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Prompt 8

From my search of #picturebooks, what I found most interesting was the way people use social media to advertise and promote their work. Rather than focusing on the actual types of books that I came across, my attention was drawn to the high amount of posts self-promoting, which I believe is a great thing, and why not try it?!

I found many posts promoting the releases of new picture books! Some of the ones I came across were called; ‘Little Bot and Sparrow’ and ‘Cowboy Car,’ and from judging of their front covers and pictures they seemed to be targeting a younger age group unassumingly prep to 2. Tumblr surprisingly must be a popular social platform curious parents and searching teachers must use. From this I have happily found that it is a new resource, alike pinterest, to find new ideas, activities and stories that I could use in my practice. 

Amongst the rest of posts from searching this hashtag, I found many posts of different artist’s/illustrator’s drafts and drawings. It can be perceived that artists use tumblr as their work book and drawing board to save all their ideas and at the same time gather feedback or praise for their work. It would be a great resume and resource to use to help find connections in your work domain for potential future employment. 

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Prompt 7

Create - Can you see a possible outcome for Thai-Rific! to become a successful restaurant over Wok N Roll by the ending of the book?

Evaluating - Do you think Albert has negative thoughts towards his family, culture and lifestyle? If so, do you think this is good or bad?

Analysing - Can you compare your own schooling and family experiences with Albert's to identify how they may be similar or different?

Applying - From the reading, can you apply and interpret Albert’s feelings to a similar experience you may have had in the past?

Comprehending - Can you write a brief paragraph in your own words explaining how Albert feels?

Knowledge and Remembering - Can you tell why Albert has a pessimistic attitude towards his own culture?

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Prompt 6

Discover the diversity of Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages  http://splash.abc.net.au/home#!/media/1916032/discover-the-diversity-of-australia-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-languages 

The song Marrin Gamu shows a diversity of Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander traditional languages. I could use this video in frontloading of a book to make students aware of important aspects of indigenous culture by highlighting the fact they not only speak another language but that there are actually multiple. It will allow for students to learn; that different languages are spoken within the community including from their classmates, understand that standard Australian English is a social dialect influenced by many languages and that there are many other forms of Australian dialect spoken in addition to this. Students could be shown this video to learn the importance of language in our country and it could be paired with getting the students to learn the words and their translation into English to find the meaning. Its a great activity to introduce students to a vital aspect of Indigenous culture for the beginning of a unit of work.

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Prompt 5

First sentence: A cold night, consisting of a hollow-silence, I had no strength as we had little food to eat that day and the thought was transparent that if I haven’t already died, it may be soon. 

Second sentence: With the remaining amounts of food on his plate, the man was transparent to the idea that so many people had died from starvation. A hollow atmosphere silenced the poverty-stricken world and meant many wouldn't make it through the cold nights because they had no strength left in them to survive. 

Other short frontloading activity: KWL chart - Three columns divided into: K-what you know, W-what you want to know, and L-what you learnt. Students are provided with a topic and are to brainstorm to fill in these columns. It allows students to reflect, consolidate and think of more questions that shows the classroom teacher a level of where their understanding is at and what progress has been achieved. 

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Prompt 4 -

My placement experience I thoroughly enjoyed and wish it didn’t have to end. I was placed back into the same prep class that I was in earlier in the year on request. I reconnected with the students almost immediately and developed a rapport with them again. Over the two weeks I got to teach a group at a time during literacy rotations, which were twice a week. In these sessions, as previously mentioned in prompt 2, I would read a fairy tale story to the group and then they would do a retell of the story. We focused on beginning, middle, and end, where students would divide their paper into three’s and draw or explain what happening in each section. The middle section emphasised the problem and the end section reflected how it was resolved. As the theme for the term was fairy tales – each week was a new book. The weeks I was there we got to read Three Billy Goats Gruff and Rumplestiltskin. The students loved this theme and every day we would have a different student bring in their own fairy tale book from home that they’d want us to read during the day. During eating times such as recess, lunch and fruit time we would read one of these books to them.

