Displaying Data Visually

Over the past few weeks I have worked with students in different year levels to consider how data can be represented visually.
Here is the developmental sequence within the Digital Technologies curriculum:

Prep to Year 2: Collect, explore and sort data, and use digital systems to present the data creatively (ACTDIP003)

Year 3 and Year 4: Collect, access and present different types of data using simple software to create information and solve problems (ACTDIP009)

Year 5 and Year 6: Acquire, store and validate different types of data, and use a range of software to interpret and visualise data to create information (ACTDIP016)

In Year 2 and Year 3, I  introduced the idea of displaying data visually using glyphs. A glyph is a picture that shows data using a particular code. The glyph itself is a visual display of data, but follow up activities could involve students looking at glyphs created by classmates to make tallies in a table, to create graphs about various attributes or to look for patterns and trends. You can read more about using glyphs in the classroom and see more examples in this article.

With my Year 2 students, we took a basic image I had created of a gingerbread man and used a glyph code I had found online to decorate the gingerbread man in the Drawing Pad app.
Students saved the image from the webpage I had shared with them and then placed it on the "paper" background so they could add embellishments without the gingerbread man moving all over the place. After I had done the activity with a few classes, one of the Year 2 students showed me how you can stamp the image to the background to achieve pretty much the same affect. This is why I like working with Year 2 students. Someone always learns something in every lesson - and it's usually me.

To brighten up my new classroom space, I had the Year 3 students create their glyphs using paper. They made owls using a template I created and a code that I shared with them on the webpage for Year 3.
They look great on the wall and the display has attracted interest from students in other classes as well who have looked for patterns and trends among the attributes of the Year 3 students using the data displayed in the glyphs.

In Year 6, the students have had a few introductory experiences using the Numbers spreadsheet app, entering data, playing with different cell formats and data types, and creating charts. We are now working towards creating their own infographics using Canva. Infographics are a great way to explore different ways of displaying data visually.

from Hot Butter Studio

The start of another exciting chapter

I have recently started a brand new role in a different school as "Digital Learning Facilitator". I'm now on the steepest learning curve ever as I try to wrap my head around a whole new role, facilitating implementation of the new Digital Technologies curriculum, supporting the integration of ICT general capability, providing professional development and mentoring for teachers in digital pedagogy and promoting STEAM within the school. Massive? Yes - but exciting at the same time.

I've decided that I really need to start blogging some of my experiences again so I am "practising what I preach" and model reflective practice and professional sharing. Here's to a new beginning and the hint of exciting things to come!

It takes a village...

After almost 8 weeks of consistent effort with my students this year to improve their writing skills, I feel that today I have had a memorable moment!
My 27 Year 4 students are good little students and okay writers, but eight weeks ago, they were happy enough to give me a response that was "near enough" and not quite good enough.
Little things like capital letters, punctuation and editing for basic spelling were not a high priority for them. If they felt they had completed a task with a mediocre effort, they saw no point in refining their response, editing their work, or sometimes even putting a capital letter for their own name.
Turning them around to actually taking some pride in their work has not happened overnight but lots of practice and feedback, feedback and more feedback has had some effect on their writing habits.
Earlier in the year we watched this great short video about feedback:

We discussed the role of feedback in helping us to grow as learners and the students have had many opportunities to give and receive feedback and to reflect on what they learnt from the feedback.

This week we are looking at how we are part of a bigger, global community of learners, and my success with my young writers can be attributed to the work of other passionate and dedicated educators around the globe.
In particular, I can thank three great educators for my success as a classroom teacher this week:

Julia Skinner @100word from the 100 Word Challenge

Sue Wyatt @tasteach from the Student Blogging Challenge and

David Mitchell @DeputyMitchell from Quadblogging

Each of these people is passionate about making a difference to the learning of students not only in their own schools, but all over the world. They share their amazing talents and energies to assist other teachers like me to make a real difference in classrooms all over the globe.

This year is the first time I have been involved with the 100 Word Challenge after having seen it somewhere (probably Twitter) a while back. Each week Mrs Skinner posts a prompt and around 2000 students from around the globe respond to the prompt in 100 words. They post their responses to a class or student blog and then a band of volunteers provide specific and effective feedback to the students about their writing. The look on the faces of students as they discover that their assignment has been read and appreciated by someone from another part of the world, is priceless.

