'Tis the season? - Well, it was...

This Advent I used the Jesse Tree as a focus for our class liturgy. This tied together nicely many of the ideas we had learnt throughout the year.
(I have been meaning to write this post for well over a month. In fact, it might have been more useful to others if I had shared my Advent ideas while it was still Advent, but you'll have to tuck this away for Advent 2013! I am writing it now so I will remember myself.)
Way back in Term 1 we had learnt about the liturgical seasons. I was very pleased that so many of the children were able to recall things we had done that long ago. It gives me hope! This term we had focused on different forms of prayer and we had been reading the Old Testament stories in our daily scripture time. The Jesse Tree Liturgy tied all of these things together nicely and was a fitting end-of-year celebration.
We learnt about the Jesse Tree in class prior to the liturgy and had made a bulletin board display. (The colours are not the best - I was using up the scraps of cardboard etc in the room - but it was a simple display idea.)
Each child made an "ornament" to place on the tree on the bulletin board. The ornaments show a picture or a symbol that the student felt represented person in their story. There are lots of websites that have lists of Jesse Tree symbols and they are not all the same. I kept searching until I found one that had the right number of symbols so each child got one and I also looked for one that had a fair proportion of women represented as well.

The words on the sign say: "The Jesse Tree is a symbol of Advent. The symbols remind us of the stories from the Old Testament that point to the birth of Jesus Christ. Jesse was the father of David and was Jesus' great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather." I think there are supposed to be about 24 "great"s but I don't think my kids were bothered with counting them.
On the last morning of school we had a prayer celebration to end our year. You can access the words of the liturgy from my TeachersPayTeachers site.
The songs I used were by Michael Mangan from his This is the Time (Songs for Seasons) Album. The children were already familiar with these songs. You could easily substitute other hymns or carols.
The students made their own symbols (white paper circle glued onto a slightly larger coloured circle) and they glued the words for their prayer on the back so they stood up, read their prayer and placed it on the tree in a reasonably seamless manner.

We set up the sacred space in the middle and the children chose what to put in there. There was a lot of purple because that is the Advent colour. (They learnt that in first term!)
Just as we started the liturgy I realised I didn't have any matches to light the candle. Luckily I was able to download a free Candle app on my iPad mini and save the day!

Poinsettias for Christmas

During the last few weeks of school we did a number of Christmas related activities based on some beautiful Christmas books I own.
The first of these is The Legend of the Poinsettia which is retold and beautifully illustrated by Tomie dePaola.

The story is set in Mexico and tells of a little girl whose mother falls ill just before the town's Nativity celebration. Her mother is unable to complete the family's gift for the baby Jesus and the little girl is unable to complete it on her own. Luckily a Christmas miracle occurs and the girl has a beautiful gift for the baby after all.
This story is a good Christmas story because it opens up conversations about gift giving at Christmas and how it is "the thought that counts". It also explains one of the Christmas decorations - the poinsettia and introduces the Christmas colours of red and green. We had a discussion about how the people in Mexico celebrated Christmas in the story and how this is the same and different from some of our own Christmas customs. We are a catholic school so many of the children do go to the Christmas mass and take part in the nativity so it was nice to see how another culture celebrates this idea.
To reflect on the story and to brighten our classroom, we made a very simple Christmas craft: a poinsettia.

I prefer to use painted paper because it has a richer texture than coloured construction paper and it is fun to paint the paper yourself. Each child painted one A4 sheet of red and one A4 sheet of green on one day and the next day they used this paper to assemble their craft. We re-used paper from our classroom to make the activity even more environmentally friendly.
I make hand-drawn "star" templates on light card in red and green and write "cut 1" on the green and "cut 2" on the red. The green one is slightly larger than the red one. If you are not game to free draw yours (even though I think they look better) you can print this image. (You will need to adjust the size to suit your paper.)

I make only enough templates for about a third of the class for each colour (about 8 red ones and 8 green ones for a class of 24). It doesn't take them long to trace the shapes and it is good for them to be a bit patient and practice their turn taking skills.

They turn the paper to the "white side" before tracing in case they make a mistake and they push the star to the edge of the paper so the leftover pieces are useful for other Christmas crafts later on. They need to be careful so they fit two red stars on the same page. 

