Timo

I found this picture that my grandaughter drew when she was 4. Lots of things still remind me of Timo - there's at least 3 or 4 things each day.

Fellowship

I officially start at Scion on Feb 1 after I have been to Wellington.Its starting to feel real at last -I can hardly wait for it all to start.

Christmas

My grandson took this photo of my nativity set which I set up for Christmas.

Reflection

I have been looking at some of the posters past Royal Society teaching Fellows have done about their work. I wonder what I will do.
It looks as if the start is the day on the 28 Jan 2011 called a symposium. I am going to have to look that word up as I don't know what it means (now there's a good start!!).
Good old google - I now know a symposium is a meeting or conference for discussion of a topic, especially one in which the participants form an audience and make a presentation. There is another symposium at the end on 15 July.
I put in the monarchs to remind me about lost ones who I am missing at this time of the year.

Holidays

Its taking a while to unwind after such a full on year -lots of low points so I am looking forward to 2011 as it can only get better. My holidays will largely be minding my family's animals while they go away for 25 days. I dont mind as i was doing nothing else. I like Porter the sausage dog and I will take her for lots of walks (which will be good for both of us.) Parrot and Chardonny (cats), 5 goldfish and Smokey the rabbit are not too much work.

Inquiry and science

I have just seen a post on BH's blog about an inquiry classroom. I am going to work hard in 2011 from term 3 to have a classroom like that. I will collect all sorts of interesting goodies to have in my inquiry room.

10.10.10

I finally posted my surfer photo and had a look at a few of the brillant photos. I see Helen Clark has taken part.I really need to take better photos. I tried to set up a wiki for my fellowship work but ran into problems with my first photo. I will ask for help.

Inquiry and science

I am looking forward to 2011 and after my science fellowship time I will be releasing teachers so I will have a different class each day. I want to make sure I combine science and inquiry. I have just been on Bruce's
http://leading-learning.blogspot.com and reading his wisdom about inquiry. I think we sometimes try and make it too complicated. I am looking forward to setting up my room for this type of learning.

Inquiry

My brother is a DP at a high school and he told me that their year 9's are going to be learning through inquiry next year.He sounds really excited about it and although its come from what is in the NZC he also said he saw how excited his own 3 primary school children were about their own learning and wanted their pupils (and staff) to be as excited about their learning. When he said that for social studies y9's had done Ancient Egypt for 'ever' and what relevance did that have for their kids and community I could hear LW's words about making learning rich, real and RELEVANT. I am going to have lots of chats with my brother to see how it is going.

End of an Era

I have put Mum's house on the market. I felt really sad when I saw the sign up yesterday but its time to let it go.

2011

I still have a job at our school but it is a sad place at the moment. While I am relieved to have a job I really feel for the 3 who missed out. I really thought I was out.
My science Fellowship is on track and my first electronic ticket for 28 Jan 2011 came through yesterday. Its for a day in Wellington.
We all have to put a couple of 'slides' together for the Owhata section of the next cluster share. I could not go past my Science Fellowship for this sharing.

Today is the Day

School

I am drawing my energy from my kids in the class at the moment. Boy this job situation is stressful and so I am really monitoring my BSL to ensure I am fine health wise. I have a Year 1 student A and she is working hard at her tasks.The class lesson on friday meant we had some really useful follow up discussions and I like the fact that she is open to new learning, reflecting etc. I am waiting to hear back from JA re science fellowship work as he is away until the 4.11.
My grandaughters birthday party was on saturday and I got her a ukelele. She is only 2 but got it out of the bag, found the pick and started strumming. She is so lucky having an Uncle who is in a band and who has bought a guitar for the older 2 of my grandkids. I am using some of my photos I took of patterns -photos from around my house and around the neighbourhood.

Another Use for My Blog

Sometimes I want to keep stuff in a place I can easily get to and so I am going to put my Fellowship objectives here. I guess I will need to work out (and then learn to do) the best tool to store my work once I really start.
Title - (with apologies to Dr. Seuss)
Working with Sciontists
What do they do
For forest biosecurity
And protection too?

My Objectives
1.To develop my knowledge and understanding of how scientists carry out monitoring trials of a control agent.
2.To develop my camera skills so I can effectively photograph aspects of the insect collection and then to develop a simple key.
3.To assist in one or two public aspects of science (planted forest) eg recreational use, Science in the Park Programme.

surfer on 10.10.10

My other 10.10.10 photo

I was sure I was going to get some action surfing photos BUT-----

10.10.10 World wide Photos/Videos

I registered for this but my photos of a surfer at the beach werent good enough to send it so I am going to put a couple here as a record of my effort.

Our School Inquiry Wiki

I wish I could work it out. I thought I had put on 2 PP about science but they wont open. Then when I went into edit one did, but the next time it didnt. Another frustrating time with ICT. I took some photos of patterns so guess what is going into my blog. Posts look naked without photos and I realised I was reusing my photos and I needed new ones. Often they arent related to what I actually write but I like the look of them.

Title

I have to think of a short,pithy title for my science programme with Scion. Looking over the previous fellows they seemed to have one particular project to work on while I have a bit of variety. The junior teacher in me wants to use something from Dr. Seuss but the school server is down so I can't google science,quotes and Dr. Seuss. Maybe Sciontists at Work???? I will ponder on it.

