Casual Teaching and a WOW Text!

I changed my blog layout again, I decided that I wanted something a bit more simple and clean looking. I'm quite happy with the way it turned out. Though that never lasts long and in a week I'll want another layout :P

This week I worked 2 days. I didn't expect much work as the school production was. It was good timing, as I felt pretty sick on Wednesday and Thursday. There's no way I would have managed to drag myself into work anyway.

On Monday, I had year 5. I was excited about this because that meant I could finally use a book I recently bought; Journey by Aaron Becker.

This was one of those WOW! Books; you know when you pick it up for the first time and all these teaching points just jump out at you and you're just like "wow!"? (Please tell me I'm not the only book nerd out there).

If you've never heard of it before, it's a story told entirely by the pictures. So straight away it lends itself to Inferences. The illustrations are beautiful with lots of fine details and a clever use of colour. Each page can be used as a stimulus for deep discussion.

To kick of the lesson, I revised the skill of Making Inferences. What is it? Why do we do it? 

Then we viewed the book trailer. Which you can view here. That was a really great way to build excitement about the text. If only every text could have a trailer!

Students made an inference on what they thought would happen in the book and they had to back up their inference with the clues that they used.

Then we went through the text and discussed what they thought was happening on each page. At key points we stopped and students wrote down their during reading inferences. Once again it was important that they justified their response with what text clues they used. This was a way for them to show me their thinking and ability to read the visuals.

The ending of the story is awesome. Basically another lonely child rescues the main character and they become friends. People who were paying close attention to the first page would have noticed that the boy is also lonely at the start. It somewhat blends in so you don't notice it, but it's there.

The students loved this text. There is a part 2 called Quest. I am looking into getting that too. I would recommend this text to anyone. It can be used across all grades and for a variety of purposes. A must have for any casual/sub/relief teacher!

This class participates in Genius Hour. I have seen this going on in a few classrooms and I am quite interested by it. The class was supposed to go to the computer lab to work on it, but the lab was taken by another class due to room changes. Never mind, we made do inside the classroom with the iPads and few computers available. I sat with a group of ESL students and helped them research their questions about pirates. I learned a few things while helping them. Did you know that only one pirate ever buried their treasure? :) I can't wait to get my own class again to try this out as a regular thing.

For the past few days while I've been at home sick, I have worked on some more products for my TPT store. Here are three of my latest products. Click on the pictures to view them on TPT;

Writing Task Cards - List Making & Sentences

 These are great to use as part of your literacy groups or a 'work on writing' center. Each pack includes 52 cards as well as an instruction page for students.

Social Skills - Making Friends

This pack aims to teach students about making and keeping friends. I think this is an important skill for some students as they lack the knowledge of what makes a good friend. I created a text that explains 7 "rules" of being a great friend with an explanation of each. There is a poster, worksheets and a sorting activity. I love using these social skills packs on my casual days as it provides a simple 30 minute lesson on key skills that sometimes students need reminding of. Also helps with the smooth running of a classroom :) If you are interested you can check out my Social Skills collection here.

Lastly, I was super excited to FINALLY see myself on the front page of TPT. I just had to screenshot it! I've always wondered if I have been on there and well now I know :P

That's all from me, enjoy your weekend!

Five for Fiday! (on a rainy Saturday afternoon)

I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for the Five for Friday Linky Party!

Work, Work, Work! 
 I have had consistent days for the past few weeks. It has been awesome as well as tiring! I finished up on the Year 4 class and spent this week mainly on Kindergarten. It was definitely different, going from a class of 31 students, down to a class of only 19! I mainly focused on Reading Groups, TEN Groups (math) and Writing. The rest of the time was spent practicing for the school production next week.

I got to help paint a backdrop for the production. One of the teachers asked me if I could help her out as she knows that I am into all that artsy stuff like drawing and painting. It was fun, I added a bunch of glitter to the sky and trees so it will POP while under all that stage lighting. I don't think I will actually be going to the production, but I'm sure it will be a great night!

Book Week Parade
The best part of the week was the Book Parade. Last weekend, I brought a black wig and a witch's hat just in case I was working on the day of the parade (I didn't want to be THAT teacher that doesn't dress up). I wore them with a cute, black, corset dress with purple bow print. Of course, I had to wear leggings and a cardigan with it to make it work appropriate, but it looked pretty cool if I do say so myself :P I just love the book parade and seeing all the awesome costumes that people turn up in.

