Term 3 Reflection

Term 3 has been interesting.

After we were at the Marae I decided to take a few of the things that we discussed and try them in my classroom. Some were great - mixed ability group activities combined with independent activities for when they are not in a group with me. Others didn't work so well - but I can say I tried and that they didn't fit my class.

I am beginning to see more progress in the class around restorative practice. My class are familiar with circle time both as an interactive learning time and a place to solve problems. We have been working through Stop Think Do and are becoming more aware of other ways to solve problems.

This term has been a difficult term for me personally but I have worked hard to leave it at the door and give my class the best of me as that is what they need and deserve.

I am looking forward to starting next term fresh with some new approaches to planning, teaching and assessment. Bring on Term 4!

Reassurance

11 weeks into Term 1 I can honestly say I have had a lot of times where I haven't felt like I have achieved much with my class so it was reassuring to hear today from another teacher that my class has come a long way.

We have worked hard on social skills and the way that we should behave at school. And while I didn't think that there had been much improvement after hearing it from someone else it made it easier for me to step back and reflect on how much has changed.

As a result I am going to work on my own reflection practices and focus more on the little achievements that we have made as a class rather than waiting for perfection. I feel that looking at it this way will make me more positive and confident in what I am doing and that will then impact on the overall environment of the classroom.

2013...

I am really excited to be starting the year off with a great group of children! I have a really mixed bunch and am looking forward to the challenges and learning that we are going to have together.

Last year I enjoyed learning about the bucket of happiness and sharing it with my class. I really wanted to start right from the beginning with this new group of children and so far they are being very responsive to it. Bucket filling is all around my room and I am giving "warm fuzzies" to children to put in their own buckets when I see them filling another persons bucket.

I am looking forward to including a lot of ICT into the programme this year and we are starting off well with 80% already knowing how to correctly log into the computer. This year I am looking forward to exploring new programmes with my class on the computers. We are also using our interactive whiteboard a lot especially during whole class maths, writing and circle time. I am looking forward to learning more ways I can use it with groups while also keeping the rest of the class on task and not just watching what is going on!

E-Learning Reflection

This year has been a huge learning journey for me with e-learning. I have come from a school where there were data projectors in the classrooms which was great for sharing with the children but didn't really give them the opportunity to interact with the learning. I have found having the interactive whiteboard in the class made an amazing difference. The children are able to manipulate and interact with the chosen learning such as creating patterns using interwrite for maths.

I have also found the class blog to be a valuable resource for sharing what we have been learning as a class. I would like to push this more as a tool for parents and whanau next year as I didn't feel that there were a lot of visits from them on this years blog. My blog has been a bit weak this year! I would like to make a more conscious effort next year to make regular posts on different things that I am trialing in my classroom and theories or ideas that I am keen to try.

I am looking forward to 2013 and am keen to spend some time in the holiday break finding new things and programmes to share and use with my class.

Have you filled a bucket today?

I have just introduced the Bucket of Happiness to my class as a way to get them to understand that their actions have an impact on other people. So far it has been amazing!

I read the book "Fill a Bucket" to my class and we discussed it as we went. After the book I put my bucket in front of them and we talked about all the things that people do to make us happy and fill our buckets. Then we talked about the things that people do that might take some of our happiness away. Each time they came up with an idea I took some happiness (foam shapes) out. Once the bucket was empty we talked about how a person with an empty bucket would feel. We have done a lot of work on personal feelings and they were able to articulate the sadness really well. We then set to work filling the bucket up again with the children giving me ways they could fill the bucket and then placing the happiness back in the bucket. It was a fantastic introduction to the bucket and the class responded really well to having the visual aid of a real bucket there while also understanding that the bucket is actually imaginary.

During the day when something bad happened I took some of the happiness out. The children responded to this by then doing little things to help me put the happiness in bit by bit. They also started using the terminology themselves by telling me that someone was emptying their bucket. The focus is currently on emptying not filling so I will go further with them by talking to them about using their lids - not letting little things people do take our happiness away.

At the end of the day I asked the question - Have you filled a bucket today?

A few of the children were not sure if they had filled a bucket and I was really impressed to see other children speak up and tell them that they helped fill their bucket  by playing with them.

I am really looking forward to continuing with this concept with the class and seeing where we end up!

If you want more information on Bucket Filling check out http://www.bucketfillers101.com/

Interwrite

We have been using interwrite in Room 4 a lot more since the staff meeting and since I got gallery. I have started using it as our morning calendar where we discuss the day, date, next day and put a picture of what the weather is like. The children are enjoying this and especially like crossing off the days we have already had.

I'm also using the whiteboard for our maths warm ups. At the moment we are looking at subtraction and putting the objects up on  the whiteboard then imaging the answer is working really well especially because we can cross the objects to check our answer quickly (it also means I don't have to keep drawing things like I did on the normal whiteboard). I would like to have the whiteboard set up for group activities during maths as well.

I am really enjoying using the whiteboard more frequently and for more things and I look forward to learning and trying different ideas.

Term 3

Term 2 was an awesome start to my time at Vardon. My class and I completed our goals for ICT including some awesome photos taken by the children using the digital cameras. We were also really lucky because we got our touch screen interactive whiteboard part way through the term and 2 netbooks at the end of the term.

ICT is going to feature even more in Term 3 thanks to our latest additions. I'm looking forward to using the tools we have to keep track of what is going on in the Olympics and to inhance our learning in other areas. I am always on the look out for great sites for Year 1 children particularly for literacy and numeracy so if anyone finds any feel free to pass them on. We will be continuing our class blog and our goal will be to get a new post up every week. I am also going to remember to post on my blog more often!

I am also really excited after my meeting today about the Schoolgen programme. I am looking forward to getting together with the Solar Stars group and seeing what changes we could make in the school to save more power and how they can help educate other children with power saving tips. Look out for us in an assembly soon.