Term 4 No Chore!

Hello teacher friends!

Here in Australia we have just started our final term of school for the year. This means there is only 10 weeks until our summer break starts. This term is filled with lots of exciting activities for our students to finish their year of learning. 

It can be very busy. We have assessments and end of year reports, preparing for new grades, finalising work to be sent home, planning for the following year - the list goes on as you well know! I've teamed up with some online Australian blogging friends to bring you some tried and tested teacher tips that you can implement now, or begin to plan for to make this term easy to manage.

After you have read my tip, please visit the other blogs in the link up below to find more ways to cruise through Term 4.

Tip - Assessment Checklist

At the end of the year there are lots of assessments to complete in preparation for reports. I create a checklist for the assessments I need to complete. I record the students names down the left side of a table, then write in the assessment tasks across the top. When I've completed an assessment on a student I tick it off, that way I can see what data I've collected about each child and what I'm missing.

I hope this tips has been useful. Make sure you check out the other great tips shared on the blogs below:

An InLinkz Link-up

 

Teaching with Intention: Chapter 1

 

I signed up with Greg Smedley to do the Book Study, but being in Australia I'm not on holidays yet so I'm a bit behind. Time to play catch-up!!

I have owned the book Teaching with Intention by Debbie Miller for about two years and had it sitting on my shelf, unread, the entire time. When I heard about the book study I jumped at the chance to join in knowing that it would encourage me to read this amazing book!

My ideal classroom is lived-in and well-loved. I want the students to feel proud of their room and to take ownership over it - it's their learning space. It would have bright colours, but not look too busy. It would have student work on display, and anchor charts to show learning. Students would have their own space to store their things so they are responsible for their learning tools. They would have some choice during the day to engage them with their learning. Students would know what was expected of them for both their behaviour and their academic outcomes. There would be chatter, but not loud noise, with music to signal transitions. There would be charts documenting their achievements. It would feel welcoming, open and caring.

The students are involved in their learning and engaged with it. There are conversations about what they are doing, as well as conversations about their interests and what they've been up to. The students take ownership over the things in the classroom so they have pride in packing up their room. Students are working together and working independently. The teacher roves to support students, or works with small groups, or works 1-on-1 at a conferencing table. Students know what is expected of them, and the teacher has high expectations of what they can achieve. The teacher records learning, but lets the students share their learning in their own words. The teacher facilitates while the students do the work.

My students know my expectations of them, but we are still working on some behaviours (like calling out). I have charts around the room to document their achievements, like the number of days at school and a score chart for specific behaviours.

When they follow the description below a character as a whole class I tick off a number, when they've shown that behaviour five times they get a whole class prize.

I have bright colours in my room using furniture and posters, and the laminated cellophane on some of my windows.

I display a lot of student work, give them lots of jobs to help me so they are involved with running the classroom, I use some music for transitions and I document reflections in subject-specific journals to show their learning.

 

My students have an assigned seat and a tub that is under their desk, so they have their space which they take ownership over and which they have to keep tidy and organised.

At my school every student Prep-Grade 6 (prep is the first year of school) has to have three individual learning goals - 1 for reading, 1 for writing and 1 for maths. My students have these. They also have to independently provide three pieces of evidence before they can achieve the goal and get a new one.

I need to work on transitions! I have a lot of wanderers, and other kids follow them. It drives me nuts, so it's definitely something to work on. I think my room can look cluttered, so I need to work on that, particularly with my 'office' area. I've got problems with lighting in my classroom because where I sit to teach is in front of a big window, which can cause problems for my students looking at me.I also need to brush up on my 1-to-1 conferencing. I get stuck roving or sitting with a group, and don't prioritise short, structured conferencing. I need to work on goal-setting. I set the goals for my students, rather than with my students, so they forget what their goal is and forget to show me evidence of it.

This was a great first chapter, and I'm looking forward to reading the rest!!

Swap Share Give - A linky for all seasons

I am very lucky to have made some Aussie blogger friends over the past couple of years. Last year these friends held a Swap Share Give link-up that I was part of (my first link-up like that) and we are doing it again! We have been paired with another teacher by the lovely Tania. The pair has swapped a product, used that product and will write a review about it. We each also have a freebie to share, and there will be a giveaway of all the products that were reviewed! Pretty cool.

I'm very lucky to be paired up with Alison from Teaching Maths with Meaning.

 She has amazing products, and I own pretty much all of them! For this link-up I am reviewing her Number Detectives product.

I printed it, laminated it, and chopped it up ready to use. I decided to use it as our maths focus wall, and I have one number up each week. As part of our Monday maths lesson (or sometimes Tuesday) we take down last week's number and put up the new number. I love it, and the kids love it! You get heaps of different elements to display which you can see in this picture:

I have had some excellent opportunities for incidental teaching with the clock face, the tens frame and the odd/even word cards. I have also touched on reading skills when we try to find the number word. During the week we look for things that show our Number Detectives Number, and either discuss it or add it to the wall.