Rain!
The weather this week was pretty lousy. It rained pretty much everyday. Quite a few days were spent inside all day. Luckily, I had GoNoodle to keep the kids active and not so fidgety. I love that site, it's so useful and the kids love earning points to make the monster grow and change.

Teachers Pay Teachers
My store has been flourishing! I never imagined that it would have taken off as much as it has. I spent the past few weekends making my covers and Pinterest images better - as in they show pages from the product. I think they look ten times better than before and I have noticed a huge jump in sales. I don't know whether this is just a coincidence with the time of year, but I think my store looks much better now so the effort was worth it :)

Dinner
I love food! One of my favourite things to do is go out to a restaurant and eat, especially after a week of cooking. Tonight the boyfriend (or am I too old to be using that term and should I be referring to him as my partner?) and I are going out to dinner with his parents. We are going to a Chinese restaurant, they make a delicious Sizzling Mongolian Lamb. It's that good, that I could eat two servings of it! I can't wait.

That rounds up my Five for Friday, enjoy your weekend! :)

A Week on Year 4

This week I was lucky enough to have one class for the entire week! I had a lot of fun. It's nice when you can plan a series of lessons that connect, rather than just turn up and do random, one off lessons.

So this post will be about my favourite lessons of the week, because if I write about everything, this will turn into a TLDR post.

For Literacy, I focused on The Gizmo by Paul Jennings.

I love his stories, I remember reading them as a kid and would spend hours reading them in one go. The Gizmo is a great story to do with the older grades as the story is interesting and has themes the students can relate to. If you haven't read this book before, it's about a boy called Stephen who is pressured into stealing by the school Bully, Floggit. Stephen feels guilty about stealing so he tries to make it right by returning what he stole. However he can't, so he tries to rid himself of the item in different ways. Along the way he faces a few entertaining mishaps and by the end of the story he has learned his lesson.

I had only read the first chapter, when the students started to ask and answer their own questions about the story (by themselves! I didn't even have to ask them to!). The main question; "Why would Stephen hang out with this Floggit guy when he is such a jerk?". So that started a big discussion on how sometimes people hang out with people they don't necessarily like because they don't want to be an outcast or seen as a loser.

Throughout the week we did a few activities around the book such as; coming up with excuses to tell Floggit to avoid stealing the Gizmo and character profiles. The character profile activity produced some great responses. I let the students design it however they wanted. So some of them did it as a wanted poster, some as a profile and one student drew a picture of Stephen and wrote paragraphs about his personality around the picture.

We finished the book on Thursday and I told the class that if they liked the story they could go to the library and check out other books by Paul Jennings. I also mentioned how he wrote a few other books about The Gizmo, so they begged me to bring them in for Friday.

On Friday I read The Gizmo Again.

Which, automatically lent itself to Text to Text Connections. Similar theme as the original; nice guy gets influenced by the bad guy to do the wrong thing and so he learns his lesson to not listen to the bad guy.

We also did some Reciprocal Teaching. I got to use my Reciprocal Teaching Pack (don't you just love shameless promotion?).

The text we used was Possum Magic by Mem Fox. To start off I went through each of the roles, the class was already familiar with this strategy, so it was a quick recap. Then as we read the text, students practiced using the roles. The text was good for the clarifying strategy, as it involved a lot of Australian terms and since some students were from different cultural backgrounds they didn't know what some of the things were. The internet was used to help with the visuals.

Another great Literacy lesson was about the book, A Little Election by Danny Katz.

After we discussed the story, I gave the students the task;
Imagine you want to be the 'Prime Minister of (insert school name here)'. What policies would you introduce and why? Develop a campaign to convince your teacher and peers to vote for you.

Students were allowed to work in groups or individually. They were allowed to develop their campaign however they wanted. Some students wrote a speech and some designed a poster. They used paper, computers and iPads to present their ideas.

