Room 11: Food and Nutrition: ART

Came across these as part of a display on food and nutrition.
I loved the use of paper plates, plastic crockery, paper and paint.

A wanted man it would seem

Literacy for 0-2 comes to you from the letter 'S'

Literacy planning for this term has seen me focus around a single letter.

The Letter S is a very unreliable letter that often makes sounds other than the base /s/ sound:

• /s/ as in snake
• /z/ as in was
• /sh/ as in sheep 

Att: Kidzone

But I've tried to vary the media involved.

Books I shared with the class

No so silly sausages!
Slinky Malinky, Open the door
Sinky socks
Pies for Simple Simon


iPad app - Dr Suess ABC's

Videos to support letter recognition

Blog post ideas

Teaching Children about Letters

Learning Our Letters: Why Our Names Are What We Learn First

Worksheets

Yes... I have included a few worksheets and printable activities:
Hidden letter worksheet
Beginning Consonant Sounds

Just for fun: 

A young teacher from an industrial city in the north of England had accepted a temporary job teaching a class of four-year-olds out in one of the most isolated, rural parts of north Wales. One of her first lessons involved teaching the letter S so she held up a big colour photograph of a sheep and said: "Now, who can tell me what this is?"  

Read the remainder of the joke here...

Increasing my use of Te Reo/ Pacifika/ Punjabi in my classroom practise

In the school in which I work there are 3 main language besides English; Te Reo, Samoan (and other Pasifika languages) and Punjabi.
One of my goals for my appraisal is to learn and use some simple phrases from each of these cultures. I have always been terrible when learning a new language... When I was in secondary school we had to learn Welsh, German and French to Y10. There was an "Encore Tricolore" student book which we worked through. At the end of each chapter there was a test. and you were given a 'report card' with ticks to show your progress.
"Simon introduce himself in French Confidently, satifactory, with prompts." (Tick)... I did SOOOOOO badly on these tests the teacher said it was not worth printing out my report card... personally I think that was purely a limitation on the report card. It should have read:

"Simon introduce himself in French Confidently, satifactory, with prompts, dismally."

Anyway, the upshot is that I am pretty terrible at languages, my tongue and my brain can't cope.... But I'm going to give it a go and here are a few notes to get me started. 

Te Reo

The first is Te Reo: The native language of New Zealand and the second language with which I am most familiar. When I say "Most familiar" I actually mean some key command and greeting phrases to use with students. Below is a short list of the ones I am currently attempting to use.

Simple commands

E tū  - Stand up
E noho - Sit down
Haere mai  - Come here
Turituri - Be quiet
Whakarongo mai - Listen to me

Simple greetings

Kia ora  - Hello, good health
Tēnā koe  - Hello to one person, thank you to one person
Tēnā kōrua  - Hello to two people, thank you to two people
Tēnā koutou - Hello to lots of people (more than three), thank you to lots of people

Pacifika

fa'amolemole int. please;

fa'afetai v. to thank;

talofa v. hello, greetings; 

Tōfā soifua

Goodbye

Other Useful phrases in Samoan

Punjabi Language 

Reference: 

• http://www.tetaurawhiri.govt.nz/english/pub_e/classroom/appendix1.shtml
• 
  
• http://www.omniglot.com/language/phrases/samoan.php
• 
  
• Samoan in the New Zealand curriculum (PDF, 589 KB)
•  
• Other resources for learning Punjabi 

Smarty Pants

Storybox Guided Reading Program
Smarty Pants
Stories by Joy Cowley (author)
Publisher：McGraw-Hill Education


I came across an awesome display in a school I was at the other day.

The students (Y0-2) Had shared this big book. They then drew some 'smarty pants of their own onto an A3 paper and painted them.

The teacher took their pictures and they placed their own torso on top of their smarty pants. The whole class was displayed but we're just going to have to make do with this blurred out photo I took. I will certainly be having a go myself later in the term if I can find the book at MY school. Let me know, by leaving a comment, if you've done something similar. 

Writing a lie

Came into class today. The class had begun a story plan for 'telling a lie'. It was my job to kickstart the writing session again.

I told them as story about how I went to visit my brother in Auckland. The journey was rotten and weather bad. When I arrived my brother mae me coffee and said friend Justin was coming over. When Justin arrived it turned out to be Justin Beiber!!! Imagine my surprise!

Obviously, I embellished the story somewhat and shared my story plan with them (See the image above).
Their task: To write a story about something ordinary that happened in the school holidays but then inject a lie that will grab the audience's attention. They chose from the list below:

A famous person visits.
A natural disaster, earthquake, flood.
A terrible storm/ tornado/ hurricane which leave you the hero.
Save someone from an accident.
Foil thieves either accidentally, or deliberately.

The plan took the whole lesson to complete, and next week I will return to see how the actually story writing went.

Parent/ Teacher Conference

With the last term kicking off we're all start thinking about the report writing and the parent teacher conference. A little while ago I shared on youtube some thoughts on the upcoming conferences.