At this age when students are still learning to read properly, reading is still a task and there aren’t many students who choose to read on there own (only if they like opening a book to see the pictures) so particularly in this class it was hard to identify the types of books that interested the children. The books they’d take home in their readers were just based on a level, had a mix of genres, and were randomly given to a child regardless of their interests. Whilst I was there the prep teachers wanted to introduce dotted-lines writing paper to the preps. In a couple attempts there were 1 or 2 students in each class who could successful write on the lines and did so very well. Although, the rest of the class struggled and it didn’t help their writing in any way, shape or form. Along with talking to other teachers, I believe this should have been introduced later in the year such as term 4, or with the seahorse to show where the letters fit on the line at least.

Surprisingly I could find any recent nor decent photos of the school I went to on google, although I did find a photo of the school from the 70′s. The school now has many more buildings, portables, sheds and a large oval surrounding it.

Mentone Primary School, Childers Street, Mentone 1973. Image courtesy Leader Collection. (2017). [image] Available at: http://www.kingston.vic.gov.au/library/Library-Services/Local-History/Kingston-Historical-Walking-Trails/Mentone-Trail/Mentone-Primary-School [Accessed 16 Aug. 2017].

The following picture is of students playing a game of soccer on the oval, in the background is one of the playgrounds.

Students playing on the oval at Mentone Primary. (2017). [image] Available at: http://www.mentoneps.vic.edu.au/curriculum/extraCuricular.html [Accessed 16 Aug. 2017].

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Prompt 3 -

The chosen writing sample I found on google. I don’t know any background any information on the child that wrote it, but from my recent experience of being in a prep class room it looks familiar to someone at that level. The format of lines, hand writing, spelling, and sentence formation reflects that of a child in the early years or someone whose writing is equal of that. From analysing the writing, there are plenty of things the child can work on from all aspects of the 6+1 traits, although I’d focus on my first area of improvement to be conventions. I’ve chosen this area as it’s the basics, and first thing a student should correct before developing their writing in the aspects of sentence fluency, voice, word choice etc. The student can work on adding full stops to end of sentences. After that they should be taught to include exclamation points and question marks when necessary, and check for spelling mistakes.

Kindergarten: Writing Sample 5. (2017). [image] Available at: http://www.readingrockets.org/looking-at-writing/kindergarten-writing-sample-5 [Accessed 16 Aug. 2017].

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Prompt 2 -

This year on placement I was lucky enough to make a display for my prep class. The theme for the term was ‘Fairy-tales’ and each week they would read a new fairy tale story. At the end of each week students would pin on the display the characters, the setting, words they found interesting, and the problem from the story. This was a great way for students to visual consolidate what they had learnt from each story and understand the import aspects (characters, problem, setting, vocabulary). I do not have a photo of this display but it was set out neatly in columns with bright colourful pictures engaging for students. 

The post I decided to make relates to this theme of fairy tales and an actual activity the students did when I had them for literacy groups. The activity involved reading the students a fairy tale story and then they would do a retell (with the choice of drawing and/or writing). This is a poster that students could use to refer to when doing a retell as it can remind them of important aspects to include. The poster has pictures and colour, but not too much writing for preps because it could look messy/confusing/too much for them. 

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Prompt 1

Just like a lot of other children I’m sure, my favourite book was ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt” by Michael Rosen. As this was my all-time favourite, my fondest memory of being read to as a child was repeatedly being read this book. Even though I knew the story line like the back of my hand, the anticipation of it always had me requesting it to my mum and dad. Unfortunately for them, having an only child meant there wasn’t much other variety and I don’t think after years of reading it they will ever want to see the book again. Besides the point that this was my favourite story and fondest memory of being read too, these memories were rekindled when I returned back to placement at the start of the year. Of course I knew how popular the story is and that it’s still read to children today, but I got to see it being performed in a new way in front of a whole school at their assembly. Instead of reading the book, the teacher turned the story line into a song with clapping and hand movements for students to copy it. Besides being read it to, I’d never seen it being performed in any way and I found it so much fun! I was sitting with a smile on my face so thrilled by this new idea and watching all the students thoroughly enjoy it and copy it too. After seeing how successful it went it is definitely an idea that I would like to practice with my students one day if we were to read that book.   

We're going on a bear hunt. (2017). [image] Available at: http://happytotsnursery.co.uk/1979-2/ [Accessed 16 Aug. 2017].