Mini-Break

Just to let you know, I won't be updating this fantastic little blog of mine again until next week.

I am taking a well-earned weekend away to go to the Koh Samui Music Festival. I am planniing not to do any work at all and not give school a second thought! So, hopefully, I will be back on Monday fighting fit and raring to go! I may even share with you some of the antics I got up to!!!

Have a fantastic weekend.

Deb

Marking - Mark Ladders For Writing

Does anyone else get fed up of all the marking they have to do? The Norfolk Education website has got mark ladders to download.

These are like rubrics for assessing writing. They are available for Years 3-6 and cover all the major writing focuses for each year group, such as letters, narratives and non-chronological reports. They have child friendly vocabulary and a box either side, one for the children to assess themselves and one for the teacher to use.

They are also excellent for giving you ideas for success criteria.

I have found them really useful and there is a blank one for you to fill in with your own ideas.

Deb

Google Earth

If you haven't already downloaded this free Google product, do it NOW!

Google Earth is amazing! You can fly all around the world using satellite images and zoom in to your own rooftop! My class loved it when we used it and all drove their parents mad when they got home that night, asking them to install it!

It is great fun, but make sure you have an hour or two to spare when you download it, as you won't want to stop playing!

Deb

Would you dare to tell your boss what you really think of him/her?

I have been put in a very strange situation this week. My head teacher, who is quite nice really, just in case he should ever stumble across this blog, has made a very unusual request from us as a staff.

He has recently started studying for his doctorate and it is all about his leadership style. He has asked us teachers to support him with this as his research will need to be based on our opinions and perceptions of him!

As part of this, he called a staff meeting last week to inform us of what he is going to be doing and to ask for our help. He has requested that we each write a letter to him explaining what we think of him. We can write the good things and the BAD! We can do this anonymously if we chose to, or put our name to the letter. If we sign it, he may want to discuss some of the points we have made in further detail at a later date! I have to say, I think he is extremely brave requesting this. Would you dare?

So, on Thursday night I sat down and thought I would give it a go! It seemed like too good an opportunity to miss, being able to tell him exactly what I think of him! It was very therapeutic I can tell you. I haven’t laughed so much in a long time!

I started off as you do when you write the children’s school reports, by looking at the positives! I slowly moved on to the things that really annoy me. I would type them, then think to myself, “I can’t say that!” and then I would tell myself, well he did ask us to be honest, so I kept going. I chuckled from start to finish!

Then it came to the crunch! I had got everything off my chest, had a really good moan, made a few demands and told him what I thought of him. But my quandary was, should I sign it or should I send it anonymously?

I did decide, but I’m not going to tell you yet!!! I want to know what you would do given the same opportunity. Would you sign it?

Deb

Primary Teacher UK

Primary Teacher UK is a great blog for teachers, wherever they are. Andrew has lots of great links and some good computer and blogging tips. Like me, he likes to share his ideas and knowledge with the rest of us teachers. Anything to make life that little bit easier is well worth a click!

Deb

Educational PowerPoints

Here is my latest PowerPoint, Discussing Settings. We are currently learning about story settings, so I have made this for the children to work through as a post-reading activity. Each page gives a prompt to help them to discuss the setting.

I hope you find it useful. Feedback is appreciated.

Deb

Koh Samui Music Festival

This has absolutely nothing to do with teaching! Well, perhaps it does! By going to this event, we teachers will be taking a well-earned break which will make us even better when we get back to the chalk-face!

For anyone in Thailand in the next couple of weeks, take yourself down to Koh Samui's Music Festival. It runs from 23rd September for ten days. They have two venues, with free transport to take you between them, and some great bands. I think the general theme is blues, but they have other stuff too. Loads of local bands, such as The Soi Dogs and Cannonball, and some world famous ones too. Jools Holland, The Wailers, UB40, Jerry Lee Lewis to name but a few!

If you see someone sitting on the sand, sipping a bottle of Singha whilst marking a pile of books...it will probably be me!

Deb

Links to Excellent Children's Author Websites

Something I have started to do is allow my class to research some of their favourite authors online. Some of the websites give simple biographies, but some of them, such as the Jeremy Strong site are amazing! They have his diary, games, information about the characters and the way he works.I would like to compile a list of good children's author websites, so if you know of any, please, please add to this using comments.

Here are a few to start us off:

Jeremy Strong

Roald Dahl

Anne Fine

Jane Hissey

Quentin Blake

Jacqueline Wilson

And a few publishers with simple stuff on:

Kids at Random House

Walker Books

Have fun! I have spent hours looking at these few! I will add more as I find them, but please add to the list too.