The Student Blogging Challenge was a (very) lucky find after I decided to try using Edublogs as my blogging platform for my class this year. The Student Blogging Challenge has been running since 2008 and through the weekly activities that are interesting and relevant to student bloggers. As a bonus, many activities align quite well with a lot of aspects from the Digital Technologies curriculum and ICT capability continuum from the Australian Curriculum. Participating in the challenge (I'm only four weeks in) has already helped to push me as an educator into trying new things or rediscovering old tricks. I know my students are benefiting from their involvement too. So far, we have focussed on protection of personal information, writing quality comments, and understanding creative commons and copyright issues. All of these are important issues for digital citizens and learning these things alongside hundreds of other students and teachers from around the world makes our learning even more exciting and purposeful.

Quadblogging is something I have been involved with before. I have just been assigned to a quad for this year and after sending out a first welcome email to our quadblogging buddy teachers and adding their blogs to our side panel so the students can easily access their blogs, I am eagerly anticipating getting started on a new adventure with classes from Sweden, US and UK.

What these three opportunities have in common is that they have given my students a real purpose for their learning and particularly for their writing. When you know that someone else (besides the teacher) is going to read your work, then there is suddenly a reason to make sure that what you have to say is both interesting and well punctuated. While they enjoy reading and commenting on their classmate's work, receiving a comment from a stranger who has taken time out of their day to say how much they have enjoyed what they have to share is so much more special.

So today, we shared our thoughts on how we can save water after World Water Day 2015 and as I approved the comments a tear came to my eye as I noticed how far they have come as a class with taking pride in their work and editing for punctuation and basic spelling. While their sentences are still not perfect (and I have some concerns for the hygiene of the child who has pledged to have 40 second showers in a bid to save water) I can see that all the hard work is paying off. (If you have time to drop by the class blog and leave a comment - they really love comments)

Thank you to those inspiring educators who inspire me and challenge me to push my students to new heights! 

Pulling myself together

Over the past year or so (about the same time period when I dropped off the blogging radar) I have been busily creating websites to pull together lesson plans and units I had written, taught and collaborated on.
I was inspired by some of the great work being produced by professional organisations around Australia who have created "one stop spots" for a number of units. These webpages house ready-to-teach units of work that are aligned to the Australian Curriculum. Typically these websites contain information about how the unit addresses specific aspects of the curriculum, lesson plans or ideas, resources, assessment ideas and links to other online resources.
Here are some of the really good ones I have discovered:

• E4AC - English for the Australian Curriculum
• ASTA Science Web
• Geogspace
• AC History Units

All of these sites have excellent units that can be used as is, or adapted to suit your class.

I decided that a website might be a good way to pull together planning ideas into an easier to follow unit plan with links to useful online resources and downloadable files. One of my earlier attempts is an English unit: Whodunnit? I have also created a website to house all of my planning for an entire year in Year 4.
As more and more schools are increasing student access to technology in the classroom and many are going 1:1, I wanted to develop online resources that would support teachers in planning quality learning experiences aligned to the Australian Curriculum but also create websites that would be accessible to students using laptops or iPads.
I worked with some Year 4 teachers and their classes last year to plan and implement a Science and Technologies unit, Let's Build a Theme Park. In this project, I tried to include things that would be useful to both teachers and students, including a clear inquiry structure (using the 5Es) and Learning Intentions for the unit.
Some colleagues in Year 2 asked me to create some audio recordings of some stories about St Francis of Assisi for a unit they were doing on Saints Who Care About Creation. I needed somewhere to put these so that they would easily be able to find them that year, and into the future. I created a website called Creation, Who Cares? and was able to link numerous resources that I found or created to support them during the time that they were teaching this unit.
My aim is to now pull together other units I have taught or worked on in the past so that they are easier to share with other teachers. As I am teaching units this year in Year 4, I will create other websites to support my students and to curate my planning ideas.
Since I have now ended up with a diverse collection of units and trying to explain to people where they might go to find them is becoming more challenging, I created a virtual home for myself to curate my collection as it evolves.

janebatham.weebly.com

Please take a look at what I am working on and feel free to share this work with others. I am hoping that by sharing what I have done so far I will get plenty of feedback from others so I can improve as I go. Knowing that others find these resources useful will help me to remain motivated to complete the task.

