Centres and Motivation

A week ago I taught my students "The Five Finger Test." I loooooved my class during this lesson - they were all listening with open ears and afterwards, when I handed out A-Z readers for them to practice, they were caught hook, line and sinker. Yay!

Today, I mentioned using this strategy to my Rad Readers at centre time, and one sweet young'un said, "Ms. Amanda, I do it at home!" She was all smiles (which made me all smiles, first because I am pleased as pie to be getting through to this age group, and second because our principal was in evaluating my lesson!). Here is the poster I made to hang in our classroom library:



I have also made a few little motivational treats for my class to use during centre time, particularly while reading and writing. These are the centres I rotate in class:

Super Spellers - This group works from a bin filled with Wikki Stix, foam letters, alphabet stencils and magnetic letters, and all of the students know where to find white boards and markers to practice the weekly spelling dictation words. There are two separate spelling groups and I post the word lists where they work on the carpet.

Rad Readers - This group may read any of the books in our classroom library, including our past shared reading poems that I have neatly folded and glued into small construction paper booklets. This group uses F-U-N magic reading glasses that I picked up at a 100 fils shop. I just popped the lenses out!

Wonderful Writers - This group works on any specific writing tasks I have featured during lesson time. Right now they are creating frog page toppers that are glued to a piece of lined paper. They will use it later to write sentences from a graphic organizer we did as a class, which integrates our Science unit with Language.

Fun Phonics - Our students were asked to buy MANY text books for Language, so this is my way of sneaking them into use. Boring, yes, but at least it won't seem a waste of money in the end! Plus, I have a marvellous EA to help out here.

Guided Groupies - I work with this group (clearly). Our school has purchased the Oxford Reading Tree series, and since DRA has finally been completed for every student (this took about three weeks in October...ew), it's great to just sit down and chat about a good read with a small group. They get to use our "Eyeballers" - popsicle sticks with googley eyes glue-gunned to the end to reinforce the importance of really looooooking at e.v.e.r.y word. Of course, I cannot find actual popsicle/craft sticks ANYwhere in Kuwait, so I improvised and used Japanese "sweet sticks" from the 600 fils shop! Did I mention I am really excited to have bought a glue gun? Wish I bought one earlier.

Journal Jotters - This team works on a weekly prompt. My groups are all similarly levelled, so I differentiate the number of sentences each group must write before they can draw the picture (i.e. my "high" group writes five or more sentences). This bucket has erasers, sharpeners, children's dictionaries, and my personal favourite, the Feather Pencil People. Everyone gets a kick out of using these to write! (Even if sometimes what they write does not make any sense...)

Time to cook and time to RELAX. It was a ca-razy day. PS - I am proud to say my evaluation as a first year teacher went exceptionally well!

Better late than never

In teacher’s college, a lot of our in-class tasks focused on reflection. Reflection, reflection, reflection. I remember thinking, “I have far too many other things to do.” Well, as a first year teacher, I find I have been reflecting a lot. Way more than I thought I ever would, and so now, I see just how important it can be!

I love to read blogs. I find real inspiration in the blogs of other teachers, and find my own ideas blossoming into new things as a result of loooooong bits of time spent on the Internet - much to the chagrin of my other half! So, after three months of teaching grade two and countless hours feeling thrilled and inspired by others, I thought I would start my own little collection of ideas.

Enter my second grade class. I am one of three second grade teachers at my school. My team has a great mix of level-headed organization, amazing and motivational ideas, that “must reach every student” attitude, and a realistic perspective about teaching English Language Learners. I teach 21 students at a bilingual school that teaches Ontario curriculum. I feel so lucky to be teaching my home curriculum, since there are so few opportunities to do so at home. I love the topics covered in grade two! That said, my class is tough. The culture in Kuwait is one that takes some getting used to. I have many sweet little angels, but the entire class is very privileged - think drivers, nannies, maids and millionaires. Needless to say, the beginning of the school year was difficult difficult lemon difficult. I have input about ten different behaviour management strategies, from individual stickers to desk group points, whole class reward days to more personal encouraging notes home in communication books. We are still working with all of these, but I feel, at least, that I am making some progress! Phew. And, on the plus side, I survived and am eager to give it another shot next year.

