Dot painted lizard magnet Purchased from Marra Dreaming

I am a firm believer that anything on the wall in a classroom needs to be useful - and shouldn't be there unless it has a purpose and the students are aware of what that is.

For instance, you can purchase a set of fantastic anchor charts and put them on the wall before the school year starts - but if you never teach about them or use them - they are just taking up valuable space. Plus, anchor charts are best created as a class in my opinion anyway.

But (and don't you love how there are always exceptions?) what about the awkward corner that is difficult to get to - where writing can't be seen and you honestly don't want to get up on the ladder too often to put something up?

Being a NIT (Non-Instructional Time / Non-Contact) teacher can be hard work. On one hand you usually get to plan only a few units because you get to teach it over and over again with anywhere from 2-5 classes who are the same grade. Yes, there are some advantages to being a NIT teacher (as I was in my first year after graduating) but there are some downsides, too. The biggest is behaviour.

The odd thing about students and their behaviour choices is that you will get students who behave well for their classroom teacher and are a monster for you. Then there are the students who behave with you but are a monster for their classroom teacher. Is there any pattern? Not really - I found it random.

So what do you do when faced with students (especially in junior primary) who may hit, bite, spit, pinch, do somersaults, scream, run-around the classroom, not to mention not do as they are told? The best thing I did was create a seating arrangement system. This way I could minimise interactions with certain students and it made relief teachers smile as they knew where they should all sit. Now you are probably wondering how to manage several classes from one system which everyone can see. This is what I came up with.

So I posted a book review of Danny Katz's book A Little Election. Lots of you liked and and emailed asking what activities I did with the book - so I have worked hard to polish up my flipbook so you can get your class as interested in this topic as mine were.

This book is written for an Aussie audience but to be honest it could be used in any country that elects a Prime Minister through a democratic vote for a political party.

This flipbook activity is best done at the start of the year. Most Aussie school who have SRC reps will elect them sometime in the first two weeks of school. I usually complete this activity towards the end of week 1/beginning of week 2 to give them time to get to know each other and finish off the activities.

Now, let's get to the good stuff!

Here is another great activity to set up at the start of the year. The start is the best as then *hopefully* what the students have learnt will be carried through the year!

Song: Nobody's Child
Artist: Karen Young
Year: 1969
Nationality: British

Classification: Narrative
Theme: orphan, blind