised the story by completing a story map. They then used the story map to help them retell the story orally.

During the day I used GoNoodle. I love this site and the kids do too. It's very useful for brain breaks between lessons and the kids love watching the character grow after completing a few activities. The Frozen song was the most popular activity. If it were up to the kids, we would have sung Frozen all day :P

On Thursday, I was on Kindergarten. The teacher left me work. It was tiring, but a good day overall.

On Friday, I was called in to cover classes while teachers went to help prepare for the big school celebration. I ended up on Kindy for 2 hours and then spent the rest of the day making displays. It was a lot of fun. If I wasn't a teacher, I would be a graphics designer. Taking requests and fulfilling them made me feel like I was working as one :) I'm pretty happy with the way things turned out, they looked fabulous! I will make a modified version of the pennant bunting and upload them to TPT at some point.

I have also been working on new resources for myself, which I have added to my TPT store. Here are some of my latest products;

This activity pack contains 11 activities that can be used with any fictional text. This is pretty useful for me at the moment because I always use fictional texts on my casual days. Some of the activities include; designing a different cover, book review, creating a character, character profile and writing tasks.

I love doing the morning routine on the SMART board. This file includes your typical pages; days of the week, calendar, number of students, weather chart and days at school.

This activity pack contains resources to teach recount writing to your students. Alternatively it can be placed in a folder as part of a writing center. Includes a poster explaining what a recount is, an example text and word wall cards.

Check out my TPT store to see the rest of my new resources.

So far I have one day of work next week. I have a year 4 class on Monday. I have almost finished planning my work for the day. I like having the older grades because you can do more independent tasks with them. I am going to be using the iPads as part of one of my literacy lessons. Should be fun :)

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!