My school year started the last week of the holidays, with a trip to Wellington to the International Thinking Conference with 6 other teachers from our school. What a fantastic experience! I enjoyed every moment of the conference and learnt something from every presenter I went to. We heard from some amazing great ‘thinkers’ such as Michael Pohl and Edward Debono and gained much, not only from listening to them but also from talking and discussing what we heard from with each other. We’ve come back to school with so many ideas to implement and to share with the rest of the staff. One of the most important things that I got out of the whole thing is that teachers need to have a balance between school and leisure time. Because if you spend all your time working and don’t have that balance; then you can’t be at your best, relaxed and happy for your students. Makes total sense, so a goal for this year is to ensure I spent my down time on the things that really matter and make a difference for my students learning. I look forward to implementing and starting this goal tomorrow on Waitangi Day! Great having a Wednesday off during the term!
Tuesday, 5 February 2013
Welcome to 2013!
Hello and welcome to a new school year for 2013, we've got an exciting year planned so it's great to get stuck in and started!
My school year started the last week of the holidays, with a trip to Wellington to the International Thinking Conference with 6 other teachers from our school. What a fantastic experience! I enjoyed every moment of the conference and learnt something from every presenter I went to. We heard from some amazing great ‘thinkers’ such as Michael Pohl and Edward Debono and gained much, not only from listening to them but also from talking and discussing what we heard from with each other. We’ve come back to school with so many ideas to implement and to share with the rest of the staff. One of the most important things that I got out of the whole thing is that teachers need to have a balance between school and leisure time. Because if you spend all your time working and don’t have that balance; then you can’t be at your best, relaxed and happy for your students. Makes total sense, so a goal for this year is to ensure I spent my down time on the things that really matter and make a difference for my students learning. I look forward to implementing and starting this goal tomorrow on Waitangi Day! Great having a Wednesday off during the term!
My school year started the last week of the holidays, with a trip to Wellington to the International Thinking Conference with 6 other teachers from our school. What a fantastic experience! I enjoyed every moment of the conference and learnt something from every presenter I went to. We heard from some amazing great ‘thinkers’ such as Michael Pohl and Edward Debono and gained much, not only from listening to them but also from talking and discussing what we heard from with each other. We’ve come back to school with so many ideas to implement and to share with the rest of the staff. One of the most important things that I got out of the whole thing is that teachers need to have a balance between school and leisure time. Because if you spend all your time working and don’t have that balance; then you can’t be at your best, relaxed and happy for your students. Makes total sense, so a goal for this year is to ensure I spent my down time on the things that really matter and make a difference for my students learning. I look forward to implementing and starting this goal tomorrow on Waitangi Day! Great having a Wednesday off during the term!
Tuesday, 4 December 2012
End of Year Reflection
Wow! Can you believe it's December already!!! What a year it’s been. In reflection of my ICT journey this year, i believe that i am much more confident with the ICT technology that i have and feel more confident in getting students using this technology to show their learning and to celebrate their successes. I also have more confidence in begin able to help students if something goes wrong on their blogs – i.e. a post isn’t loading or they have lost their work – whereas last year i would have been suck on how to help them find their work again. I have found i am also instantly planning for ICT things within my planning programmes.
Goals for next year:
Use the interactive whiteboard more effectively for learning
Learn and use more programmes and apps to showcase students learning on their blogs
Incorporate the ipod/ipad technology into my planning and learning programmes
Goals for next year:
Use the interactive whiteboard more effectively for learning
Learn and use more programmes and apps to showcase students learning on their blogs
Incorporate the ipod/ipad technology into my planning and learning programmes
Tuesday, 21 August 2012
Tutpup
Just a quick post today to share this cool website i found for children to practise maths, reading and spelling called tutpup! Free to sign up and works kind of like study ladder. All students have their own log in and play the challenges to practise various learning goals. Totally awesome! Give it a wirl!
