Happy 1st Birthday to My Blog!

My blog turns one today! I can’t believe it has been an entire year since I started this blog as an assessment for uni! To see how far it has come is truly amazing. I am so grateful to be part of an amazing PLN and to be able to share my thoughts with so many like minded people.

In my last year of uni, I hope to continue to learn with and from you all as my dream to become a primary school teacher is slowly realised. I hope to inspire many teachers to start their own blog and I’m really looking forward to watching this blog grow over the years and to also start my very own class blog someday.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has supported and encouraged me to truly reflect on important ideas and topics which has helped me on my journey in becoming the best teacher I can be. I hope you have found and continue to find this blog thought provoking and useful. Please remember that your comments are always appreciated and very welcome.

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Six Useful Strategies

1. Structure Pyramid

Students draw a pyramid and answer the following in each level, starting from the top:

• One word for the title
• Two words to tell ‘when’ it happened
• Three words to tell the ‘main characters’
• Four words to describe the ‘setting’
• Five words to describe ‘actions’ that happened in the story
• Six words to express ‘emotions’
• Seven words to identify an ‘instruction’ in the story
• Eight words to tell the ‘key message’ of the story

2. Thinking Squares

A cross is drawn in the middle of the page in order to create four squares;

• Square one: words, phrases, ideas
• Square two: use pictures to show the meaning
• Square three: how could it apply to the world today?
• Square four: draw a symbol

3. Character Map

Provide students with a picture of the main characters in the story and ask them to write what each character might be thinking, feeling, saying and doing at a particular point in the story.

4. Please Explain

Students are provided with cards with words on them pertaining to a story. For example, sad, scared, mean, wise, wild, fair, healed and so on.

Students are to take turns with a partner and turn over a card, read the word and explain how the word relates to the story. For example, Mary felt scared when the angel appeared to her.

5. Reach the Target

Provide the students with an outcome or conclusion. The students are to come up with four statements that lead them to the outcome or conclusion which they write after the four statements.

6. Analysing a Story

Ask students to record the sounds, sights, smells, touch and tastes they associate with a story.

Have you used any of these strategies before?

What strategies have you seen work well?

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Reflective Teaching & Lifelong Learning

Twenty years of experience vs. one year of experience repeated twenty times.

Which of the two are you aspiring to?

In order to continually learn and grow in our profession we must critically think and ask ourselves the following questions on a regular basis;

• What are you doing?
• How are you doing it?
• Why are you doing it?
• How effective is it?
• How are the students responding? When, why and what were they doing?
• What can you do to improve?

As teachers we need to be continually improving and bettering our practice. We need to evaluate, analyse and truly observe what is happening in our classroom, to seek advice, research and keep up with the latest ideas.

Try jotting down the positives and negatives of each lesson, then once you have thought about what is going on in your classroom, you can;

• Think about the patterns and things you were unaware of
• Talk to other teachers, colleagues and your PLN to come up with a new idea or a way of doing something differently
• Research any area of interest or concern using books, the internet or academic articles

We need to strive to continually reflect, learn and try new things to broaden our experience and practice life long learning.

 Are you up for the challenge?   

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Homework Tips for Parents

Homework is an important part in a students’ daily routine as it helps to consolidate what they have learnt in class, however some parents do not see the value in homework or may be finding it difficult to get their child to complete their homework. As a result, they may benefit from an encouraging letter.

Teachers may provide parents with a letter containing;

• Information about why homework is given
• When it is given out to the students
• When homework is due
• Homework tips for parents

The homework tips may include;

• Set up a quiet place, away from any distractions, which is specifically for completing homework.
• There should be an allocated time each day for homework.
• Find out what works best for your child – relax before homework or complete homework immediately after school and relax later.
• Encourage your child to tick things off as they go.
• Help your child to set goals for each homework session.
• Use a timer to challenge your child to stay on task.
• Remind your child to complete their homework.
• Praise your child when they have tried their best.
• Be positive about homework; remind your child that school and homework are important.
• Provide guidance when your child asks for help instead of simply supplying them with the answers.
• Allow your child to complete their homework on their own at times, in order to foster and encourage independence.
• Set up incentives for your child to complete their homework. For example; placing a new sticker in a scrap book, watching a television show, playing a board game with the family and so on.

Take a look at this YouTube clip from School A-Z which could be useful to show to parents:

Have you sent out a similar letter?

What feedback have you received from parents regarding homework?

David Castillo Dominici / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Bullying

Bullying disrupts the school environment and learning in classrooms and it should not be tolerated. Teachers need to make it clear to their students that bullying is not acceptable and there needs to be a procedure in place for students to follow if they are bullied or if they see students bullying other students.

Students who bully others often feel insecure. Ensure your classroom is a place where everyone is treated with kindness and respect and you as the teacher are a good example.

Try to get to the bottom of why the student is bullying. Talk to them with kindness, reminding them that you know they are a good student but they are making the wrong choices. Ask them how they think the student they are bullying feels and if they would like to feel that way. Ask them what better choices they can make in the future. You might like to have these kinds of questions written out for the student to think about and write their answer down.

