Self Reflection

This is a new concept that I started to implement in my classroom after hearing about a similar idea at a professional development session, which referred to Keep Doing, Stop Doing.

It works as a form of personal reflection for the students, allowing them to reflect on what they are doing and whether it is productive (keep doing) or unproductive (stop doing). I included the 'Start Doing' after seeing it talked about on some other non-education websites. I loved the idea of it because it meant that students can continually reflect on what more they can do and gives those that had a lot of 'Stop Doing' responses the chance to set some goals to improve.

To start with I had the words up on my SmartBoard. I created a poster the other day (see below) which I'm thinking I will be able to either simply point to or hold up after the students have had a bit more practice with it. Just saying the words also proved to be effective. The first few times I did it, the students wanted to share their responses which was great. As they become more familiar with it, however, it will be used more as a quiet moment for personal reflection.

I was amazed at how effective something as simple as this could be!

The background I used for the poster came from a great store I found on http://www.teachersnotebook.com/. You can find it here: http://www.teachersnotebook.com/shop/Ms.Talley/.

Praise and Home Contact

Can't sleep at the moment so I'm just blogging away!
These are one of the easiest and best things that I have used in my classroom!
One of the things that I struggled with most last year was maintaining continual contact with home.
These provided a consistent form of communication with parents.
When students reached the top of my clip chart and now a certain number of points on the Class Dojo, they take one of these home with them.
They outline that their child followed the three school rules of being safe, being respectful and being a learner.
I have a document of these with four different praise words and just print four to a page using different coloured paper. Easiest thing to make but the kids just adore getting them!

Class Dojo

I have tried several different behaviour systems in my classrooms. I have two favourites. One is the amazing clip chart, which I adore! I started out with one from the lovely Clutter Free Classroom and then progressed to using another rock star one (which I can't for the life of me find a link for but I will search for it!).

I was then introduced to Class Dojo by one of the other teachers at our school and I absolutely adore it! If you haven't seen it, then go and have a look! My school is very heavily invested in improving the meaningful use of ICTs and this is one way to do it! The kids absolutely love it because they can check themselves in each day and they love to see their points accumulating. The small 'ding' sound effect is perfect for proximal phrase because as soon as they hear it they all sit up straight and immediately fall silent. Love, love, love!

This is not to mention the fabulous reports that are developed! Perfect record of a child's behaviour - such a helpful tool when writing behaviour comments on report cards!

Blog help!

Hello there!

If there are any bloggers out there that can help me out, how do I make my posts go on other pages?
They all immediately post to my home page and I can't figure out how to get them to show up on the other pages.

Ta!

I'm not messy, I'm creative!

As the title actually infers, I am a messy person! Organised chaos! Anyway, little running joke between my teaching partner and I - at the start of the year she would not let me leave the classroom until my desk was tidy (last year it was nicely hidden away in a separate room so it was a hidden disaster, this year it's out for the world to see!). As the year progressed the desk slowly got messier and messier. Finally (most likely due to procrastination - it's report card time) I decided it was at a drastic stage, so....I cleaned it. Attacked it is probably a better use of words - seeing as it took 2 hours! Totally worth it though as this was the final result!

So proud! Plus, one day later it is still clean...for me, that's a record!

First Blog Ever!

Hello bloggers!

Just starting out on this blogging adventure. After about a year and a half of teaching (and some major learning) I thought that I would start to share some of my fabulous adventures - I've learnt so much since starting - from fabulous colleagues, literature, blogs!
I starting teaching last year, straight after graduating (actually a few weeks before officially graduating) half way through the school year in a Year 5 class. This year (my first full year as a teacher and the year that I became an fully registered teacher) I have had a lovely 5/6 class. Big fan of the upper years of Primary school - love the curriculum, love the conversations, love, love, love!
I have a real passion for literacy and am constantly on the look out for the most effective programs around! Particularly focussed on expanding vocabulary and making connections between reading and writing.
I have come a long way in regards to Maths teaching - this is something that I lacked a lot of confidence in, probably due to the lack of confidence I had in Maths all through school. My school has some wonderful Maths teachers and programs that have really helped me enjoy teaching Maths.
I've always been a creative and crafty person, so I love experimenting with different displays and designs in my classroom - although, at the moment, no particular theme running but with only 4 weeks of school left I figure I will just wait until next year and then go all out!
I'm going to try to share some of the things that I am doing (the good ones anyway!) and give links to some of the other fabulous blogs that I've been reading.

Thanks for visiting my blog and joining in on my learning and teaching adventures!

Hannie - Cheerful and Chirpy!