ecl310emmar

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Prompt 8

#picturebooks

Interesting things I found -

http://wordlesspicturebooks-blog.tumblr.com/ I never knew there were so many wordless picture books! This blog is a great collection of a variety of wordless picture books, with incredibly useful information on how to utilise them in the classroom.  I think this type of text is important to explore in primary education as it is not only engaging for students, but provides them with opportunities to build a number of literacy and social/communication skills that are crucial to further development.

http://blog.picturebookmakers.com/ This tumblr highlights a number of talented picture book makers around the world. It provides a context for their work and discusses the author/illustrator’s  creative processes, their intent, meaning and purpose. It’s so interesting to read about any of these artists - I pick one to read about whenever I am scrolling through tumblr and always find myself doing further research into their picture books!

http://imageblock.tumblr.com/ This tumblr showcases the work of Noah Klocek, an illustrator and storyteller. These images are beautiful! They are so imaginative, expressive and emotive, each telling a story of it’s own. As soon as I found this blog I immediately began researching this artist and his work, which is very inspiring! 

Researching #picturebooks has proved to be such a great way to find resources for the classroom! An endless supply of great resources to use  in literacy studies...

[ecl310emmar]

Prompt 7

Bloom’s Taxonomy

CREATE -  If you were the main character, how would you react to the new sign?

EVALUATING - Would you be friends with Albert? Why/why not?

ANALYSING - Does Albert like his parent’s restaurant? How do you know?

APPLYING - Can you think of a character like Albert in another book?

COMPREHENDING/UNDERSTANDING - What does the author mean by “The sign’s screaming at me...”?

KNOWLEDGE AND REMEMBERING - Where is the book Thai-riffic! set?

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Prompt 6

The video I chose to watch is ‘Learn to count in Kaurna!’ (link below)

http://splash.abc.net.au/home#!/media/2007357/learn-to-count-in-kaurna

I would use this video as a front-loading activity for multiple Indigenous books and units. You could challenge students to learn how to count 1-10 as quickly as possible, or task them with making a poster to teach others.

 I believe students will be engaged and excited to experience the selected text after watching this video as they might get an opportunity to use what they’ve just learnt in a different language.

This video can stem into so many other activities and subjects - maths, english, history, geography, art, and so much more!

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Prompt 5

#1 Wordle sentence: They ate their food in silence, whilst the night died away into morning...the empty, transparent wrapping that seemingly had no strength, formed a hollow shell on the cold, hard table.

#2 Food sentence: The world has shut its ears and moved on. Seemingly forgotten by the world as they were shuffled to the bottom of the pile.

#3 Front-loading activity: Whilst planning our second assignment for ECL310, I came up with a front-loading activity that involves creating a short quiz/interview that includes themes, opinions and ideas that are expressed in the text, for students to fill out. It could include a variety of question types - short answer, multiple choice, rating on a scale, drawing, etc.  You can use this as a diagnostic assessment to determine student’s capabilities/knowledge/interest before reading the text. Could also ask students to reflect on this task at the end of the unit!

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Prompt #4

Reflection on my recent teaching rounds.

Honestly this has been the most meaningful and inspirational time on placement I have had. Being a teacher finally ‘clicked’ in my head whilst I have been at this school, and my mentors have been so supportive, informative and inspirational. Luckily for me, I was placed with the loveliest grade 5/6 class (my first time in the senior school ever!), and every student was happy to be at school with a keen interest in learning! This I believe was a clear reflection on the school staff, and particularly their classroom teacher. The school is a STEAM school, so whilst I was there I got to explore science classes, robots, coding, cross-curricular projects but best of all...my class taught me how to use a 3D printer! The school also uses Google Drive for nearly everything! The whole school community can communicate with one another, teachers collaborate and share their resources, plans and lessons, and students can access classroom materials. It was fantastic!

During my first rounds at the school earlier in the year, I was with a 1/2 class who’s classroom teacher instilled in me the value of mindfulness. I introduced a short daily meditation each morning with my 5/6 class and the results were instantly visible! Students completed a ‘Daily Check-In’ using a Google Form, and the results would come up instantly on the teachers laptop. Before we started our mindfulness practise, each morning the students were ‘tired’ or ‘hungry’ or simply ‘ok’, after meditating in the morning the students said they felt refreshed, and ready for learning! 

My time at this school has made an invaluable impact on myself and my teaching, and I am incredibly thankful for my experiences here. I now volunteer at the school once a week with the grade 1/2 class I had placement with, and every now and again pop in to see the grade 5/6′s - who are all still happy to be at school!

To say goodbye to the class, I created a Kahoot quiz with 25 questions about things that happened during my two weeks at the school (athletics day, STEAM carnival, 3D printing, etc!) and the topics the students were learning about. I have attached a picture of my leaving gift from the grade 5/6 class - origami boats (I had taught them how to make these  during a morning meditation), and a big card! 

PS. The kids are reading Stormbreaker - by Anthony Horowitz. I remember reading this book in primary school myself and was drawn in completely! Couldn’t wait to find out what happens to Alex Rider!

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Prompt #3

This student demonstrates a good understanding of writing purpose - they tell us what reading is, where it ‘is’ or ‘happens’, and what they personally think of it! They only spell a couple of words incorrectly, and have demonstrated an understanding of punctuation and grammar.

I’ve been trying to decide where this student could improve and it is very difficult to decide - they provide content, organisation, a voice, word choice, fluency and conventions! Finally I’ve decided that an area of improvement that can be identified by using the 6+1 Traits of Writing would be word choice. This student could improve their writing by widening their vocabulary and choose more evocative and emotive language. 

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Prompt #2

The poster I have created illustrates the habits of being a good reader!  It’s still a work in progress. I’ve made it using apps on my phone, which I have never done before! So it’s all new and I’ve only just figured out I can write in colour! (Also I can’t figure out how to attach a photo to a tumblr post...)

The last time I got a chance to make a classroom display was probably during my time studying at Victoria University, for our ‘Kinda Kinder’ placement one afternoon a week, we ran a variety of small activities in a local library for young children. I absolutely loved setting up all the different activity areas each week - painting table, play dough zone, a reading corner, an obstacle course and blocks/toy cars were just some of the experiences we created. We used a variety of objects each week, and we had a weekly meeting where we would brainstorm our ideas and set-ups. We used different blankets on the floor to clearly distinguish each zone, and often decorated the areas with pictures/posters and figurines for the children to look at (and play with!). I really enjoyed setting up an underwater exploration experience for the children on our last day. We collected sand, shells and some seaweed from a beach, and then found some underwater animal figures. Place all that in a tub full of water + a few drops of blue food colouring and hey presto! You’ve got a miniature ocean!

Once I figure out how to attach photos to a post I will attach my poster and post some photos from Kinda Kinder!

[ecl310emmar]

Week One Prompt

I was lucky enough as a child to have a bookworm for a mother, who made it her mission to read to me every single night and thus instill in me a love of literature! When I ask, my parents always laugh and tell me my favourite book as a child was an illustrated children's edition of the bible - I remember liking it because there were so many stories in the one book! The first book I remember reading was The Magic Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton. Definitely one of my favourite authors, I occasionally read these books now and still fall in love with the stories and magic. Blyton's stories were full of adventure, mystery and children were usually the main characters which made them very appealing to little me. My fondest memories are of reading the Harry Potter books with my Mum - I was in grade one when the first book came out & it took ages for us to get our hands on a copy! My Mum had different voices and personalities for every character that appeared, and she somehow transformed my bedroom into miserable 4 Privet Drive, dusty Diagon Alley or even the Great Hall at Hogwarts just by opening a book.