Friday 22 April 2011

Charter schools $125k experiment

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7359538n

Check out this link.

Marva Collins

Have just been given the book "Ordinary Children, Extraordinary Teachers" by Marva Collins. Have only read the introduction and already I'm inspired.

Children don't fail.....

Saturday 9 April 2011

PE Games

Basketball shoot out - Two teams line up along the sides of the court on either side of the hoop and on the back line there is 5 cones either side of the hoop. Another cone is in the centre of the court halfway up the court.. The first person has to dribble the ball up the court and around the cone and back to the hoop. They have a shot at the hoop - if they get it in they take a cone from the opposing teams side and puts it on their side, if they miss they just pass the ball to the next player who repeats. The aim is to get all 10 cones on their teams side.

The Glue Game (aka Bring Home the Bacon)
Two teams line up facing each other about 2 metres apart. They are number off. Teacher calls out two numbers and the people from each team race into the middle to grab the glue (or whatever is in the middle). They have to get it back over their line to score a point. As soon as the glue is touched it is active. If the team who picks it up gets tagged the point goes to the other team (the ones who were the taggers).

I have seen in a class pre-determined teams. At the beginning of the year the children are assessed on how fast they can run, how far they can jump, how far they can throw and probably a couple of other tests. Then the children are ranked in order of strongest/fittest/most coordinated to not-so-much. The children are then split into two teams that are approximately even ability. They name these teams (eg Kings and Aces) and keep these teams for the rest of the year or until another ability test. This not only saves time when making teams, but it also makes the competition more fair and enjoyable.

Reading back on placement notes........

I have decided to have a cleanout of all my college stuff, thought I'd read over it and anything I find interesting (food for thought) that I want to think about again, here seems a good place to put it - takes up a whole lot less space than my ring binders!!!!!

Notes from 1st placement: teacher said she provides homework but is completely optional as she doesn't believe she has the right to be telling parents what to do, practice singing as children transitioning between mat and desks, have laminated sheets in reading groups (with title, author, setting, characters, problem, solution, new words, interesting) so that fast readers have something to do when rest are finishing off), have a wonderings scrapbook where children can write any questions they like and at a time during the week the teacher will try to answer them/show skills to find answers, when counting in groups of 2, 5, 10 etc keep a rhythm to help with fluency.

Notes from 2nd placement: Really I'm just having a laugh! My notes are all just a big rant of what not to do as a teacher, and thankfully I haven't done any of those things yet, I don't think.

Notes from 3rd placement: heart of achievement - steps into the middle then get to choose a prize from pre-defined prize list, top group for week (using group points) get to move one space in heart of achievement, give a goal for Monday journal - don't want children to just write a recount of their weekend, read mark beside name for undesirable behaviour, target 10 - when whole class doing desired behaviour green dot in specified part of the board - when get 10 it's game time - start fresh each week, basic facts grid timed - children call out stop and teacher tells time for them to record - tick each line if all correct - circle ones got wrong, when a child is talking over they stand up, class mascot that can be a demonstration to say "Rodger has his handwriting book ready, do you?", celebration of work photocopied for everyone to look at why it is such a good piece of work, book "More Quality Circle Time" by Jenny Mosely.

Thursday 7 April 2011

Quietube

Google and add 'quietube' to your bookmarks. Then when you have searched the YouTube clip that you want to watch in the classroom, open it so it starts downloading, then click on the bookmark and you can watch the video with all the extra bits around the outside.

Wednesday 6 April 2011

Schoolhouse Rock

After visiting another classroom last week and having a look at some other classroom blogs, I came across a great wee video of the three times tables, "Three is the Magic Number". I've shown to the children and they absolutely love it! After some investigation into 'Schoolhouse Rock' (aired in the 70s) I have found a series for videos for all the numbers as well as various grammar ones. The link below takes you to the Schoolhouse Rock website, which will then link you to the video clips via YouTube. www.schoolhouserock.tv