Clock, Clock...Tick Tock

I've finally gotten around to adding to my post last year about digital clocks.

Telling the time is such a fun time for students but it is also important that they learn this life-long skill. We use time in our everyday lives to tell us when to get up, when to be at appointments and when to meet for a party!

What Are We Doing Next?

While "Are we there yet?" is popular on road trips it is nothing compared with twenty-five students all asking at different times: "What's next?", "Do we have an assembly today?" or "When's math?" - okay so maybe not the last!

For me it was one of the most irritating parts of my student teaching days as none (no, not one) of my mentor teachers had anything in the classroom that showed what they were doing that day. One of the first things I therefore sat down to look at was how I wanted to organise my day and how to communicate that to my class.

Summer Swimming Fun

As most teachers have headed back to school for the past two days for week 0 to prepare for their first week I have been thinking about all the things that seem to happen in those first few weeks. Sometimes those things are quite unexpected.

In my first year teaching in a class of my very own I had it sprung on me that they would be going swimming in week 2 - that gave me one week to get the forms out and back with payment - absolute nightmare for myself and parents. The other thing I detested was just how useless that week became - the kids went at recess, got back after lunch...and were exhausted. What is a teacher to do?

Alliteration Archetypes

I love alliteration! I can still remember when I was about seven years old that I first heard Peter Piper

David!

The David books are funny, witty and engaging. I first started using No, David! a couple of years ago after it was a recommended text to use in the Writing Through the Year: Unit 1 by Deedee Wills and Deanna Jump.

My students were instantly charmed by No, David! and begged for more. Initially I purchased the 5 year-old-ish ones and then the Diaper David series.

There isn't a lot of text in these books but words are really necessary, in fact it there were no text I think children could easily tell the story in their own words. These books are a great way of engaging students - in particular boys who are not usually a big fan of books. I also found students I taught that had delayed cognitive function and students who were learning English as a second language also enjoyed the story.

These books were probably the most read that I had in my classroom library when I taught a grade 1/2 composite class.

Book Reviews

You might be noticing that my blog looks a little different....it only took six hours to get it right! It was a learning curve though!

Why book reviews? I am always on the look out for good, tried and tested books to use in the classroom and sometimes they are difficult to find. There are so many reviews out there by so many people...and sometimes it is just overwhelming! Having written that, you need to keep in mind that these are my opinions and are based on my own experiences - what works for me might not always work for you!

Here's to having some fun though - I would welcome your comments about whether you agree with my review or perhaps have a different recommendation.

The World Around Us

For the past two years I have been a big fan of the Postcrossing site. It is free to join and you send postcards to random people in the world and likewise receive postcards from other random people. For the cost of a postcard and a stamp I found this to be a very rewarding activity for a couple of reasons.