Claire Keane
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art blog(derogatory)
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izzy's playlists!
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if i look back, i am lost
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"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
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@seveneighthssteps-blog
It’s the end of the school year and my kids are finally graduating to Elementary School! It’s a bittersweet and exciting time of the year so what could be more perfect for our morning storybook time than Willy the Dreamer, The Giving Tree and of course: Oh! The Places You’ll Go!
Digital Citizenship!
I strongly believe that as teachers our role is not just to prepare our kids for the next grade level up but to also prepare them for the big world outside of school. And in 2018 that means educating them on ways to stay safe online as early as possible. With that in mind, we just finished our unit on Media and Internet Literacy.
First, we learned about different genres of programmes we might watch on TV. Then we had a great discussion about advertisements and how to tell when a programme might be trying to sell something to you. We also had a talk about when it’s ok to copy things we see on TV and when it isn’t ok.
Then we learned about different kinds of technology and social media we can see around us in our everyday lives. I didn’t get a picture but we also played “splat the fly in the spiders web” where we had to “splat” the vocabulary flies stuck in Webster’s Spider-Web-site!
We finished our short unit with a lesson digital citizenship and how to stay safe online. We also learned a song about what to do when something goes wrong on the internet. It was a short unit, but it was really interesting to hear how technology and the internet is already such a big part of their lives!
There is a difference between understanding something and having the ability to explain it. That’s what teaching is - the ability to explain. And if you think it’s not an art, you should probably think a little harder about it.
Having fun isn’t hard when you’ve got a library card!
We’ve just finished up my favourite theme of the year: Literacy! I was taught at an early age that you’ve always got a friend when you’ve got a book, and it’s a lesson I try really hard to impart on all my students throughout the year. This year was the first year I have had the opportunity to teach this theme to a high-level class, so I decided to really push the boat out and after spending a few days going over the basic elements of a story, types of genre and how to do a 5 finger retell of a story, we had a go at writing our own stories!
First, we planned our main characters and setting. I had to write these all down and put it up on our bulletin board to a) stop students changing their mind about their story elements every other hour b) make sure that everyone was doing something different so that I wouldn’t be stuck marking 11 stories about unicorns.
Then we planned the main events for the story (every story had to have a problem and a solution of course!)
Then we went ahead with drafting and writing our stories! It was a lot of hard work, but I guess I must have made the task sound exciting enough because the kids absolutely threw themselves into the challenge and even my worst writers were able to produce over 2 pages of A4 writing. We also had a fun time creating our front covers for our stories. Featured are my two favorite stories: The Adventures of Stickman (who got into some trouble with a gardener digging up his home!) and The Secret Kimchi Planet (Kimchi Superman lives on a secret planet made of kimchi and makes a girl scientist fall in love with him via kimchi!)
After all that hard work we celebrated with an Icelandic style jólabókaflóð party. We made the classroom really cozy with fairy lights, blankets and pillows. Then everyone snuggled down with some cookies and a “reading buddy” (any stuffed toy from home) and shared their favorite books. It was lovely to overhear even my most reluctant readers have animated discussions about why certain genres and characters were better than others and discovering new books to try! We also took home these fab bookmarks I made with the help of a printer, some ribbon and a laminator to celebrate how we are all expert readers!
It’s Christmas time! I really wanted to do an advent calendar with my students but the idea of an entire month with 13 sugar fueled children did not appeal to me at all. So instead I came up with this easy advent calendar, courtesy of some shiny paper, glitter pens, ribbon and number clips. Each day has either a joke on it or a small classroom treat like watching a short video, extra time at playtime or playing a game. It’s only December 4 but so far they really seem to look forward to finding out what each day will be!
It snowed today! Luckily we were just finishing up our unit on weather so we celebrated with an impromptu science experiment to see how much water is in snow. We filled a jar with fresh snow from the garden and then estimated what the water level would be when it melted. I promised a sticker to the person who could make the closest guess and so as you can imagine the jar was watched very closely throughout the day! We also made weather vanes in science class after discussing the different tools meteorologists use to predict the weather. It was a great way to end the unit and the week!
We made this friendship quilt as part of our Friends and Feelings theme a few months ago. It now has a place of pride on the wall and it’s a great conversation starter whenever some unkind behaviour is happening during play time.
We’re learning about the water cycle as part of our Extreme Weather unit, so I got a ziplock bag to tape to the window and decorated it so that they can see the water cycle in action in our classroom. I also got to teach a super fun (and very TPR friendly!) dance and chant about how the water cycle changes.
