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!