As well as using it as a focus wall, you could also collect some of the bits and do a sort. For example, the focus number might be 2, so you would find all the representations of two in the bundle, and put them together. It could be a maths groups activity or a warm up activity.

I love the clear graphics, and the easy to cut out shapes! My students love the birthday candles, and regularly walk past the display to blow out the candles.

The product I have as a freebie is a play dough mats set all about teen numbers. It has a spring theme, and it is bright and cheerful. Each of the bloggers who linked up has a seasons-related freebie, some are Spring-based (currently in the Northern Hemisphere) and some Autumn-based (which is the current season in Australia).

You get 10 play dough mats with the numbers 11-20. The mats are bright and clear, and students are asked to make the number out of play dough and make the number on a tens frame with play dough. But you could use counters instead of play dough, or you could use whiteboard markers on them once they have been laminated. The mats are really focused on the concept that the teen numbers are 10 plus some more.

          

Alison is reviewing my product ABC Foldable Readers (available in Victorian Modern Cursive and print font) on her blog. Go there now to check it out!!

Now for a giveaway! Enter below to win each of the products that were reviewed.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

An InLinkz Link-up

Peek at my week - Week 1, Term 2, 2015

I love sharing what I'm up to in my classroom, which is why I love to join in with Peek at my Week (not that I've done it much lately...).

 

 

We have just been on two weeks of Easter Holidays, and now we are back for term 2. This is what my week looks like:

 

 

In reading this week we are focussing on sounding out words. In writing we are practising to sound out the words we want to write, and will be writing about things we like or dislike. In maths we are learning about time, and grouping events by when they happen (eg. day and night). In inquiry we are revising our five senses. In You Can Do It we are thinking about how we can get along with other people.

Harmony Day is a very special day at my school - we all love it. We don't celebrate it on the Official Harmony Day, but we celebrate it when it suits our schedule. For the first four hours of class time on Harmony Day students rotate through 8x 30min activities in their grade levels - I'm running a kite making activity. Then for the last hour of the day we have our Cultural Expo - students and their families are invited to set up a 'stall' to share music, clothes, photos, objects and food from their culture. Last year we had 20 'stalls' about different countries for the students to experience! It is an amazing event!!

#2getherwearebetter Link Up - Schedules

I have not been a great blogger so far this year, but I'm excited to join in with the April 2nd link-up run by Ashley from Schroeder Shenanigans and Angie from Lucky Little Learners. Link ups are probably my favourite type of blog posts to write, so this is awesome! 

 

 

They are doing a link up on the 2nd of each month about a particular topic, and this month is SCHEDULES!

I love reading about other teacher's schedules. It amazes me how many different versions there are, and the different types of specialist subjects, extra support, withdrawal programs, etc, that run all over the world.

My schedule is slightly different on each day of the week. I make up a visual schedule for my students at the beginning of each term so that they can look over it at home before the school day, or look over it when they talk about their day with their families. I find that it helps y 5-6 years olds share things that happened during their day. They get a schedule that looks like this:

But I will type it out so it's a bit easier to read.

I'll explain a bit about it.

Carpet time: Every morning we begin the day with a phonics song, take attendance, go through our visual schedule and do Brain Gym. It is a great routine to get started with our day.

Reading groups: We begin with a big book and a mini-lesson about our reading focus for the week. Students then go into their reading groups for silent reading and then a literacy activity. During the silent reading time I work with my low group to support their independent reading, and during our activity time I do guided reading with a different group each day.

Writing: During term 1 this hour was all about phonics, now we will squeeze more into the time to still cover our phonics focus, but also do some structured writing.

Maths: We don't follow a program, but have a school-developed scope and sequence with has lots of room to construct the right program for the group of kids in the class.

Inquiry: The rest of my school are doing a more integrated version of inquiry, where it is part of literacy and numeracy, but we are still teaching so many foundational skills in prep (first year of school) that we have allocated time for focussed Inquiry.

Sport, Music, PE, Art: These are our specialist classes, when I don't teach.

PMP: We are starting this in term 2, and it will be a Perceptual Motor Program to work on gross motor skills and coordination. This will be run with both of the prep class (42 kids all together), with 8-10 stations to rotate between.

RE: Religious Education is an 'opt-in' program at my school, so not all of the preps are doing it. This means one of the prep teachers will sit in the RE class while the other prep teacher takes the extra students for a non-curriculum-related activity.

Read aloud: We are doing a chapter book, and started George's Marvelous Medicine last term. We have two chapters left, then we will start Tashi.