I absolutely LOVE this mini dry erase board. I keep it on my desk in the classroom, and it’s the very first thing the kids check every morning. We also read it aloud together during morning circle time. It’s such a great way to focus everyone’s mind first thing and throughout the day on our learning focus and behavioural focus. It’s also a great place to leave little cute notes for special days like birthdays or holidays.
Tricks of the Trade
I teach a higher ability class in a culture where parents are insanely pushy about ensuring that their child becomes the next Nobel prize winner/ Einstein/ poet laureate etc. etc. That means that as much as I try to make each class fun, it can sometimes be a struggle to balance keeping the kids engaged with the learning process and the parents expectations (which are candidly far above the kids development stage or educational ability- I teach K2- America or Year 1- UK but I’m often pushed into delivering lessons more suited for 2nd grade- America or Year 3-UK) .
At the beginning of the year when I first switched from the beginner class to the higher level class I was tearing my hair out trying to work out how to keep the energy levels up when we were stuck doing textbook work all day. Then I discovered my Wiggle Jar. It’s a really simple concept. I got a big yoghurt container and decorated it accordingly (I was tempted to make it really pop, but I was worried about what Admin would say!- turns out they loved it but that’s another story!) then I got a batch of disposable wooden forks and spoons. On each side is an activity that they can choose when they’ve been working really hard and need a break. I let the kids have the choice, but I have sneakily coded them to ensure that I have some control over what happens. Spoons are my calming activities and forks are my energizing activities. I also have a Go Noodle choice for each fork or spoon, as my kids LOVE Go Noodle and sometimes prefer to follow a video rather than play a game. It’s ended up being a HUGE success and it’s definitely something that I intend to replicate in all my classrooms from now on.
How do you spell...?
I teach ESL kids in Kindergarten (KS1 in the UK). They might be the higher ability class but their primary language and alphabet are still miles away from English, which means that spelling and phonics can be a real struggle at times.
To help them along I introduced a new spelling centre in the classroom so that they can practice their spelling in a fun way whenever they have downtime during the day. I have flashcards for our spelling words and sight words, which are kept on these great plastic rings (thank you Daiso!) to keep them sorted by week and theme.
I also have mini dry erase boards to help them practice writing and rewriting the words (I keep two at the centre and they use them to test each other to race to see who can write the words fastest!). I also keep two magnifying glasses in the centre because for some reason reading is a lot more fun when you’re doing it through a magnifying glass!
The real pièce de résistance of the spelling centres is our mini word blocks. My local supermarket was doing a great sale on assorted mini tubs of Lego, so I snapped one up and decorated the short ones with individual letters and the longer ones with common letter blends. The kids LOVE building spelling words with the blocks. (Excuse the smudged lettering, they’ve been playing with them A LOT this year and I haven’t gotten around to touching them up yet!)
We also hold regular spelling bees. Our curriculum is split into 2-week themes on a topic of our choice and our spelling words are always connected to the theme. So I now hold 2 spelling bees- a dry run in the first week and the “real” spelling bee the following week. It’s a great way for the kids to check in with what words they already know and what words need work before the following week. It’s also a great confidence booster for the more uncertain spellers, as they’re able to see how their marks have grown and improved over the two weeks.
It’s Fall!
One of my favorite times of the year is finally here! Whether you call it Fall or Autumn (my school teaches American English so it is exclusively Fall whether I like it or not!) we can all agree that it is one of the most beautiful times of the year. From the explosion of color on the trees to the crisp feel of an Autumn morning- Fall is definitely a season worth celebrating!
In my classroom, we’ve gone all out this year. We’re lucky enough that our school backs on to a very small forest/mountain so we are able to go on nature walks every other week to observe how nature changes throughout the year.
We started by having a circle time discussion about the changes we’ve already observed so far around us. We have just been learning about the environment and recycling, and our discussion raised some really interesting points about environmentalism and how we need to protect the earth. Then we went on a nature walk and had a mini-tea party in the forest, drinking hot lemon and honey tea and using leaves that we found on the walk up as coasters. I really wish I was able to get some pictures of this because it was incredibly cute!
We collected some more leaves on the way back to the classroom and made some art for the classroom. Following on from our chat about climate change and littering, we decorated a paper frame with our pledge to protect the earth and put a beautiful leaf in the middle. Then we chose some leaves that we thought were interestingly shaped or colored and tried to make pictures with them. They ended up being really beautiful, and I can’t wait to find space for them in the classroom!
Daily mantras. I might achieve my goal next year, it might take a little longer. It doesn’t matter when I start on this path, what matters I start the journey at all.
Have goals, but write in pencil.
My Professor (via chrisruetten)
In 2020 I plan to claim NQTS or at least be well on the way to doing so. Let’s get to work.
Today is the first step of a long journey.
