An Easter Rooster?

Today we looked at the Holy Week Story: Peter disowns Jesus.
In this story, Peter hears a rooster crowing and is reminded that Jesus had warned him that before the rooster crowed twice, Peter would have denied knowing Jesus three times.
I wanted a simple but memorable activity for my students to do while they reflected on the story and I am trying to avoid "death by blackline master" in my class.
A pile of paper plates left over from a lifecycle craft activity provided the inspiration for our roosters. Because I didn't give them a template, they each have their own quirky character!

Each child used half a paper plate as the "body" for their rooster, and then (loosely copying my model) they attached paper and card to the semi-circle to create their own rooster.
Once they had designed and created their rooster, they selected three feather to attach for the tail. The three feathers reminded the students of the three times that Peter disowned Jesus.
We also watched this You Tube clip of a puppet show. This was good because it retold some of the other events we had talked about on previous days too, but this time from Peter's perspective.

When they sat on the carpet this afternoon at the end of the day, we recapped the story. I was happy with the level of detail they were able to recall from the story and am hoping they will retell the story with as much enthusiasm when they took their roosters home with them.

12 Stories of Holy Week

In the lead up to Easter, we are investigating the Holy Week stories in Year 2. By the end of the term, I am hoping that my students will be able to retell the key events of Holy Week and be able to reflect on some of the messages in these stories.
I identified 12 key stories from Holy Week and have been retelling the stories in different ways each day and revising the key events with the students using a simple PowerPoint presentation that I made and some "Holy Week eggs" - based on the brilliant idea from Catholic Icing. I forgot to take photos of my eggs so I will have to do that later and add them to this post.
Other things I have done (or will be doing) to present the stories:
* Songs - Hymns, kids praise songs and songs from Jesus Christ Superstar which tell about key events.
* Videos - mostly from You Tube - some of them are better quality than others. They loved the Ollie the Donkey video for Palm Sunday.
* Craft - Palm Sunday Leaves, Rooster craft (for Peter disowns Jesus), Last Supper craft (from Catholic Icing)
* Activities - wordsearches, drawing responses
* Experiences/ Role Play - Palm Sunday parade, Washing feet, Passover meal - tasting, Stations of the Cross
* Stories - reading versions from Children's Bibles, retellings from picture books, reading from the Bible

I have made some cards that match the PowerPoint slide I have been using and I will use these with my students for them to practise sequencing and retelling the stories.

So far my students have been enjoying the activities for each story. I hope this increases their understanding of the true meaning of Easter.

Life without a computer

My laptop has decided to stop working. With a bit of luck the fantastic people at the Apple hospital will be able to save it but in the mean time I have been experiencing life without a computer.
I can't say I like it. I am missing out on so many great ideas and I haven't been able to blog.
Yesterday I couldn't bear it any longer so I went and bought an iPad to get me through until my computer issue is solved.
Typing is slower and I can't work out how to put images in but the iPad does seem to be able to manage most tasks that I would normally use the computer to complete.
I have found some really cool apps so I can't wait to get to school tomorrow and try them out with my kids!

Permission to Pin

I am very new to this pinning business but it appears to be a fun, quick and easy way to share and organise ideas. Just what we teachers need!
I would love people to pin my ideas. If you think something on my blog is useful to you, it may be useful to others too, so why not pin it and share the ideas?
Copyright and other ethical considerations are a serious issue. I try very hard to be a good role model for my own students with regards to copyright ownership and teach them explicitly that ideas, images, music etc belong to people and we can't just "take without asking". This is going to be a huge thing for them in the future.
But...
The ideas I share on my blog are there to share, so please, share away!
And if you really like my ideas, then follow my blog and encourage others to follow me too. :)

A Favourite Edu-App: iMovie for iPad2

One of my favourite educational apps for the iPad2 is iMovie. The iPad version of the program is pretty simple so it is easy enough to use with children without them getting too carried away with extra features, but there are enough cool things that kids can do with it to allow them to unleash their creativity.

The first time I used this app with my students was last year with my Year 4 class. They made very simple movies using still images that they took using the inbuilt camera and then recorded their own narration for the movie while they watched the images playback. It was super simple and the children really enjoyed making the movies and watching each other's movies once they were done.

On that occasion we used some of the "dress-up costumes" from the RE cupboard to re-enact the bible story "Jesus calls the first disciples". As a group we planned the storyboard and worked out which images we would need, then they posed for each scene and we took photos using the iPad camera. This meant that the photos went straight into the camera roll and appeared in the iMovie app ready to be dragged in. The students had control over the length of time that each image played so they could decide how much narration they needed for each part of the story.
One of the creative students then went on to sing her own song on another recording track so she had music as well. This is what is so great about creative apps- the children are not limited by our ideas and they can teach and inspire each other to go further than I might have imagined on my own!

This year I am getting these same students (now in Year 5) to assist my Year 2s to make short iMovies about the lifecycle of their chosen plant or animal for our science unit. I don't want to restrict the amount of information the Year 2s can tell me by having them write everything they know. I am expecting they will find talking about it easier than writing so this should give me a better indication of their knowledge of life stages.

I am also planning on using iMovie to record my students reading for my own records and assessment. I think it will be great to have a short sample of their reading from now and a few other times throughout the year so I can see how they are improving.

What apps do you use? Join my linky party to share our favourite apps.

Join the Edu-Apps Linky Party!

I am hosting my first linky party!
It has taken me ages to work out how to do this so hopefully I have it right...

I want you to tell me (and the rest of the blogging world) all about your favourite educational apps.

My kids are really loving our new iPads and we already have a number of apps they like to use. When describing educational apps, there are two main groups (IMHO): educational games and creative apps.

Educational games are great fun and are a motivating way for students to get plenty of practice at basic skills (like spelling and maths facts), and although they tend to live at the bottom end of Bloom's Taxonomy, they certainly have a place and have been a huge hit amongst my Year 2 students.

Creativity apps are more flexible in their application and can be used to challenge children to apply, synthesise and critique - moving right up there on the Bloom's scale!

Please link to this Linky Party and share your favourite app or apps. It would be great to blog about how you use this in your classroom so that we can all help each other to use this new technology to transform our teaching and help our students reach greater heights!

Assessing Calendar Work

In order to see who meets the standards for the Year 2 Australian Curriculum for Mathematics, I have put together a Calendar Quiz for students to complete.

To celebrate the end of this work on calendars, students will work with a partner to create a page for our class calendar. We will use this calendar in our room this year and by writing some of our favourite memories on it, it will become a memento of our journey together.
You can download a free template for a blank calendar page at my TPT store.

The following table shows how this can link to the Australian Curriculum in Year 2 for Mathematics and English.