The 100 Word Challenge

This week I tried the 100WC with my students for the first time.
If you have never heard of the 100 Word Challenge, then you can find out more about how to enter on their website: 100wc.net
Basically, once a week, some amazingly committed and enthusiastic educator posts a writing prompt and then children from all over the world write 100 words inspired by the prompt and posts it to a class or student blog.
The great thing about the 100WC is that the students can become part of a global community of young writers who are all working together to get better at their craft.
A team of dedicated parents and teachers (known as Team 100WC) volunteer to read and comment on the students' work. Students who enter are also encouraged to read other entries and to comment on other people's work.
At the end of the week a select few entries are chosen to be the "showcase entries" for the week. This gives students something to aim for, but also an easy way to identify some entries that are good examples of writing.
It was only our first round, but I was so excited by the way that my class were so motivated to write, read, reflect, write, read and write as they posted their own work and commented on their classmates and read the comments they received.
We did have some discussion about comments the week before.
I used the T.H.I.N.K. acronym to introduce a discussion about what might be appropriate or inappropriate in an online discussion. Since some of my kids have appeared to have confused blog comments with "chat", we really discussed the "helpful" and "necessary" components. I added to our blog expectations that the comments needed to be on topic, as opposed to random chit-chat.

We also watched one of my good-ole-favrits: Mrs Yollis' Guide to Writing Quality Comments.

This week as part of our focus on the qualities of a good learner, we looked at the role of feedback in helping us to reflect on our work so that we can improve.
I can never get sick of the video about Austin's Butterfly on the effectiveness of good feedback, and any student or teacher I have watched it with has enjoyed it as much as I have. It really helps students to visualise how learning can improve when they receive and reflect on good feedback.

After discussing the role of feedback and watching this video, the students were excited about the prospect of getting feedback on their own writing, and the quality of the feedback they gave to each other was much better than the usual "Good job" or "Nice story" because they had an understanding of what good feedback might look like.
I would like to get the students to read the feedback they received from me, their peers, parents and other readers from around the globe to set themselves a personal goal for their writing that they can work on for the rest of this term.
If you would like to give them some more feedback, I am sure they would love for you to read and comment on their work. Our 100 Word Challenges can be found at: http://mrsbathamsclass.edublogs.org/
We will continue to work on writing comments and feedback throughout the year.
Yesterday I found another good website that also promotes writing using peer feedback: http://www.writeabout.com/
I particularly like their guides to writing comments and self and peer review.
They have a great little poster that I might add to my growing collection of "tech help" on my back wall:

WriteAbout have also produced a short, student and parent friendly guide to writing comments which elaborates on the messages in this poster.

It is early days yet with our writing, but if we can maintain our enthusiasm, the 100 Word Challenge seems to be a very useful resource for improving student writing!

