Short Teacher problems
cherry valley forever
todays bird
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
Alisa U Zemlji Chuda
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RMH
DEAR READER
Peter Solarz
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her

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Andulka
Claire Keane

★
Not today Justin
d e v o n

JVL
Today's Document
tumblr dot com

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he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
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@playlearndream
Short Teacher problems
Presenting our Fourth Grade Zoo - the final PBL project of the year for my classroom!
Throughout this project, students completed the following activities:
An entry event involving a simulation of camouflage.
Guided research of five ecosystems: tundra, rainforest, desert, temperate forest, and grassland.
Exposure to various readings, videos, and online games and simulations related to animal adaptations, ecosystems, and natural selection.
A simulation involving different kinds of bird beaks and animal diets.
Construction of life-sized animals for our tie-in to the math standard of conversion of measurement.
Creation of original sketches of animals with one adaptation for each of the five ecosystems studied.
With the assistance of the art teacher, creation of wire armatures coated with tin foil, then covering in plaster and painting with water colors.
Formal literacy task on their animal and its adaptations, taking students through the entire writing process (final copies pictured above).
Final sketch of their animal with its adaptations labeled.
Notecards for their presentations and practice public speaking. We presented to family and community members tonight and will have our zoo open to the other students on Tuesday of next week.
Documents I created that you are free to take!
Butterfly hunt.
Ultimate animal outline
Animal exhibit sketch paper
Literacy task description (writing prompt with editing checklist)
If you would like any more information or a list of additional resources I have gathered throughout the course of the project, I am more than wiling to share!
What are dyslexia, dyscalculia, dyspraxia and dysgraphia?
These excellent visuals come from aboutdyspraxia.com (website seems to be down at time of writing) and offer a quick reference for teachers and others to identify signs of the above conditions.
There are a lot of kids and only one of you. When you need your students quiet, focused and ready to learn, you better have a plan to get there. And it doesn’t hurt to bring your sense of humor …
Most of these are for elementary. Fun and creative Ideas for bringing on the quiet.
Just Thought I Would Let You Know....
I'm back!!
I absolutely loved my time in Ireland teaching English as a Foreign Language to Spanish and Italian teenagers. It was a blast. I met so many amazing people from around the world, learned so much about myself and in a way, I feel like I have grown as a person and as a teacher.
Not sure when I have time to update this blog with my experience, especially when I realise I have a huge drafts folder of things you lovely people have posted and I mean to re-blog. My posts JUST have to have tags on them. Easy, but...one of those things I guess!!
Anyways, I managed to secure myself some supply work in a nursery for most of August and September, which will keep me busy and wondering how I managed to balance my very busy diary in the first place.
Laters all!!
Ideas for lesson activities/games etc for Teaching English as a Foreign Language?
If you have read one of my previous posts, I am spending my summer helping at a Language School for Spainish & Italian teenagers and I am currently in planning mode!
Any ideas, links (or advice) would be much appreciated :D
I Made A Water Wall Today!!
Buckets, sieves, tubes, pipes and other items the children use during water play, I just tied some of them to the fence with string - Kids loved it!
I admit, I loved making it too :D
I really, really hope it is still there tomorrow...
Cars & Bikes
Too much?
I'll explain... the playground outside the Nursery building is timetables for set playtimes 3 times a day, but apart from that, the Early Years Department can use it. Now, I'm beginning to see a theme when it comes to Outdoor Play in this area of the School: Cars & Bikes. To me, they are used too much. They are always out and if not, they come out. The children beg for them constantly.
I would like something different: Other resources, or maybe an afternoon with no resources, letting using use their imaginations and the natural environment. Cars & Bikes are so limiting and take up so much of the playground that other children's interests and activities often end up being limited to a small area, so they aren't in the way.
What do you think?
It Is Official!!
I'll be spending my summer volunteering at a Language School in Ireland, teaching English and organising activities for Spanish and Italian teenagers over a 4 week period. :D
Going to do a little bit of travelling after, as well.
EXCITED!!
I Can't Get Rid Of This Feeling...
Something hasn't been sitting right with me all afternoon and this feeling, has been growing hours later, away from the setting.
I shall explain:
