First proper teaching job!

Yesterday I got offered my very first proper teaching job! Sure, since finishing university three months ago I have had a two week contract and quite a bit of a relief work but nothing compares to having my very own class for a whole year! I got offered a teaching contract with either grade one or two [tba] at the school where I completed my internship and I couldn't be happier!

Now to go crazy with resource making, planning and all that fun stuff!

Another great idea.

One of my friends from uni just posted the coolest photo of a positive behaviour reward system so I knew I had to share....

This class lotto is something she uses in her classroom. Students who are seen doing the right thing can write their name in any square. On Friday a red and blue die are rolled. Whatever numbers are rolled the students with their names in those boxes receive a prize. I think I might use this system too!

Update:

This week has been super busy from meeting with a Principal, spending the day meeting the class I'll be taking next week, job searching and all that other fun stuff! I've spent today pretty much applying for jobs so fingers crossed I get a job because in total I've applied at over 100 schools here and in Western Australia and I really want my own class!

Next Monday I begin my two week contract with Grade 3 and I'm so excited! I'm also really nervous too because this class in unlike any other I've had before- there is a lovely boy in it who has severe autism. I spent a lot of time today making him an awesome activity book so that he feels  a part of the class. I found some awesome maths sheets, dot-to-dots and mazes (he loves them), word searches, cross words and heaps of other fun stuff. I'm going to get it bound tomorrow so it'll be all ready for Monday!

Tips for teaching preps.

Yesterday morning I received the much anticipated first phone call from a school asking me to do relief work! The Principal called me at 6am and asked me if I'd be willing to teach prep for the day and of course I said yes! I was very nervous, to be honest because I hadn't taught prep before and I wasn't sure how I'd do. In a mad rush I looked up some ideas of things to do with the kids and I didn't find much so here are a few things I learnt yesterday which might help others looking for ideas and which I will be using in the future as well.

1. Songs- Music is a big part of the children's learning and it's amazing how much they can learn without even realising it just from listening and singing along to songs. The teacher aide showed me some amazing phonics videos from YouTube which we showed to the kids and they absolutely loved singing. It's so great because not only are they having fun but they are learning skills which will help them with their reading and writing too!  Music is also good to use after break time to calm them down whilst they lay down on the carpet or before the day starts or home time. I think starting the day off with a happy song like "You can count on me" by Bruno Mars which you can make your class song is a lovely way to build relationships and start the day off on a positive note!
2. Gross Motor Skills- A great idea is to get the kids to do gross motor skill activities like skipping, walking with a ball between their legs, monkey bars, hopscotch, ball catching and even doing little competitions between groups. They love getting outside and it's developing their gross motor skills.
3. Spelling- When they are learning their spelling words a good idea is to sit them in a circle and give one person a little toy and it would be like pass the parcel but you would sing "just keep passing, just keep passing, pass, pass, pass and stop" (same tune as Dory's just keep swimming from Nemo) and when it would stop on someone, they would be given a spelling word and have to write it on the board. You can also do a similar activity using table groups which gives a bit of competition but you need to put the rules down first (no crying if you didnt win, be a good sport, congratulate the others etc).
4. Art/ craft- A great art/friendship lesson can be done if you buy those little cutout people you can get from a discount shop or make yourself if you fold paper together and cut out a shape of a person. Give each student one and tell them to draw themselves in their favourite outfit. Then read a book on friendship and staple all the little people cutouts together creating a friendship train and talk about what they think you have to do/say to be a good friend.
5. Reading- It's always a good idea to have a lot of books ready incase you want to read one after lunch to settle the children or before they go home. A great website for this is http://www.schooltube.com/. The kiddies love watching the video and then go to the whiteboard and write down each key part of the story in order. The kids then write a couple of sentences about it and drew a picture. http://www.storylineonline.net/   is another great online resource as it has a heap of books read by celebrities and the kiddies love sitting there and watching the story on the IWB. You could pick a book and then get them to draw a picture about the book after.
6. Resources- http://pbskids.org/whiteboard/ this website is awesome too as it has lots of interactive games kids can play and you can choose it depending on their age level. There is one I love to play with the class which is the "Word World: Dogs Letter Pit" where they can practice words by matching letters and their sounds to form words. Kids love it because the dog jumps into a pit of letters and a bunch of letters appears and then it will say something like "Dog wants to build the word Cat, what letter makes the 'c' sound" and as you go over each letter it gives you its sound to help the kiddies know which letter to pick. They love it!

Relief teaching- what's in my bag.

So we're only three days into the new term and it's been such an exciting few days. Yesterday I got a call from the school where I did my internship and I got offered a 2 week contract there for the end of this month! I also had a few calls for relief work yesterday however Cruz was over so I had to turn them down. Anyways, as I said before, it's an exciting time and I've been loving getting my things ready for when I am called to do some relief work.

 I got this awesome bag from Colette and it is sooo perfect! It was pretty pricey but I figured I need a bag that fits all my things in and hopefully it will last a while so I like to think of it as an investment.

I bought a folder and put some activities such as boggle in it, as well as forms to leave the teacher on her return to class and other things like that. I also made a prize box with lots of little goodies in it and then bought the coolest little lucky dip sweet container. In addition I got two containers and filled one with stationery I need and one with spare pencils, colours, rubbers, etc for the kids in case some of them don't have any. I have a lot of stuff and am feeling awesomely organised and ready to teach, bring it on!

Ideas from my internship.

I finished my internship quite a few weeks ago now and I’m absolutely loving the free time however I thought I'd reflect on some really cool ideas from when I was observing my mentor tetacher. 