Wednesday, 15 August 2012
Restorative Community Circle
Got a whole bunch of warm fuzzies today! We had a community circle today, to discuss an issue between two students, which fitting in perfectly with
With our current focus in community circle about how two people can feel two completely different emotions towards something that has happened. We had two year6 students in our class who went for production parts and only one of them was successful in getting a part. Of course the other students was extremely disappointed, and then during a learning task the two girls came out had a disagreement, which led to unfriendly words being spoken and both girls becoming upset. The girls had some time apart during lunchtime and then fixed the relationship independently, but were very happy to discuss the situation during our circle time and explain that one student was jealous of the other for getting a part and the other was just so excited about getting the part that they didn’t consider the other student’s feelings.
It was great because the girls were so articulate about how they felt, it really highlighted the message that during situations people can feel very different emotions and we need to consider and be considerate of other people’s feelings. We also discussed how even though harm has been done, we are able to fix this harm and move on from it. Was so proud of the girls for leading the circle and this discussion and also the rest of the class as they were so patient while they listen and learnt from the girls discussion.
Tuesday, 31 July 2012
Term 3 focuses and goals
Back again, it's been awhile! Things just get so hectic and I haven't had a chance to sit down and really reflect and record. Looking forward to the term ahead, am getting a little panicky at how much there is on this term and how much i have to get through this term! So reflecting on this and thinking about what happened last term i have decided to really step back a bit on my expectations on how much the kids can do and how much i expect of myself also. I need to remember that it’s important that the kids produce quality learning rather than a huge quantity of work. I think in some areas i’m remembering to slow down and let the kids explore and take their time – for example the kowhai art that we have just completed, i gave my class time to explore working with the pastels and spend time shading and experiment, and before they did their good copy. The result being that each child created a fantastic piece.
I need to remember how successful this was in other subject areas, such as writing for example. Last week i really rushed though a lesson that was supposed to be fun, and that i thought the kids would enjoy. I had to rush because due to one thing or another, my writing instruction time was only 30 minutes long. Instead of breaking it over two weeks i rushed to finish it in the 30 minutes, resulting with the children not producing very good quality writing and myself feeling disappointed in the result.
So for this term i really focus on taking time with my lessons, and not to rush through the learning tasks because we have to go to production practise or cross country training etc.
I need to remember how successful this was in other subject areas, such as writing for example. Last week i really rushed though a lesson that was supposed to be fun, and that i thought the kids would enjoy. I had to rush because due to one thing or another, my writing instruction time was only 30 minutes long. Instead of breaking it over two weeks i rushed to finish it in the 30 minutes, resulting with the children not producing very good quality writing and myself feeling disappointed in the result.
So for this term i really focus on taking time with my lessons, and not to rush through the learning tasks because we have to go to production practise or cross country training etc.
Tuesday, 24 April 2012
E-learning goals for Term 2
Welcome to Term 2, and what a way to start with ANZAC Day and a day off on Wednesday!
My e-learning goals for this term are:
Teach my students how to record more better quality video
use my new netbooks effectively within my classroom programme
discover and use more effective interactive learning games to reinforce classroom learning topics.
Lets get started!
My e-learning goals for this term are:
Teach my students how to record more better quality video
use my new netbooks effectively within my classroom programme
discover and use more effective interactive learning games to reinforce classroom learning topics.
Lets get started!
Tuesday, 27 March 2012
New Learning
just thought id share something i found that is a really way for children to show learning on a subject or topic. This is a hitch hike on something room 14 saw when we went to visit our room 2 buddies.
It's using photopeach which i know that many of you use anyway, but there is a part where you can add questions that come accross during your photo slide show. the viewer can then choose from a selection of multi-choiced the answers, making it an interactive task for the viewer. Im going to use this so i can see what my students have learnt about how a dam works, rather than do a pen and paper post test.
if you'd like to see an example of this, check out room 14's blog!
It's using photopeach which i know that many of you use anyway, but there is a part where you can add questions that come accross during your photo slide show. the viewer can then choose from a selection of multi-choiced the answers, making it an interactive task for the viewer. Im going to use this so i can see what my students have learnt about how a dam works, rather than do a pen and paper post test.
if you'd like to see an example of this, check out room 14's blog!
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