Surface impressions

Almost six months after first using my Surface Pro 3, I'm still not a huge fan. I have held off writing this post for quite some time so that I could be sure I have given it a fair try. Please be clear that I think the Surface Pro 3 might be useful for some people and I don't think I am their target market. If you sit at a desk all day with a PowerPoint next to you, it might be the device for you. If you are a teacher considering this device for your classroom, there might be different things you are looking for in a device.
For the last few years I have been looking forward to the opportunity to work in a 1:1 classroom so that I can explore new possibilities without some of the hassles and inconveniences that come with sharing devices.
Given that my most recent experiences have been within the Apple ecosystem and I have spent many thousands of hours working with iPads and MacBooks, developing a deep understanding of how the amazing possibilities that are opened up when using Apple software and apps, I had sincerely hoped that I might have the opportunity to apply this knowledge and tap into the great connections I have made with other Apple educators over the past few years.
I was thrown a curve ball when somehow I accidentally found myself thrust into an environment that decided to go with Microsoft instead.
I was given a new Microsoft Surface Pro 3 to "get to know" in September of 2014.
I tried very hard to grow to like this device which Microsoft would have consumers believe was somehow better than both the MacBook and the iPad combined. I even sewed a pretty floral bag to carry it around in and decorated the type cover with pretty washi tape to try to make it look a little less harsh and unfriendly, but the more I use this device the more I yearn for something else.
I have waited almost six months to write my first blog post on this topic as I thought that maybe with a bit of time I would get used to Windows 8.1 and come to like the Surface Pro's hybrid nature.
It still hasn't happened.
The countless early reviews I read that raised concerns about battery life and overheating have proven to be correct. This "tablet that can replace your laptop" is not very useful as a tablet. For starters, it doesn't fit in your handbag and it has sharp edges and no easy to purchase protective case. I bought a protective case for it online but the case made some of the features inaccessible so I ended up removing it.
Given that it has a touch screen, a removable keyboard (to be more accurate, it doesn't actually come with a keyboard but you have to buy the overpriced type cover if you are going to try to use it as a laptop) and a front and rear facing camera, you would expect that you can use it as a tablet. Unfortunately, the touch screen is active to the very edge so it is difficult to hold securely while walking around without inadvertently touching something that causes the program to change or a menu to pop up. If people think an iPad is a bit large to use as a camera, then this thing is even bigger and you can't hold it comfortably and if you dropped it without a protective case it has straight edges and sharp corners that would damage easily. As a camera, it is not comfortable to use at all and there are too many gestures required to do things such as focus that the iPad or iPhone seem to do so intuitively.
Having been a heavy iPad user and being used to a great smorgasbord of apps from which to choose, the Windows app store has proven very disappointing. To make this even more disappointing, the students don't have Microsoft accounts because they are under 13 years old so they can't load apps anyway. The techies who visit the school one morning a week are able to organise sideloading of apps for us but as the process of letting them know that there is an app we want and then them installing it would take over a week, it is not nearly as convenient as the processes in place for deploying iPad apps.
I am also very disappointed that it is left to me to go searching through the hundreds of rubbish apps to find the few hidden gems when I could list the iPad apps I want off the top of my head. Checking apps and test driving them takes time and money. I am resentful that I am effectively starting from scratch again here. It would be so much simpler if the students could load the apps themselves and do this work for me.
Without apps, the Surface Pro 3 is nothing compared to an iPad.
For the first few weeks of working with the Surface Pro 3, I tried to use it as a tablet because I really like my iPad and this has become my primary device over the past few years. Trying to use it in tablet mode was not making me warm to the Surface at all. Other people who were more positive were using it as a laptop alternative instead so I decided to change my mindset, write off the "tablet" and embrace it as a laptop.
As a laptop, it is clunky and uncomfortable. If it is the "tablet that you can't put in your handbag" then it is also the "laptop you can't use on your lap".
Surface Pro 3 would be an ideal machine for someone who sits in an office at a large desk with easy access to a powerpoint and wants something they can put into a briefcase to take home at night.
It doesn't meet my needs or expectations.
As a laptop user, I like to use my laptop on my lap, or at a coffee table or on the couch, or on my bed or on the floor and I like to be able to carry it from one room to the other without the keyboard falling off. In the classroom, I don't always sit at a desk. I use my laptop while sitting on a chair in front of the group or while walking around the room working with students. The floppy keyboard and sharp kickstand make both of these tasks very uncomfortable. Coupled with the screen being a touch screen, it is way too easy to accidentally bump the screen and muck things up if you aren't sitting at a desk.
For the students, the flexibility of using the device in different ways around the room is also compromised by the design of the Surface Pro 3.
I'm not going to even start on my opinion of Windows 8.1. There is no point because anyone who has used this operating system will know exactly how pointless and confusing it is and anyone who hasn't been forced to work with it should run to the hills if someone suggests you should.
So how is it working in a 1:1 environment? This bit I love. I am so excited to be able to work with the students and even though it is "early days", we have started blogging and they have made their first Thinglink to show their learning so far in Science. Being able to share files and set activities via the website I created has meant that we can cut down on paper use and the students are very engaged in the computer based tasks.
I'm yet to work out what I can do on the Surface Pro 3 that I couldn't do on an iPad or a MacBook Air, particularly to the level that would justify the extra expense. So far, since I have had to overcome so many hurdles in trying to come to terms with a lack of suitable software and dealing with a different operating system, it has felt like I am working with one arm tied behind my back.
Maybe in a few more months I will have discovered something to like about the Surface Pro 3, but unfortunately nearly six months of use hasn't converted me.TRying

Nouns are naming words

Last week we finally got some artwork up on our back wall - even if it was only a simple task!
Teaching only two days a week is really chewing into my time for art and finishing things off.
Since the students have been learning about nouns in English, we made a "picture dictionary" on the wall. Each child nominated a noun (something they might be able to draw) and they used black permanent marker to draw the outline on cartridge paper. Next they used water colours to fill in the spaces.