I’ve gotten some really good ideas from my mentor teacher so I thought I’d jot them down for future reference:

Fast finishers- at the front of the class there is a laminated sheet called”If I finish early”. If students don’t complete work during one session, it gets put on the sheet so that if they finish work earlier in another session later on in the day (or even next day) they can always look to the list and see what they need to complete. This ensures all students are on task and complete all their work. In addition- there are 3 fast finishing folders at the front of the class (for maths, english and art) so if students have finished everything on the “If I finish early” sheet, they may grab a sheet from one of the folders and can get this checked for an additional reward once they have worked through it. These finishing folder sheets go into a pile on the teacher's desk for him to mark at a later time.

Spelling Revision- a simple but really effective way in which my mentor teacher is getting the students to remember their spelling words is by getting them to brainstorm and write the definitions down together as a class. For example, the students received their 20 spelling words for the week yesterday and today the teacher wrote down each word, one by one, whilst asking the students what each word meant. The students were all eager to give their own definitions for each word and loved it when the teacher put up their definition up on the board for the rest of the class to write down. This was a really great activity, particularly as the students’ spelling words were on homophones and it allowed them to differentiate between words such as “way” and “weigh” by having a definition which made sense to them.

Reading stamina- for 20 minutes every day, the class has a great reading activity which is known as Reading Stamina. This is where students are given time to pick a book to read at their desk, from a selection of books in the classroom. They continue to read their chosen book in silence until they are called up to read to the teacher. As they read the book, the teacher ticks a sheet on what reading strategies they are using, such as “skip the word and read on”. The teacher has a discussion about difficult words, etc. as the student reads. A few students are called up each day during reading stamina until the teacher has heard all the students read by the end of the week and has marked what strategies they’ve used on their weekly reading stamina sheet. The strategies the students use when reading are also put up around the room on posters and the teacher writes the students name under the strategy to show which strategies they’re using well and which other ones they can utilise as well.

When work is done- my mentor teacher used a routine that I haven't seen in any other classroom. When students were given work to do and they completed it, instead of having a huge line at his desk he had the kids put their hands on their heads. Once he saw they were done, he'd go over, mark their work and then they could move onto a finishing folder or move onto unfinished work. It really minimises the amount of kids walking around and waiting in a line to get their work marked and I found it to be very effective.

One of my favourite things from my internship...

One of my favourite ideas from my internship was creating this classroom community board. I came up with the idea to show that as a class we're all a part of a caring, encouraging, learning community. The kids loved looking at the community board every week and seeing the new photos of what they'd been up to, seeing who won student of the week and checking out any new notices. In addition, it was linked to our SOSE unit on communities, it was a real hit and something I'll definitely be using in my classroom.

Awesome idea!

I was just having a look at pinterest when I found this amazing vocabulary/ sight-word idea via the scholastic website. I think this is a great bulletin board to have up as it’s always good to extend student’ vocabulary and putting them up like this allows them to be able to implement these words in their writing. I’ll definitely be incorporating this idea into my future classroom!

Life lately.

Life at the moment is very busy but I'm absolutely loving it. Thankfully I have really stepped up my time management this year in a bid to be on top of my work load and I'm happy to report that it's working. I'm currently in the process of organising things for when I graduate such as my Queensland College of Teachers Registration application which I sent off last week, the Department of Education and Training forms (which will allow me to teach in a State school) which I'll post tomorrow as well as gathering everything I need to complete my Catholic Education Application forms. We've had so many educators come and speak to us in class about how few jobs there are in this area so by applying to different schools, I'm hoping my chances are slightly better, fingers crossed!

Also, I can't wait to begin my four week professional experience prac block and internship which will all be happening in the next few months. Being on prac is the aspect of my studies which I enjoy the most, for obvious reasons. I love being able to come up with new lessons, new activities and new ways to teach the kids. Bring on prac and internship, I can't wait!

Tree of good deeds.

Today I discovered this amazing positive behaviour resource for the classroom from one of my fellow education peers. She explained how this poster of the "Tree of Good Deeds" was going to be placed on the wall of her classroom and whenever students noticed their peer doing a good deed, they write it on one of the leaves and stick it on the tree. The tree starts out barren and over time, will bear fruit as students do good deeds. I think this is a great way  of students getting positive feedback from their peers, such a great idea!

Fast Finishers Workshop.

I was chatting to my supervising teacher the other day about the different levels of students in the classroom. She was telling me how some students speed through the work with ease and need extension activities whilst others struggle to finish the work. She was telling me that she was going to create a fast finishers worksheet for the students who finished early. This gave me an idea of creating a space for extension activities that students can access during free time or if they require additional work. I was thinking of hanging a pocket shoe organiser or something like below to hold a bunch of activities.

I was thinking instead of having their names on the pockets, one row would be labelled maths, another labelled science, etc etc. In each pocket would be worksheets/ activities/ educational games to do with the topics they're learning that term. This way students who finish early can walk over to the fast-finishers worksheet, pick an extension activity and get to work quietly without disrupting the rest of the class. I can't wait to implement this strategy in my classroom.

About me & this blog.

Hello and welcome to my little corner of the Internet! My name is Berni or Miss. Chisholm and I am a preservice teacher who will be graduating this year [2012] with my Bachelor of Primary Education. I've started this blog as I am constantly getting ideas about resources, activities and lessons to do with my future students and I thought this would be an ideal way to jot my ideas down so that others can benefit from them too. As teachers, we are constantly required to come up with new, exciting and engaging activities to utilise in our classrooms so hopefully I will be able to share what I've learned, whilst getting ideas from a bunch of other people too! Thanks for stopping by!