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The picture book ‘Cloud Country’ by Bonny Becker 

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Prompt 8

ECL310 prompt 

Throughout my exploration after typing in #picturebooks, I discovered quite a few posts dedicated to the picture book ‘Cloud Country’ by Bonny Becker. Despite this book being published in 2015 by Disney Press, the beautifully crafted illustrations and simplistic storyline is shown to be a popular and well known book many people appreciate. After reading these posts, I become more intrigued to find out this book and ended up reading it. Thus, through my aimless scrolling, I stumbled upon a very interesting and unique picture book through the influence of reading people’s reviews and interpretations. This made me reflect on the value of sites like Tumblr and how they can be a great way to engage with students and their interests. 

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Prompt 7

ECL310 prompt 

Mind map critiquing the resource ‘Days in conflict 1914-1918 ~ Women’s War’ app: 

This app is an excellent resource to use for grade 5/6′s. The use of ICT that ranges from the use of iPads, laptops or even computers allows students to become even more engaged whether they’re in groups or just working individually. Through the wide range of media such as animations, dairies and factual descriptors; students are able to interact and learn on a deeper level about women during 1914-1918 and their role in the war. Not only is this app fun and creative; but it also helps students strengthen their investigation and inquiry skills through the design and layout of the app. 

Link to resource: http://education.abc.net.au/newsandarticles/blog/-/b/2956601/explore-the-extraordinary-stories-of-women-during-ww1 

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Prompt 6

ECL310 Prompt 

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ECL310 Prompt 5

Powerpoint Inferring activity: 

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Prompt 5

ECL310 Prompt 

Displayed on a powerpoint; students would be put into groups of five where they would be allocated one of the five questions to discuss and take notes as a group about the front cover of the picture book ‘Dust’. The teacher would then have each group read out their answers and the ideas they developed as a group. Other students in other groups would also be welcome to contribute their ideas about these questions. Thus, through the use of ICT, group and class discussion, this would allow students to interact and engage with these questions on a deeper level, prompting and expanding their interpretation of the book.

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My grade six class about to begin their individual summaries in their weekly Literacy class.

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Prompt 4

ECL310 Prompt

During my placement, I was put in a grade six class that was under the care of two teachers on different days of the week. This arrangement was very interesting as both teachers had different strategies and methods for carrying out lessons and this therefore changed the students’ attitude towards learning and completing tasks. Thus, through having two teachers, students seemed to be more engaged and involved then what I’d observed from my previous placements which just one teacher. Despite my initial beliefs that this arrangement would be tedious and difficult, both teachers constantly kept in contact with each other, filling each other in on what stage students were at and what needed to be addressed. Thus, I liked this arrangement and felt the students benefited from these alternative methods.

Something I didn’t like that could’ve been improved on during my placement was in relation to the reading and writing literacy lesson my grade six class would repeat each week. During this lesson, the teacher would read two chapters from the novel The Hatchet by Gary Paulsen and the class would sit on the floor and listen to the story. Thus, after this students’ would be advised to go back to their seats and write a short summary on the two chapters. Because this happened weekly through observation I felt the class wasn’t interpreting the novel as well as they could’ve been through doing the same activity each week. I believe giving students some interesting questions about the novel and its storyline would engage students more as they showed to just be copying information from the novel to summarise what happened rather then using their own knowledge.

Through my observation during placement, for this particular age group, popular classroom novels shown are The Hatchet, Wonder, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and Chinese Cinderella.

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ECL310 Prompt 3

My reflection on the current state of handwriting in schools today:

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Handmade poster display made by my grade six mentor teacher to help her student’s understand the purpose of an Apostrophe and how it should be used. 

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ECL310 Prompt 2

I made these two posters which were aimed for a grade five or six class to help students expand their vocabulary. I believe ‘said’ and ‘then’ are popular words many students overuse because they’re not sure what words they could use to substitute. Thus, through my own brainstorming I thought of many alternatives for these words which could be used for students’ writing, oral presentations or even just to expand their knowledge of the many words that could be used to replace ‘said’ and ‘then’ for general knowledge. 

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Sample page from the book Wombat Stew by Marcia Vaughan

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Prompt 1

ECL310 Prompt

One of my fondest memories I have of being read to was when I was in grade 3 and my teacher read us the book Wombat Stew by Marcia Vaughan. The class sat on the floor while my teacher would use a variety of different accents and tones to help us get a feel for the characters, storyline and the context. Through her passion and enthusiasm, she added humor and excitement to the story, keeping the class deeply engaged and eager to find out what would happen next. I loved this story because of the beautiful illustrations, the crazy storyline but most importantly because of the way my teacher read it and how she was able to transport me into the story to understand the character’s thoughts feelings and behaviours; as if I was actually there. After having a teacher with such animation, not only did it inspire me to want to become a better teacher, but it also sparked my love of reading at that age, despite never enjoying it beforehand.