Fun Friday: Every Friday we have a theme day, mostly based around our Inquiry work. They are not always big events, but there is always a theme running through the activities. For example, during term 1 we had Camping Day (we learnt about the things we need to survive), Cupcake Day (which was related to a maths assessment task using patty pans) and Water Day (learning about our water needs). Next term we are going to have Alphabet Day (once we've learnt all of the letters of the alphabet) and Silly Sock Day (which is all about sorting). These fun days give us the opportunity to be wild and creative, but still incorporate literacy and numeracy. It's great for applying skills in a new way, and for learning through experiences.

Facet: is a fancy way of saying the we do two alternating subjects in that hour with the two prep classes together. We have our wellbeing program called You Can Do It and our cybersafety program called eSmart.

Prep chat: At the end of Fun Friday we get together for a catch-up and reflection about the week.

Wow, we fit lots in! I can't wait to go back and look through all the bloggers who have linked up. I'm thinking about swapping my maths and Inquiry to the morning block, and putting reading and writing into the middle block because we always seem to have more time in the middle block. I'd love to find out if other people put maths in the morning, rather than literacy!

Five for Fraturday - 21st February

After a very long hiatus from my blog I'm back! And with a gorgeous new blog design to boot!!

I thought a great first post back would be a Five for Friday! It is Saturday evening where I am, but it's still Friday somewhere!

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I have had an amazing start to the new school year. In my class I have 22 preps and they are all gorgeous. They are an incredibly helpful, happy and persistent bunch. Yesterday we did our first session of maths groups and I set out a few maths activities that were too hard to see how they reacted. Only one of my poppets gave up and had a whinge - every other one was persistent and had a go even if they weren't too sure about how to get it done. I'm really proud of the behaviours this class are showing, and it is sure to be a fantastic year with them!

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As with any start to the year a good clean-up is necessary.

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The way I have set up my classroom (and I will post a classroom tour next) has the smartboard and whiteboard in front of a window. It works perfectly for the way the room is set up, except it is quite bright through the windows. As a way to cut down the light I laminated some cellophane and bluetac-ed it to the window.

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A new school year also needs some new 'words to live by'.

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And a new hairstyle!

If you'd like to see more of my photos follow me on Instagram @jemluck

Peek at my Week - Addition week

It's been too long since I've blogged. I get so excited to blog, then I forget or something comes up. I missed last week's link up, but I had a few photos from the week before that I wanted to share.

We worked on even and odd numbers, so I used the Even & Odd Sorting Centers product by Kelly Witt. My kids loved the pictures!

We also used the worksheet in the pack, and students had to sort out the numbers provided into even and odd.

During the week we also made a book to take with us when we went to visit the local kindergarten. It was called School is Awesome: What we love about school. Our kinder kids are all starting transition ready to start school at the end of January, so we thought they'd like to know what is fun at school.

This is one of my little preps who tries SUPER hard, but is still struggling.

So, onto this week!

I'll link up with the awesome Deedee Wills!

Here's what my week will look like.

I'm looking forward to it. On Thursday morning while my preps have buddies with the 1/2s I am running the first transition session for our 2015 preps! I've very excited to meet them. This year I'm the coordinator (for the first time) so I'm a bit nervous about making sure it runs smoothly. I love seeing how little they look in comparison to the current preps.

I have also just added two new products to my TpT store (I'm using them this week, so I'll have photos next week).

The Dinosaur Addition and Subtraction Mats are free!! Go check them out.

Peek at my week - Term 4 Week 2

Already this term is flying by. We're about to begin week 2 of the last term of the school year. I will be saying goodbye to my little preppies in no time...

A quick recap of last week. I had on last week's plan that I was going to do fine motor skills groups. They went so well!! I had to share our activities.

Here we are using the awesome Fine Motor Mats by Tara West. We used the glass beads this time and next time we'll use tweezers as well. Most of my students were fascinated by how many 'jewels' they were using so they were also counting as they did this activity.

The preps had to write or draw with chalk, then they magically made the chalk disappear by tracing over it with water on a paint brush! They thought it was very cool, and it was a novelty to use chalkboards.

Ol' faithful - playdough!

They had to make the tallest tower they could. Steady hands were necessary!

Using tweezers to pick up magnetic letters or letter tiles (one at a time!!) from the rice sensory tub.


Now, here is a Peek at My Week (linked up with Mrs Wills Kindergarten) for next week.

We have a Stress Down Day every year. During the morning the grades will rotate around activities (20 minutes at each activity). Activities will include cyber safety, stories, games/puzzles and craft activities. After recess we invite the parents to come and participate in a Trivia Scavenger Hunt. Each group is given a list of things they have to find out, there is a winner drawn for the most correct answers. After lunch, which will be healthy salad rolls that the students will make for themselves, we have an incursion for a performance called Cyber Busters, all about cyber safety. To top it off, it is Pajama Day, too! Comfy comfy comfy!