In the blink of an eye, another week has flown by. This one was full of colour, coffee, art, kindness, coffee, positivity and fun. Did I already mention coffee?! Coffee and teachers go together like wine and cheese. Wine and teachers go together like milk and chocolate. Chocolate and teachers go together like sanitiser and teacher hands. I could go on all day but I'll have you know that teachers deserve all of the coffee, wine and chocolate in existence. If you have children, send them to school with some coffee, wine or chocolate for their teacher.
Week 2 was fun, albeit exhausting! Read ahead to see what I got up to in some of my classes….
A few highlights this week:
1. KABOOM. Such a simple game to prepare and run and the kids love it. All you need to do is write questions related to the subject on paddle pop sticks. You also need to choose a few paddle pop sticks to write KABOOM on. I did this for maths so my question were timestables. To run the game you walk around with all of the paddlepop sticks in a cup, and one at a time the students grab a stick out and answer the question. If they get it right they keep the stick, if they get it wrong or run out of time they put the stick back. If they draw a KABOOM they have to put all their sticks back. The winner is the student at the end of the game who has the most sticks. It’s fun to see their little outbursts when they get KABOOM!
2. SAINT ART LESSON. This was a fun lesson where the students were very engaged. The idea was for students to draw 9 basic outlines of a saint. They then had to do some research, and come up with 9 Saints and a symbol to represent them. For example if they chose Saint Valentine they could have hearts as the symbol, or if they chose St Patrick they could have clovers as their symbol. They had to plan out all of the saints on the back, and then on the front they had to draw their chosen symbols to depict their 9 chosen Saints. They did a great job. Here is some of their work at different stages:
3. KINDNESS AND POSITIVITY. I did this lesson twice this week. Once with my Year 7 Religion class and one with my homeroom class. All you have to do to prepare is get an A4 piece of paper and write every student in the class’s name in the middle of the page in a colourful pen. Before the students arrive in the class, put out all of the A4 pages and different colourful pens. The idea of the activity is for students to write positive and kind comments on each of their classmate’s pages. The rules were: write something positive, you can write something you like about the student, write something you’re thankful for or a great quality that they have. The aim is that at the end, when the students all get their own pages back, they should be happy reading all of the lovely comments.
Here are some examples, including mine:
4. COLLABORATIVE DISPLAY. This one was for my Year 8 Italian class. We are doing a unit about Italian brands and Italy’s contribution to Australia. They each got a letter or picture to decorate and we made a collaborative display which the students love.
5. PRESENTS FOR YEAR 12s. The Year 12 students only have a couple of weeks left. Each year we give them presents in our homeroom. I give them each a copy of “Oh, The Places You’ll Go” by Dr Seuss. All of the students in the group write in the book, and we include group photos throughout. Here is a sneak peak:
6. DOCUMENTARY: Sometimes on a Friday the teacher and the students need an activity that requires minimal brain power. This documentary was for my Year 7 Geography class where we are learning about liveability. It was eye-opening watching this program about Slums in India.
This was my week. It was really heart-warming to read all of the lovely things my classes wrote to me. I might not be great at everything in this world, but I do know I’m a good teacher and I put everything into making my classes a great place for my students. A place where they want to be, a place full of learning and fun. I am getting quite sad about leaving my current school. Not long now!
Next week I’m off campus at Professional Development sessions for two days, so next week will surely fly by also. I’m waiting eagerly for a phone call from my new school soon letting me know what grade I’ll be teaching. Hopefully by next blog I'll know that vital piece of information. I'm every so excited about finding out!!!!
COFFEE GALLERY
There is a Starbuck's drive-thru conveniently located three round-about from my school. I can't help it if I accidentally drive-thru it on the way to work on those days where I need a second coffee!
A big shout-out to my favourite appliance. Ever since I left home when I was 17 I've had a Sunbeam or Breville basic coffee machine. This is how I start every day at home.
It's interesting to observe, year after year, how adult's tolerance levels for other adults, and children are quite low in Term 4. I am a person who sticks to myself anyway, but it's always an eye-opener seeing/hearing some conversations between adults this time of the Term in the staffroom. This seems fitting lately:
Also, speaking of tolerance levels, Term 4 is not when the best behaviour comes out. The kids are exhausted, and they magically forget the rules. This made me laugh:
32 days left with my students. I'm definitely feeling more emotional this term than any other Term 4, knowing it's the end of an era for me at my current school. It's also a crappy week for me as it's the anniversary of the day my Mum passed away, and her birthday all in the one week, so lots of memories this week, and lots of emotions.
Thanks for reading this far :-) I am proud of myself that this is Blog Post 20. As I said, I've started a blog each of the 8 years I've been a teacher and this is the first year where I'm found success.
xoxo