To assemble the craft, simply stack the two red shapes on top of the green on and turn them slightly so you can see the different points from behind. A little dab of glue in the centre is enough to hold them together. I give them little squares of yellow crepe or tissue paper to scruple into balls for the centre of the flower.

They are really simple to make. It took me longer to explain it than it does to make them.

Enjoy!

Toys Past and Present

Our History study this term will focus on how toys have changed over time.
This investigation will address the third point in Historical knowledge and understanding in the Australian Curriculum for Year 2:
The impact of changing technology on people’s lives (at home and in the ways they worked, travelled, communicated, and played in the past) (ACHHK046)
The children have written letters to their own grandparents, posing questions about the past, and tapping into their grandparents' wisdom as a source of historical knowledge.
We have also borrowed a collection of "artefacts" from the museum and of course, are using books and other written resources as further sources of historical knowledge.
One web-based resource which has been very useful in introducing some basic concepts is the Welsh produced web site: How toys have changed.
I have created a number of worksheets that I have used with differentiated groups to collect information from this website.
These worksheets are accessible from my google docs.
Worksheet 1 - Simplest sheet - scaffolded sentence writing.
Worksheet 2 - Collecting information about one toy from one period
Worksheet 3 - Collecting information (writing keywords) about a variety of toys from different times.
I hope these resources might be of use to you.

First Day of School Ideas and another freebie

The first day of school draws nearer and I feel as though I have so much to do to get myself (and my classroom) ready to welcome my 25 new students.

Having moved classrooms and changing grades has meant more work, but it is exciting also.

At our school on the first day the first students always seem to arrive very early. School starts at 8.30 am but I will be there by 7.30 am and I expect to see the first students arriving not long after. The students and parents dribble in over an hour or so, which is nice because it gives me a chance to meet and greet each student.

I plan to have a welcome message as my Morning Message displayed on the IWB which will welcome students and give them instructions as to what to do (in case they all arrive at once and I can't get to all of them to give instructions).

I am making placemats for each student to mark their desk. I first got the idea from my sister because she had used them with her Year 1s a few years ago but I have adapted what is on them to reflect the needs of my Year 2 students and the new Australian Curriculum.

One side will have their name, in precursive font, a handwriting model of the alphabet and my "no excuses words" that I want students to spell correctly all the time and develop good habits.

The reverse side has math resources - a 100 board sized for counters, a tens frame, spelling models for number names, days of the week, and a copy of the poem "30 days has September...". Oh, and a numberline and pictures of some basic 2D and 3D shapes that they need to know according to the new Mathematics curiculum.

It sounds busy but it looks good. Well, they will once I put them together. ;-)

I use the placemats to mark where I want students to sit. If we are doing activities and I want to move them around for a particular purpose, I can simply swap the placemats without having to move the entire desk. (We have desks, not tables. I would prefer tables because I like to be able to mix the students up for different activities and not have them "stuck" at one desk that they "own".)

We are using pencil caddies instead of pencil cases so these will be out on tables ready for them to do the "busy activity" on the first morning. I have made a worksheet called "All About Me" (available for free at my TPT store: The Learning Curve). It should be simple enough for them to complete themselves and there are pictures to colour if they finish quickly. I will collect these sheets after the end of the session as I hope they will give my a bit of insight into the students, their ability to read/ write/ follow directions, as well as their likes, interests and friends and family.

Once the bell goes and there are still parents in the room, I ring a bell and invite the students to come to the floor space. Usually most parents get the hint that we are starting and say goodbye quickly. Hopefully there will be no tears - fingers crossed.

How do you start on your first day of school?

My first Freebie! - Animal Match Cards

I spent all day making these Animal Matching Cards, after wasting about the same amount of time on Google trying to find some that someone else has made for me. No luck - so hopefully that means I have found a gap in the market and they will "sell like hotcakes". Given that they are being offered for free, that should help things along also! ;-)

I am going to use them to help build vocabulary and also for matching and sorting activities and card games.

Can you think of any other uses?

Please visit my TPT store and download them then let me know what you think.