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!

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!

Peak at my week Monday 6th October

I'm going to give the Peak at My Week link-up another go!

This upcoming week is the first week back at school for term 4, after our Spring break. I've had a lovely holiday but I'm really looking forward to getting back into work.

That's what my week looks like.

For writing I run Writers Workshop with mini lessons (which is just new to me this year and I love it!). I use Writing Through the Year by Deanna Jump and Deedee Wills as a guideline, and then add and tweak it to suit my group of kids and our scope and sequence/curriculum.

For Reading Groups I have five groups that do two activities each - a focus/phonics activity and then a phonics/fine motor skills activity, and I will pull one student at a time to do reading assessment with me in the lead up to report writing. This week we are focusing on Little Red Riding Hood retells and sequencing, and looking at word families -og and -at.

The 'World Around Us' is the name I gave to the hour when we do humanities/social skills work. This term we are talking about celebrations.

I don't normally do so much handwriting and fine motor skills, but given that my kids have 11 more weeks of school this year I'm really focusing on getting their handwriting up to scratch ready for grade 1.

For Buddies we work with a class of grade 3/4s, and we alternate between working on maths together on the iPads and doing 'team building' activities.

I love this link up because I'm fascinated by the different ways classes run!

Peak at my Week

I'm having a go at sharing my week as a link-up with Mrs Wills Kindergarten: Peak at my Week.

Here is my weekly planning document. We start at 9am and finish at 3.30pm. Recess is 30min at 11am, and lunch is 1hr at 1.30pm. Click on the document to see it up close.

Oral language is when a speech therapist employed by my school comes into my classroom and runs small group activities focused on key literacy skills. This week we are focusing on vowels and medial sounds.

Clubs happens twice a term. Teachers and parents run a 'club' for a group of students. I run Craft Club, but we also have groups who go to the park, do knitting, do cooking, do science, make cool things, etc.

Normally I have another document with more detail on it, lesson by lesson, but I have a student teacher who is teaching everything expect for Reading Groups, so she is planning everything. I don't have her plans yet.

This is what my reading plan looks like for the week:

It has taken me a while to find a reading groups plan that works for me, but this is working so far. We do reading groups on four days. The groups are the animal names on the left. I have goals for each group, and that is what I select their activity based on. They still need fine motor work so I always have the group do a fine motor skills (FMS) activity. I have an aide who helps out with the groups. Other than the activities highlighted in pink or blue, a group does the same activity two days in a row. This gives them time to practice the task.

Have a great week!!

A maths lesson in Prep L

My school has been lucky enough to have a maths coach over the past year (I think I've mentioned her before). Her name is Andrea Hillbrick, and she is amazing!! One of the biggest changes I have made from her coaching has been in regards to the structure of my maths lessons. They have been tweaked, finessed, and moulded into a much more productive hour.

This is how my lesson runs:

1. 5min Warm Up: this can be any skill that has already been taught and that needs to be revised regularly - we do lots of counting (backwards, forwards, counting on, counting back, clapping, etc).
2. 5min Hook: this is something that links the content of the lesson to the real world, for example if you are learning about ordinal number you might watch a video of a race being run.
3. 10min Tuning In: this is when you teach the skill, practice the skill, model the task and develop success criteria for the lesson.
4. 20min Learning Experience: this is when students work in groups/in pairs/independently to complete the main task of the lesson. While this is happening I take a small group for a Mini Lesson which is either focused on supporting or extending student knowledge.
5. 10min Reflection: before packing up the activity I gather my students together for a reflection. We use a Reflection Journal to document our learning in maths.
6. 10min Pack Up and Closure: after Reflection we pack up our materials and get ready for whatever will happen next in our day!

The best new parts of my maths lessons are the Reflection Journal and packing up after Reflection.

It is amazing what a difference it makes to pack up after you have reflected. Students are still focused on the task, they don't feel like it's finished yet, and sometimes we reflect 5min early so that we can keep working on the task after reflection (this works particularly well if your reflection is about tips or hints related to the task).

The Reflection Journal has really refined my skills. I identify a specific reflection task/tool/focus for each session. I often record what my students tell me they have learned in that lesson, and when I do this reflection I let the students hold a pretend microphone - they love it!! If we are talking about something interesting they noticed then my students get to wear groovy, superstar sunglasses. Often I will get students to record something that is related to the task on post-it notes and get them to add their note to the journal. For example, we were working on number formation during one session so they had to write a number (in their neatest handwriting) and add it to the journal.

I love how my maths lessons run, now. They are really structured, have purpose and motivate my students to be engaged with the content. It took me a little while to get my head around all of the different parts, but it was totally worth it!

Currently for February

This is my first time linking up with Farley at Oh' Boy 4th Grade for her Currently link-up.