They glued the noun word onto their artwork once it was dry.
I hope this display might be useful for them when they are writing as they now have a bank of words from which to choose. And maybe they will remember what a noun is as a bonus!

iPad apps for the classroom: Striking a balance

This year I am lucky enough to be getting six iPads for my classroom. This will give me a ratio of 1:4. If I use my personal iPad and my iPad mini, this could give me a ratio of 1:3 when I need it. (Plus one student brings his own iPad. Someone heard that iPads are good for kids with special needs so some kids have their own. That's another post for another time.) 
So I have come to the exciting part of the iPad journey - deciding which apps to load on the new iPads from the hundreds of thousands of apps available in the App Store.
I haven't got an unlimited budget but I don't want to download too many apps because it gets overwhelming. (To be honest, I'm not sure what my budget is, but I know it won't be infinite - I am lucky that I have been given the money for the iPads - I don't want to push the limits too far!)
Some of the free or cheaper apps are great and have been my "go to" apps up until now. (See my post on Sonic Pics and Pic Collage) Sometimes the old adage "you get what you pay for" really comes into play. The convenience of a good quality app that doesn't keep trying to sell you things is priceless.
Costs aside, I want to provide my students with a good range of apps so they can select the right tool for the right task.
I will provide them with some "drill and practice" and content type apps, and, of course, some logical thinking and strategy games, but the main purpose of the iPads will be as tools for learning, creating, sharing and collaborating. I want my students to be creative producers of knowledge, not passive consumers.
To assist in my quest for the right balance, I have started a Pinterest board for iPad apps for Year 2. I have put the links to the iTunes store and a brief description of each app. Hopefully this will make it easier next week to find them again and to select the ones that I decide I want now, or down the track. I am also hopeful that people will stumble across my Pinterest board and leave useful comments about how they have used these apps in their own classrooms.

I am working on a concept map that will hopeful clarify my thinking about how I intend to use the iPads with the students and which apps will best meet these needs. I will update this post as I go until I have worked it out.

Collaborative Planning using Web 2.0

This year I am beginning in a new role as Curriculum Support Teacher at my school. I am very excited as I am absolutely passionate about curriculum and I love to share my enthusiasm with others and (hopefully) help them to ignite a passion for teaching and curriculum too.

I will have three days a week in my new role and two days a week in my Year 2 classroom - the best of both worlds!

This will mean that I will have to relinquish a lot of the responsibility for the classroom goings on. My new teaching partner is enthusiastic about coming on board so hopefully she will survive the first little part of the year while I am learning not to be such a control freak. After (more than) 10 years of being able to do my own thing, I am going to need to adjust to the idea of sharing. It will be good for me. ;-)

After the huge learning curve I experienced last year when my life was opened up to the world of blogging, twitter, pinterest, dropbox, evernote and other ways of reflecting on, organising and sharing my teaching experiences, I am keen to support other teachers at my school to take the plunge!

I have just set up a collaborative Pinterest Board for the Life Stages topic that we will likely be studying in first term. 

I invited my fellow Year 2 teachers but so far I haven't had any responses. (Most probably because they are enjoying the last moments of their holidays before we have to come back to work!) I am hoping that this will be a new way of sharing our ideas that will be quick, simple, fun and collaborative. I don't expect that any of us will be able to do even half of the activities that I have pinned already but Pinterest is a nice visual display of resources. The collaborative board will be kind of like a menu of ideas that people can pick and choose from, and if there is nothing there that they like, they don't need to choose any. Hopefully they will add to the ideas as well.

In the past we have shared links in emails but sometimes we get a lot of these types of emails from each other and it can take a while to check all the links and try to work out what idea on the page the other person thought was relevant. Often I get one of these emails and read the first part and think "I'll check this out later" and then bury it in my disorganised inbox, never to be seen again. 

I have tried searching my inbox (either using the approximate date, the person who I think I can remember that sent it to me, or a possible keyword) and this sometimes works but can be very time consuming. I am hoping Pinterest will open up a new and better way for us to collate our ideas so we can retrieve them easily when we need them.

My teaching team are wonderful, and even though they think I am a little crazy, they usually give things a go just to humour me.

If this works, I am hoping this will be an effective and time-efficient tool for supporting the curriculum in my school.

I am also in the process of setting up a blog for my new role that will be situated within the walled-garden of our LIFE Learning Management System. Hopefully using LIFE like this will help me to get used to it so I can apply it more effectively in my classroom as well.