Thanks

Deb

Jolly Phonics Training

The last two mornings have been extremely busy! My colleague, Rachel, and myself have given two training sessions to the parents of our EY and KS1 children about how we use Jolly Phonics in our school.

I was amazed at the number of parents who attended! About fifty yesterday and around eighty today! Quite nerve-racking! However, we have our patter off to a fine art, as we are both Jolly Phonics Professional Trainers in Thailand.

Still, as prepared as we were, with our PowerPoints and video clips, you can never rely on technology! Yesterday went without a hitch, but today, the videos wouldn't play through the projector! Typical! So, I stood there testing are lovely mums and dads on the actions we had just taught them, whilst Rachel ran off to the ICT department to get someone to come and help out! I felt so stupid when the guy fixed the problem with the push of 2 buttons!!

Has anyone else had bad experiences when giving presentations? What is your back-up plan?

I am thrilled so many parents came. Hopefully, they will spread the Jolly Phonics word in Thailand. The Thai schools would benefit from the programme immensely. There is very little phonic teaching occurring in Thai schools. Many teach letter names not sounds! How on earth the young children learn to read and write in English with that is incredible. They have excellent memories. However, JP is very simple for teachers to use and I am sure if the Thai teachers heard about it, they would love it!

In fact, so sure am I about the possibilities Jolly Phonics could bring to Thai schools, after chatting with Chris Jolly, the publisher, and Sue Lloyd and Sara Wernham, the authors, there is talk of producing a bi-lingual Phonic Handbook with the lesson plans written in Thai!

If you would like information on Jolly Phonics, have a look at the Jolly Learning website. Rachel and I are available to deliver training courses for schools and parents in Thailand and S. E. Asia. Please e-mail me.

Deb

Reading Resources

For some great reading resources to download and use in your classroom, have a look at the Leicestershire Grid For Learning website.

They have some fantastic things, such as reading fans, talk cards and activity cards. The maths part of the site is also full of really good things to download too.

Well worth bookmarking as they promise to update regularly!

Deb

Maths PowerPoints to Download

Here are three maths PowerPoints I made a while back. I use them with Y3, but if you change the numbers, you can adapt them for older or younger children.

Inverse PowerPoint

Addition by Partitioning PowerPoint

Ordering on a Numberline PowerPoint

I hope you like them. Feedback welcome! (Well, if it's good!)

Deb

Great Displays Using The Rasterbator!

Yes, that really is the name of it! By going to their website, you can upload any image and they will work on it, enlarging it to up to 20 metres!!! You can actually download a standalone version too I think.

This should provide some excellent classroom displays.

Give it a go: The Rasterbator

Deb

Download my Free Educational PowerPoints here

At last! I am so excited about this! Thanks to Teacher Sol's brilliant blog and her willingness to help those of us new to blogging, I have learned how to put my PowerPoint files on here for you to download.

Below is a list of the first few. I will also add them to the Links list at the side. I hope you enjoy them!

5 minute timer - exactly that! Run it for the last five minutes of the task and it tells the children how much time they have left. My class love it and it really speeds them up for those final five minutes!

ABC Brainstorm - Very simple, 2 columns containing the alphabet. I made it to save time writing it out everytime and it also allows the children to work independently. Basically, choose a topic, places for example. The children then have to think of a place starting with every letter of the alphabet. It can be used for any topic. I usually use this as a pre-reading activity in my Guided Reading lessons to activate Prior Knowledge.

Compare and Contrast - Another reading one. A simple template for the children to write on, with an example to start them off.

Non-Fiction Elements - Yet another reading one! Basically discusses the ways in which non-fiction books differ from fiction.

Think Pair Share - Very basic. Simply to help teach the children about his method of thinking and discussing.

That will do for now. I will add more later. I also have lots of other PowerPoints which I have downloaded from various sites. They cover maths, English and humanitites. If you would like some, please leave a message stating what your are after or e-mail me fom the link at the side.

Deb

Planning

Well, it's the start of term and everyone is in a frenzy producing their medium term plans for the next six weeks! This being my second year in Y3, I already have some to fall back on. The topics are the same, so I am simply adapting them. Fortunately, last year, I scribbled all over them, noting what worked and what didn't. With just a little editing, I have them ready to go.

There is a wealth of planning material available on the internet these days, some good, some utter rubbish! Still, if you download a few and choose the best ideas from each of them, you can end up with a superb set of plans!

We are doing 'Passport to the World' for Geography and 'The Romans' for History. If anyone wants a copy of mine, please just email!

I would love to upload them and have them here for you, but I still haven't worked out how to do that yet!

I will add a new post about my favourite sites later. I have to sit and do my weekly maths and English planning first!

Deb