Myself and a few children were outside in a small area that os sheltered from the rain. One of these children whilst they were playing with a ball, showing me is kicking, throwing and catching skills (which they absolutely loved), discovered a few wooden twigs on the ground. They picked them up, held them above their head and said enthusiastically "Fire." They started laying them on the ground, close together, rubbing hands above them as if trying to get them warm from this fire. I wondered outloud if their was a way we could make a fire and this child instantly picked two of these twigs up from the ground and began rubbing them together. The child told me the fire was hot. As a group (as a few other children had been drawn to what we were doing), we began searching the area for other twigs to add to the fire we were making, often talking about how long, short, fat or thin they were. This child collected the twigs and put them in their pocket, so they could keep track of them and free up their hands to pick up more twigs,.
This child was so happily engaged in this activity, it could have gone for some time and I was eagerly excited too, helping to support and explore their interest too.
Then, we got called inside for snack.
As the only member of staff in this small area, making sure all the children got inside before I went in myself, I saw something that made me sad as a human being but also as an Early Years Professional...I witnessed another member of staff, taking off this child's coat, noticing the twigs they had collected in their pocket and began telling them off. They threw the twigs they had so eagerly collected for their fire onto the floor. This child's face completely changed, gone was the happiness, the pride, the hope. It crushed me to witness this.
I don't know why I didn't say anything at the time. In hindsight, I probably should have.
After snack, we were back outside again but this child was no longer interested as much as I gently encouraged the topic. They drifted for the rest of the time I was outside, doing their own thing but nowhere near an engagement level they had only 15 minutes, previous.
I'm just, I'm annoyed even though this is not even close to how I'm feeling. One word isn't enough. A child brings something to you to explore, or you discover something in their pockets - Engage them! There is a reason! To them, it could be the greatest thing in the world, it could contain so many feelings, interests, ideas and so much more. Don't just throw it away. Imagination is so, so powerful!!
And as adults, so are we.
Today was my room’s turn to clean up the playground. I decided to try and get my kids excited about it and make it fun.
While they were at lunch, I hid our class bear and put the above “TOP SECRET” envelope on his desk. When we came in from lunch recess, the students found the envelope and begged me to open it right away, right now! So I opened it and took out a printed up letter from our bear, which read:
"Dear class, I have a very important mission for you! My whole bear family is coming for a visit this weekend, and they get SO MAD when they find litter on the ground. They want to have a picnic on our playground, but I went out to take a look at it and have you SEEN all the litter out there? I would be so embarrassed for my family to see our beautiful playground with so much trash everywhere!
Can you help me? I’ve been trying my best to clean up, but I’m just one little bear. I can’t even reach the garbage cans! Please, help me clean up the playground so my family will have a great time at our picnic! Thank you!”
The kids LOVED this. I got out the plastic gloves and garbage bags, and they attacked that playground! I didn’t catch one single kid goofing off or slacking, not for a second. They filled two garbage bags full of litter, and some of them got into scoping out the perfect spot for a teddy bear picnic (scouring those areas for trash). I actually had trouble getting them to stop, even when we couldn’t find anything else to pick up.
And then we came back inside, washed hands, and settled down for some silent reading…and I carefully snuck the bear back to his little desk with a big THANK YOU card I’d prepared in advance. It didn’t take long until someone noticed it, and then everyone had to see the card, and they were thrilled to read inside the card that the bear promised to write another letter on Monday, telling us how the picnic went!
I have been grinning ever since. It was so much fun, and I really needed that today. I heard several kids telling their parents all about it as they were picked up, too. It was a good way to end the week!
I LOVE THIS.
Nursery (0-2 years) ~ Exploring Shapes
"Good Job" Alternatives
Parents and teachers often say “good job” as an automatic response to a child’s action. “You ate all of your peas. Good job!” “You did a good job putting away the toys.”
A “good job” now and then is fine, but it doesn’t help children understand why what they did was good. Preschoolers need to know what they did, why it worked, or why it shows they are capable. Try the following suggestions to give preschoolers specific, detailed information that recognizes their achievements and encourages their learning.
Print/share PDF
Felt Making
I made some felt during a volunteer day and wondered what I could do with my finished product. In the end, as we were watching the leaves fall off some of the trees around school and we were making a display with a tree, the leaves gradually falling from the top of the tree to the ground (and later in the year, the tree re-growing its leaves), I would turn my creation into leaves and add them to our display!