I was pretty impressed, they came up with a lot of good ideas as well as justifying the reasons behind them. Was pleased to see that no one came up with the 'We will just play all day' idea :P

Our Art topic was 3D Illusion Art. Last week, I did the 3D hand activity and they were pretty impressed, so I did some research and found two more activities. On the Monday we did this one;

(Image credit; http://www.frubilledkunst.dk/)

On Tuesday, when I came back (on Monday, I had no idea that I would be back on that class for the rest of the week), a few of them had taken them home and completed them to show me. So, I knew that I had to find another one to do with them on my last day. We did this one;

(Image credit; http://www.teachkidsart.net/)

The thing I love about 3D Illusion Art is that it looks complicated, but it's actually quite simple and the kids just love it! It kind of makes me want to start up some kind of Art Club if I get a job next year...

I really enjoyed my week on the class. I've always seen myself as an Infants Only teacher, but I think I would quite enjoy having a year 4 class. I kind of wish I had put different preferences on my EOI for 2015. The kids kept asking me if I could be their teacher next year, lol. I wish!

Next week, I have work on Monday and then I am back to waiting eagerly by the phone. I seriously think I am the only nutter who is up at 5am each morning so I can be all ready to go if I get a call after 6am :P

In TPT news, I have uploaded a bunch of new products and revamped a few of my older ones. I'll write about them next time.

Enjoy what's left of your weekend :)

Casual Teaching on Years 3 & 4

So far this week, I have been working with Stage 2 (years 3 & 4). It has been a fairly good week so far.

On Monday, I had a year 4 class. It was a really great day, everyone was well behaved and enthusiastic about the tasks. That made the day go by smoothly and quickly. Sometimes, with the older grades you get the few students who like to test you by acting up and complaining about everything. Not the case with this class :)

Here is what we got up to;

* Literacy - Point of View with Dear, Mrs. LaRue.

Okay, I admit that I recycled the lesson I did with year 5 a few weeks back. However, when the text is this good can you really blame me? :P My favourite part of the lesson is the part where students have a discussion about why the illustrator has divided each page into two parts; b&w pictures and colour pictures. Some of the great responses were;
* the b&w shows the sad parts and the colour shows the happy parts
* the b&w shows what the dog is thinking about because you can see the thinking bubble
* the b&w shows what the dog is writing about

I'm always amazed with what responses students come up with!

We did not get time to do the reading response part as we had library at 10am. I had something really awesome planned with the iPads, but I can always do that next Monday :D

* Maths - Coordinates
 I introduced this lesson with the question; What are coordinates and why do we use them? The most common answer? Minecraft! To help introduce this topic, I showed a map with no grid on it and asked students to find a street. They struggled. Then I put up the same map with a grid on it, and asked if they could find it by going to the grid reference. They found it within seconds. We then went through how to read coordinates and played a game on the IWB.

After that it was time to play Treasure Battleship! This is a fun game that allows both students to get some practice in using coordinates. One player places their game pieces on the grid and other player (who can't see the grid) asks "Do you have a piece on ________?". The student with the board, then checks that coordinate. If they have a piece, they must remove it off the board. Players swap when all the pieces have been discovered.

We finished off the lesson with a worksheet and marked it as a group afterwards. I like group marking because you can always clarify anything students are still unsure of :)

* Art - 3D Hands
I have seen this on Pinterest for a while now and have been dying to try it out!
If you have no idea what I am talking about, check out this YouTube Video;

The students were impressed with the images I showed and were trying to work out how to do it. Some of them couldn't believe that the paper was completely flat!

A few of the students finished and theirs looked great! The rest who didn't finish kept asking me if we could finish it next Monday when I have them again. I will have to find another awesome art activity for those who finished.

On Tuesday, I was called in last minute to cover year 3. I was thankful that I had had year 4 the day before, so I recycled the same lessons. I only had 30 minutes to eat breakfast, make lunch, get ready and pack my bag! It was an interesting day, with some challenging behaviours at some points.

When I first started teaching, I used to take these days rather personally and as a reflection on my ability to teach. Now I have a more positive take on it and I chalk it up as experience. I think it's good to have to handle challenging behaviours because you learn pretty quickly as to what works and what does not.

Yesterday, I covered two classes. The same year 4 class and a year 5 class. For year 4, they did genius hour. I had read about it online, but never seen it in action. I ended up sitting with a group who were working on their drawing skills. We found a cool website that showed how to draw cars, step by step. I had a go at it too :P

Year 5 involved playing Multiplication bingo and taking them to the library.

Today I have a day off. Will spend it relaxing, scootering and swimming :D

Enjoy the rest of your week!

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!

Five for Friday!