My hope is that I can share information with my colleagues about curriculum matters in a way that is easy for them to access when they need to without overwhelming them with too many emails which may or may not be of interest to them.

I think this year is going to be full of challenges for me, learning to use these tools in new ways and supporting others in beginning a journey to more collaborative practice using Web 2.0.

What tools do you use for collaborative planning?

How do you share your ideas with your colleagues at your school?

Deskmats and Whiz Words

I have been busily preparing for the first day back at school. There always seems so much to do, and a lot of the jobs are fiddly. At least during the holidays I get the chance to play around a bit with these fiddly jobs and as I don't feel so rushed I find it takes all day to get the job done to my expectations.
Today I created files for my deskmats. These placemats are very handy. Last year I used them everyday as part of my morning routine and the students referred to them often during both literacy and numeracy activities. It is very useful to have the help right in front of them.
I have made a simple freebie version with the Whiz Words on a mini-poster. These could be printed two-to-a-page and glued inside a homework or writing book as a quick reference for some of the commonly used words.

My full placemats are available in three different fonts and in two formats. I use Queensland "qcursive" font which is a precursive font with exits and entries. It is great to have a handwriting model on their desks everyday. I also included a copy with a beginners font for younger students and a plain font for people who don't use the Queensland font. The PDF version is simple to print and all the hard work is done for you. If you would like to customise your deskmats, I have also created a PowerPoint version.

'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!

Science with Santa

To finish off our Physical Science unit on forces and to have a bit of festive fun we conducted an experiment to see which surfaces would be easiest for pulling a sleigh across.
The children were introduced to the idea via a letter from Santa which told them that Rudolph was too sick to pull the sleigh this year so he was going to have to use one less reindeer. To make it easier for the remaining reindeer, Santa needed to know which surfaces were the best for pulling the sleigh.
You can read about our experiment from the students' point of view on my class blog.
The first lesson involved the children discovering the letter from Santa and then thinking about different surfaces that Santa might travel along (when he wasn't flying, of course). We are seriously lacking snow and ice in Brisbane this Christmas!
The next lesson was very fun and creative. The students has to design their own model Santa sleigh to be used in their experiment. We had round tubs for them to use as the base. A more rectangular shape might be a bit easier (such as a margarine tub) but we needed something that we could get 24 the same.

In the following lesson we used spring balances to measure the force in Newtons (which was not really in the Year 2 Science curriculum but it was fun anyway and it did allow them to do a real experiment with simple measurements). If you would like to use the experiment worksheet we used, it is available from my TPT store.
The final part of the lesson sequence was to write a letter back to Santa with the findings. One of my students who struggles with writing used the iPad to record his letter instead.

This was a great assessment of the students' understanding of Science. It was interesting to see which students clearly understood the purpose of the experiment and were able to articulate this in their letter to Santa. A few of my "super-competitive" types were at first confused because they decided that the surfaces that had "the biggest number" must have been the best. It took a little while for them to realise that they were looking for the surface that needed the smallest number of newtons because they needed the "easiest" surface.
Since we had no icy surfaces, we used soapy lino to make something slippery that might be similar to ice.
The children's measurements were not exactly accurate and they didn't quite grasp the idea of having to keep the weight the same each time but they seemed to get the idea that some surfaces were easier to pull things along than others, which was the main aim. And they had a lot of fun!

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!

Does my classroom reflect my teaching philosophy?

Last weekend on Twitter, @whatedsaid tweeted an excellent question along the lines of "Does your classroom environment reflect what you believe about learning?"
At the time I thought this was an excellent question and wished I had time to do it justice in a reflective post.
As luck would have it, this week I was asked to give a presentation on a similar topic so I managed to create time to reflect on what I do and whether this matches what I say I believe.
Here is what I found:

Even though what I do, I could do successfully in a different system, my philosophy of teaching is based on my foundational belief in the dignity of the human person. I believe that every child is made in the image and likeness of God, and that every child deserves to feel safe, have fun and to enjoy learning experiences that suits their needs.

 Learners in my classroom are usually busy doing. Of course there are times when they gather to listen, reflect and recap, but I try to allow opportunities for hands-on exploration, discussion and experimentation as much as possible.

 I am very proud of the way that my students are able to speak about their own learning and why what they are doing is of benefit to their learning needs. This year I have implemented the Daily 5 program for the first time. I have found that this program which fits my philosophy well, provides a structure for my practice in Literacy, and that the students and I have been able to transfer the best parts of this practice into other curriculum areas.