Finally then, the reason I’m here. Aside from there being few to no full-time contracts available in Ontario right now, I am lucky to be starting my teaching career with another amazing teacher - the person I love the most in the world and the most patient man I know. After supply teaching for nearly two years with no leads, Jeff suggested we go abroad (again - we met in Korea!). It has been a whirlwind of a time, one I am fully enjoying, one that is testing me at every turn, and one that is teaching me so so much. I love teaching and I want to keep track of all the interesting, fun, challenging, and hilarious struggles and achievements this year. Without further ado, welcome to my blog! (Now, to keep up on it…)

Better late than never

In teacher’s college, a lot of our in-class tasks focused on reflection. Reflection, reflection, reflection. I remember thinking, “I have far too many other things to do.” Well, as a first year teacher, I find I have been reflecting a lot. Way more than I thought I ever would, and so now, I see just how important it can be!

I love to read blogs. I find real inspiration in the blogs of other teachers, and find my own ideas blossoming into new things as a result of loooooong bits of time spent on the Internet - much to the chagrin of my other half! (Isn’t it great to use a word like “chagrin?”) So, after three months of teaching grade two and countless hours feeling thrilled and inspired by others, I thought I would start my own little collection of ideas.

Enter my second grade class. I am one of three second grade teachers at my school. My team has a great mix of level-headed organization, amazing and motivational ideas, that “must reach every student” attitude, and a realistic perspective about teaching English Language Learners. I teach 21 students at a bilingual school that teaches Ontario curriculum. I feel so lucky to be teaching my home curriculum, since there are so few opportunities to do so at home. I love the topics covered in grade two! That said, my class is tough. The culture in Kuwait is one that takes some getting used to. I have many sweet little angels, but the entire class is very privileged - can you say drivers, nannies, maids and millionaires? Needless to say, the beginning of the school year was difficult difficult lemon difficult. I have input about ten different behaviour management strategies, from individual stickers to desk group points, whole class reward days to more personal encouraging notes home in communication books. We are still working with all of these, but I feel, at least, that I am making some progress! Phew. And, on the plus side, I survived and am eager to give it another shot next year.

Finally then, the reason I’m here. Aside from there being few to no full-time contracts available in Ontario right now, I am lucky to be starting my teaching career with another amazing teacher - the person I love the most in the world and the most patient man I know. After supply teaching for nearly two years with no leads, Jeff suggested we go abroad (again - we met in Korea!). It has been a whirlwind of a time, one I am fully enjoying, one that is testing me at every turn, and one that is teaching me so so much. I love teaching and I want to keep track of all the interesting, fun, challenging, and hilarious struggles and achievements this year. Without further ado, welcome to my blog! (Now, to keep up on it…)

Better late than never

In teacher’s college, a lot of our in-class tasks focused on reflection. Reflection, reflection, reflection. I remember thinking, “I have far too many other things to do.” Well, as a first year teacher, I find I have been reflecting a lot. Way more than I thought I ever would, and so now, I see just how important it can be!

I love to read blogs. I find real inspiration in the blogs of other teachers, and find my own ideas blossoming into new things as a result of loooooong bits of time spent on the Internet - much to the chagrin of my other half! (Isn’t it great to use a word like “chagrin?”) So, after three months of teaching grade two and countless hours feeling thrilled and inspired by others, I thought I would start my own little collection of ideas.

Enter my second grade class. I am one of three second grade teachers at my school. My team has a great mix of level-headed organization, amazing and motivational ideas, that “must reach every student” attitude, and a realistic perspective about teaching English Language Learners. I teach 21 students at a bilingual school that teaches Ontario curriculum. I feel so lucky to be teaching my home curriculum, since there are so few opportunities to do so at home. I love the topics covered in grade two! That said, my class is tough. The culture in Kuwait is one that takes some getting used to. I have many sweet little angels, but the entire class is very privileged - can you say drivers, nannies, maids and millionaires? Needless to say, the beginning of the school year was difficult difficult lemon difficult. I have input about ten different behaviour management strategies, from individual stickers to desk group points, whole class reward days to more personal encouraging notes home in communication books. We are still working with all of these, but I feel, at least, that I am making some progress! Phew. And, on the plus side, I survived and am eager to give it another shot next year.

Finally then, the reason I’m here. Aside from there being few to no full-time contracts available in Ontario right now, I am lucky to be starting my teaching career with another amazing teacher - the person I love the most in the world and the most patient man I know. After supply teaching for nearly two years with no leads, Jeff suggested we go abroad (again - we met in Korea!). It has been a whirlwind of a time, one I am fully enjoying, one that is testing me at every turn, and one that is teaching me so so much. I love teaching and I want to keep track of all the interesting, fun, challenging, and hilarious struggles and achievements this year. Without further ado, welcome to my blog! (Now, to keep up on it…)