Eek! I haven't updated my blog for a while! I haven't forgotten about it, I just haven't had a proper internet connection since moving into the apartment. We got the modem in the mail, but it does not connect to the internet. I'm assuming it is something to do with the cabling in the building, so on Monday a technician is coming out to have a look and hopefully get it working. I have missed being able to read up on bloglovin, add products to my TPT store and browse pinterest!

I'm currently using my cellular connection on my iPad and the blogger app, let's hope this shows up properly. If it's a big mess, I shall fix it up once I am on my laptop :)

The apartment! We are all moved in now and it's complete after multiple trips to Ikea and various furniture shops. I love the way we have it set up and I cannot wait to post pictures of it. I get excited when people come over and I get to show them around. 

I have an office! I can't remember if I mentioned this before, but the apartment has a study in it, so it has become my office. We found an awesome high back dining chair for $49 and are using that as the chair for the desk in there. It's super comfy and will be perfect for when I'm working on lesson prep or TPT stuff. Loving that I have a dedicated room for work and that I can simply close the door if things look a bit messy :P

Back to school. This week was the first week of Term 3. I was lucky enough to work 3 out of the 4 school days. I was on Kindy support, which is always fun. I have work next week too, covering a different class each day. I am so thankful that I have been getting steady work since returning from holidays.

Opal Card. In Sydney they've finally introduced electronic ticketing. It is so much better than having to buy paper tickets. It has definitely made my trips to work easier and cheaper. I'm surprised not many people have gotten themselves a card yet. The best part? $2.50 Sundays. Last week, we took advantage of it and caught the ferry to the city and then the ferry to Manly. ALL FOR $2.50. On any other day it would have cost $28. Bargain!

Not sure where we are going this Sunday, but will definitely be doing something. At that price it's a bit silly not to.

Swimming. We have a gym and pool at our complex. This morning we went for a swim. I haven't been to a pool in years. I think the last time I went to a pool was when I was in primary school! It was fun, I did a few laps, not that I can swim very well. I stuck with the frog style stroke. I have no idea what the technical name is, but it gave me a nice work out on my arms and legs. There is also a spa next to the pool, it was a nice way to relax after my swim. 

Hopefully the internet will be up and running next week. Will be back to my regular posts about lessons and resources.

Have a great weekend!

Five for Friday!

I enjoyed writing this last week, so I have decided to participate again this week!

I went to The Voice with my friends. Not to sing (I can't), but to be a part of the audience. We got a great spot, right by the stage. Watched the show and managed to see my cat hat on camera.

We have an apartment! Let me repeat WE HAVE AN APARTMENT! I am thrilled! It is my 'dream' apartment and we got it on our very first application! The area is beautiful. We move in next week :) I'm so happy this was an easy process because I didn't want to deal with this while being at work. I have my boyfriend to thank for that, he did all the hard work and organisation.

Shopping for homewares. The day after we were approved, we went shopping for homewares. I find this exciting. I mean, we did this before in Manchester, but this has more of a permanent feeling. Over there we knew we would have to throw everything out when we returned. We were pretty successful with our purchases as a lot of stores were having a homeware sale. The best purchase was the entire kitchen set (as in everything you need for cooking) for $29. It was one of those magical Target purchases where the item scans at a very, very low price compared to what it should sell for. Now the only things we need to buy are bed frame, fridge, washing machine and bar stools. I can't wait to get our apartment set up. Perhaps the pictures will be part of an upcoming Five For Friday :)

I revamped the logo and banner for my TPT store. The one I had before just made me cringe! I'm happy with the way the new set turned out. I made it to coordinate with my blog.

Mini cold. I call it mini because I don't have all the symptoms. Mainly a sore throat and a sniffly nose. I haven't been sick in over a year now, so this has hit me harder than it normally would. I'm guessing I picked it up at work last week as I was coughed on quite a few times by the kinders. I have found taking panadol before I sleep reduces the sore throat and makes it easier to have an uninterrupted sleep. Have also been eating plenty of fruit and drinking lots of water. I find it interesting that I spent time in the UK and Europe in minus temperatures and snow, but never managed to get sick, yet within a few weeks of being back here I catch a mini cold. Can't wait to stop sounding so nasally!

That's about it from me, will be very busy over the next few days with all the packing and unpacking. I'm so excited!

 Have a great weekend :D