 Right from the beginning of the year, I work hard to establish a sense of community through special shared experiences, predictable routines that highlight the identity of our class community and behavioural expectations based on mutual respect. A few years ago I convinced my school administration to allow us to move to a resources levy system instead of a text book list so that I can set up shared resources in my classroom. When students have individual belongings and pencils cases I find that usually by the end of the first semester, many of the twist-up crayons have been turned into pea shooters and half the class can't seem to find a pair of scissors when they need them. Since moving to the shared tubs, I have discovered that students are more responsible for the resources since they don't see them as belonging to them, but as necessary for our class community.

 If you spent a week in my classroom you would notice how much and in how many ways technology has transformed the way that I work with students in my room. I use my projector and laptop as an essential part of many of our routines. I use a bank of student laptops (shared among a few classes) for individual and collaborative activities. I use a set of shared iPads for a range of purposes, and use my own personal iPad and iPhone for capturing student learning on a daily basis.

 I try very hard to allow all learners to engage in challenging activities at an appropriate level by providing differentiated learning experiences and open-ended tasks. I use K-W-L charts and pretests to determine the students' individual and collective knowledge and interests prior to learning experiences and use this information to guide my planning.

 The General Capabilities of the Australian Curriculum are at the heart of what I do. I regularly reflect on how I am offering my students opportunities to develop in these capabilities.

Although I am restricted to the furniture I was given and a reasonably small classroom with no "break-out" space, I have tried my best to arrange the furniture to suit the kinds of experiences I want students to have in the room. I have set aside a large carpet area so all the children can gather in front of the IWB and so there is enough space for games and movement. I have arranged the desks into pods and students know that even though they have a "home desk" which houses their books etc, they can work in a variety of spaces within the room, sometimes for flexible grouping, sometimes by their own choice. In the corner, I have had the old whiteboard installed at floor height so that students can use this space to write questions, reflect on learning, practise their spelling or express ideas in pictures. The PE teacher has loaned us an exercise ball and students love to sit on this either at their desks or around the room. My teacher desk is pushed right into the corner of the room so it doesn't take up more space than it must. I rarely sit at it anyway. My students sit on my "teacher chair" more than I do. I'm always on the move!

I really do think that my classroom reflects my teaching philosophy. Of course it is a "work in progress" and changes as I reflect on how I can improve, and when I am inspired by other great teachers who share their ideas.

Does your classroom reflect your beliefs about learning? I'd love to see more ideas!

Remembering what not to forget...

Today is Remembrance Day. The 11th day of the 11th month is set aside to commemorate the end of World War I and also to remember those who died and suffered in all wars and armed conflicts.
As a teacher, I have an important role in helping my young students to develop an understanding of what we are pausing to remember.
We pause to remember the young lives that were wasted, the families who suffered and the enormous cost of war to both sides. War is nothing but a tragedy. There are no winners in a war.

I have worked all year on the way that my students talk about war and its real effects on our society. 

At the beginning of the year my boys particularly would roll on the floor with their pretend machine guns made from their hands. 

They would cheer at the sight of soldiers and guns in images they saw. They would see war as a game from which you can easily walk away (an idea they get from exposure to video games and movies) or they would see it as something far away that happens in countries where the people are bad and "coming to get us". Luckily for these students, they have not been affected by war in a way that they understand what it really means.

Through our history studies and most recently the contact with their grandparents, the students now speak about war as a time of great sadness, of difficulty for the troops and the families left behind and the ongoing cost to a society that lost so many of its strong young people and who were filled with grief and sadness even if their loved ones returned. 

The children know that their grandparents were affected by the war even if they were born after the war or were too young to go to war. This message came through strongly in their letters. 

They know that WWI was called "the Great War" not because it was fantastic but because it was so big and affected so many people. They know that their predecessors called it "the war to end all wars" and that they had truly and deep down hoped it would be - even if reality seemed to far away from this dream. 

My students have considered a future without war and have discussed how they can learn to work together. Through our quadblogging experience they have looked for similarities in people who look different from them on the surface. We do this so that they might be the generation who finds a better way to solve problems.

I share a message of peace - a message about a future full of hope for all humanity.

These students are our future and we owe it to those who did give their lives to make sure this generation does not repeat the mistakes of history. 

I'll do my bit and hope it works. 

Lest we forget.