Listening: It is about 35 degrees Celsius where I live in Victoria, Australia today. I spent the morning hanging out with my mum at the cinema, but now I'm at home with the air-con on.
Loving: One of my favourite things about being a teacher is getting to know a new class of students!
Thinking: I have a very long list of "to-do's".
Wanting: I much prefer to rug up in the cooler weather, than have to try to stay cool when it's hot.
Needing: I have a few new subjects this year and I still haven't made the new visual timetable cards for them; it's on my to-do list.
Truths: You can probably guess by now that I don't like hot weather. And I am most definitely a newbie blogger.
Fib: I hate olives! Yuck!!

I have nearly finished next week's planner. Mine isn't a fancy visual planner, but it has all of the info on it that I need. Here is what Reading looks like this week:

It is very text heavy, and I think I need to look at how I can make it simpler. But that's a project for a different day.

Have a great week!!

First day back!

Today was our first day back - for teachers only. We started with a two hour whole school meeting, followed by team meetings. Lots of info was shared because we have three new staff members this year. It was good to hear some of the info again, refresh my brain after five weeks of holidays.

I'm a prep teacher this year and there is only one prep class at my school for this year, so I'm a team of 1. This meant that during team meeting time today I got to do things that I needed to get done. I did a total clean out of my mobile whiteboard shelves, which now only has 'kid friendly' things on it (no more permanent textas near the whiteboard!!). I also set up my room ready for my new preppies to arrive tomorrow.

Super just a bit nervous about tomorrow. I love the first day of a new year and getting to meet and start to get to know my new kids. But it is also nerve wracking. On the agenda for tomorrow is playing with toys to help the kids settle (magnetic letters, lego, drawing, puppets, farm animals, books), then the good ol' whole class toilet break, followed by fruit snack, a read aloud, discussing school rules and a self portrait. Hopefully that'll take us up to recess, and after recess we will discuss and have a go at the mat rules (being 5 star listeners takes practice!) then they'll make a front cover for their Science Journal. My kiddos go home at 12.30pm the three days they're at school this week. I will be doing some last minute setting up (like table name tags) and organising the materials they bring in during the afternoons. It's a lovely way to get used to school routine.

The aim is to take some pics of my little cuties working (no faces...) and I'll do another post on the weekend to show you how our first week went!!

My first linky

I have always loved reading all the interesting stuff that comes up as part of linkies. And now it is my turn to join in!

I have joined up with Where the Wild Things Learn to share my daily schedule.

At the moment I am still on summer holidays (being an Australian teacher) but this is the plan for the 2014 school year. I am lucky enough to have 4 hours of specialists each week. My students get an hour each of Indonesian, Music, Art and PE. Those specialists happen at different times during the day, so the schedule above is a generalisation of what a day might look like.

My school is working on becoming a 'science-focused' school. This year we have two teachers who are going to become Science Coaches. This means that we have scrapped 'theme learning time' and now integrate Science throughout our core areas (Reading, Writing and Maths) as much as it can be done. Each term has a focus topic taken from our Science curriculum. For term 1 my kids will be learning all about the things that humans, plants and animals needs to survive.

I will be doing Morning Meetings for the first time this year. I plan to do a read aloud to start the day, then complete a version of Calendar Maths. I have been working on a SMARTBoard version of it because I don't have a great deal of display space in my room.

In term 1 I will be doing either PMP (Perceptual Motor Program) or Fine Motor Skills everyday. We will work on things like balance, crossing the mid-line and hand-eye co-ordination in PMP. In FMS we will work on pencil grip, wrist and hand strength, and pinch grip, etc. This is the first time I have planned this way but I'm really excited about it!!

Writing will be focused on recounts and responding to texts to begin with. Even though we have a Science focus, I still do a bit of 'All About Me' to begin the year. We will draw and write about our families and some of our favourite things during term 1.

I teach 2 letters a week as part of phonics. I will also be using the CAFE strategies to support our Reading curriculum.

Last year my school focused on our maths curriculum. I have learnt so much about how to teach maths over the past 6 months, in particular. I have decided to have 2 week focus areas in maths and really explore the topic. Last year I would do a different area each week and sometimes I felt like I was skimming the surface. We had a maths coach at our school (the amazing Andrea Hillbrick) and one of her key points was to allow lessons to 'travel' (or continue over more than one lesson) if they are really working well. I never did that because I was too busy racing through the topics.

Other things that we do during the week are Show and Tell (a favourite for my students, I do all of my class all at once in one hour, and we have a learning goal for the session), library, Religious Education, assembly, values education (You Can Do It is our current values program and we are starting a FRIENDS program this year) and buddies. It's a busy week, but I love doing it!