You might like to have a book between you, the student and their parents. You could discuss with the student at the end of the day the good and bad choices he/she made that day and write them down. The student can then discuss their choices with their parents and strive not to make those same bad choices again.

Strategies to eliminate bullying in your classroom:

• Positive reinforcement (Click here for a previous post I have written on positive reinforcement)
• Have students work in groups to come up with a poster against bullying
• Encourage group work in your class (Click here for a previous post I have written on group work)
• Use ‘get to know you’ exercises to build a rapport between students in the class which helps to eliminate bullying (e.g. ask students to partner with someone and tell them about their weekend or a fact they remember from the unit or what they are excited to learn about in the next unit and keep telling them to swap a few times).
• Create a positive environment with motivational posters on the wall and tell your students to be the best they can be (Click here for a previous post I have written on happiness in the classroom)

Here are some great websites about bullying:

http://www.stopbullying.gov/educators/index.html

http://www.bullyingnoway.com.au/ideasbox/ideas/classroom/bystander/default.shtml

http://www.nobully.org.nz/guidelines.htm

http://kidshealth.org/parent/emotions/behavior/no_bullying.html

What strategies do you use to eliminate bullying in your classroom?

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Multiple Intelligences & Learning Styles

Children learn in different ways and it is important for us as teachers to teach the way our students learn. There is no one strategy that will work best for all the students in a class, so we need to use a variety of strategies within our lessons.

The seven multiple intelligences in children include;

• Linguistic (Words) Activities: Books, CD’s, writing tools, dialogues, discussion, debates, stories
• Logical-Mathematical (Numbers and Reasoning) Activities: Things to explore/think about, science materials, manipulatives, school excursions to science museum
• Spatial (Pictures and Images) Activities: Art, LEGO, DVD’s, movies, imagination games, mazes, puzzles, picture books, excursions to art museum
• Bodily-Kinesthetic (Whole body and the Hands) Activities: Role play, drama, movement, things to build, sport games, hands on learning
• Musical (Tone, Rhythm and Timbre) Activities: Sing along time, excursions to concerts, music playing, music instruments
• Interpersonal (Social Interactions) Activities: Friends, group activities, social gatherings, community events
• Intrapersonal (Self-Knowledge) Activities: Secret places, time alone, self paced projects, choice

Some of this information was obtained from here which also provides a questionnaire which you can use to get to know the true intelligence of the students you have in your class (you may like to adapt some of the language to your age group). You can use the information to help you to plan lessons using a variety of strategies that suit your students.

While it would be impossible to incorporate all the learning styles in every lesson, we need to try to use a variety of strategies each day in each lesson.

Click here for a printable learning style questionnaire.

Click here for another great website which provides more information on multiple intelligences and also learning styles.

 Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Making Multiplication Tables Fun

I remember dreading writing out my multiplication tables in a square grid against the stop watch each morning in primary school and I don’t want my future students to have that same pit in their stomach because they are struggling with their multiplication tables.

After all, the daily multiplication square and stop watch approach wasn’t even a successful approach for me.

Learning needs to be fun and students should be engaged. Using different approaches allows all students to learn as their learning style is taken into account.

Here are some ideas I have come up with and have seen work well in classes to help students learn their multiplication tables in a fun manner:

1. Identify the patterns in a hundred chart.

2. Skip counting as a class.

3. Create a rap song or poem as part of a homework activity or class activity about a multiplication table.

4. Sing the multiplication table together as a class.

5. Create a game show as a class where the teacher acts as a host and there are rotating pairs of students with a buzzer to answer a multiplication sum.

6. Multiplication bingo.

7. Have the students line up in pairs and choose one student to stand at the front of the line (provide them with an answer sheet). The student at the front calls out a multiplication sum and the first of the pair to state the correct answer returns to the back of the line and the other student sits out and watches. This continues until there is one students left.

8. Students work in pairs to test each other.

9. Focus on particular multiplication sums each week. For example 6×3 = 18, 6×5=30 and 6×6=36 and make it a challenge that the students remember those three. The teacher may ask a student at random one of those multiplication sums.

10. Focus on a multiplication table for a specified amount of weeks within the school year. All maths warm ups and homework activities would pertain to that specific multiplication table. For example, weeks 1-3 of term 1 may be decicated to the multiplication table of 3.

11. Dedicate a part of the classroom to the multiplication table that is being focussed on.

12. Ask the students to create a powerpoint slide of the multiplication table including images and voice recording.

13. The students may create a poster for the multiplication table which can be displayed in the classroom.

14. Include the multiplication table in their homework each week.

15. Use a fun multiplication CD and have the students sing along.

16. Record your voice reading the multiplication tables on your class blog or on a CD for students to listen to as part of their homework.

17. Have the students record themselves onto a CD.

Be creative and make learning fun!

 What strategies do you use to teach multiplication tables?

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