Science Fellowship

Its all go again with exciting things like 'The Fellow, Tricia Dender, will work with Scion scientists primarily within the forest biosecurity and protection team to assist in some bio-control projects and in developing tools in the insect collection.

Jobs

After forgetting my youngest grandaughters birthday last week because I was so fill of woe about the job situation, I decided that while I am worried about it, I am not going to let it take over my life.I am so sorry Little One

Presentation

Part of our application for our jobs is to have the 'opportunity to present to us why you should be one of the ones to be appointed.'The presentation can take any form you like and has a time frame of 15 - 30 minutes.Under the personal characteristics it states such things as 'we require a person who is willing to use the inquiry process and ICT use, so I am going to build my one around those. I was originally going to use something I had already done involving my class but I really want and need this job so I am going to do things a bit differently.I also want to make sure I show my interest in science and how this will help the school.

School

3 out 8 of us scale A teachers are going to lose our jobs due to our dropping roll. It is a real stressful time for us all. We are going to be given the opportunity to do a presentation so I am thinking about what to do. I will probably use some work I have already done with my children.
I have a year 1 student from Canterbury Uni and she is a reflective person. I like the fact that she listens to advice I give her and takes it on board.
There is a lot of data collecting going on at this time of the year. Junior classes have some extra things like KLST (individual) as well. I am keeping up (so far).
Something has gone wrong with my IWB projector and we are really missing it. The kids liked doing a paint picture at the tech room -they are so good at helping each other and learning together.

U Learn 2010

I may not be there in body but I am hearing about what is going on. Lorraine has sent some great stuff through on the Rellco wiki and I have already signed up with Zoo Burst - now I need to go thru it carefully so I can use it properly.

Also I have been on Jo's blog and read what she has been doing.

Term 4

Overview for next term:
I want to have a go at Lane Clark's Fairy Tale work using her criteria sheets.
For science continue with water exploration.
I have a year 1 student for the first 4 weeks so make sure my planning -WALTS, assessments etc are being done well.
I want to have a good look at our room environment to make sure it is reflecting our learning.
Sort out ICT use for pupil lead conferences - children's voice.

Vertabrae

After my fall at school I went to the doctor and had an Xray. I have a broken vertabrae. The doctor handed me some pain killers and said he would organise a bone density test. Thats all -no info about how to manage it -so being a 21st century learner I went on to google. There is nothing to be done -it is meant to come right after several weeks-so now I know. Its really sore.Has anyone got any advice?

Teaching

I am having a couple of days off school due to having an unexplained fall. The ambulance person wondered if I had strained/stretched my back because I had been doing a lot of writing on the board. If I wasnt in so much pain I would have laughed as the days of the teacher being up the front of the class writing on the board have really changed. Writing is more than likely to be done by the children anyway and there is so much more to learning now than just writing. Kind of an AHA moment for me but it did make me think has the community kept up with our ICT learning.
I am going to get more photos in the holidays for my blog.

Another photo I just like - my grandson did it. Time to remember that school holidays will be about spending some time with my 3 grandkids too.
I have just been onto the Rellco wiki share and there is a nice comment displayed. Its from Robyn and another one from Carol at Rotokawa. I bet LW got them to write something after me being pathetic on the blog. I have to learn that I shouldnt need feedback from people about my ICT/Inquiry learning - kids should be the ones I should listen to.
Even on Friday after House Groups one of the teachers told me that her kids said they just floated an orange for their activity in Room 20. I wanted them to learn that scientists predict, using prior knowledge and then test to confirm or change their thinking. I thought I was really well organised with my equipment and when some other children said they enjoyed what they did because they got to try something new, or that they were surprised by what actually floated and sunk I thought it was a successful activity BUT ____Maybe not.

The Week That Was

Second to last week of term 3 and boy its gone fast. I am having a student Astrid after the holidays so I had better make sure I am organised. Hopefully my science fellowship gets organised early term 4 so its all in place for 2011. I am going to carry on with water as my big inquiry as I like the way it lends itself to simple science experiences. My little kids are getting right into the water cycle and love using the big words like evaporation and condendsation.

The Week That Was

I presented at our cluster share at Lynmore School on wednesday. To be honest I wasnt very happy about what I did but I did start by saying that they weren't going to learn anything new but I wanted the people to reflect on their own learning. I kind of wanted to share where I had come from with my IT learning and while I know it is way behind where most other people are I have learnt heaps.
I am ashamed of my classblog and want to work on that -maybe a wiki is better and for next year when I am doing my science fellowship ----YES its all go for term 1 and 2 2011-- I will need to work that out.
My grand daugter drew this redfish and i am putting it on just because I like it.

Feeling Better

I am Ok again. I was mad because I thought I could put my class PP on the school inquiry wiki but video and sounds dont move. Anyway LW asked me to present at cluster share at Lynmore next wed and I said OK. No doubt I will stress out all weekend but I thought this is probably my last go at it. I know I don't know much but I do use ICT in my daily programme so I will do a bit about science and literacy and share about why I use a reflective blog. I reckon I can fill in half an hour.
I asked for Junior teachers for my share as I have always found all the junior teachers in our Rellco Cluster very supportive of each other.
I am just going to be honest about what I do - not try to pretend any thing else.

Frustration

Sometimes I get cross with myself when ICT stuff goes wrong. I think I am going OK then it goes so wrong. Sometimes I want to give up - I just feel it will be easier to give up and not try anymore. I am thinking do I really want to do it and is it really making life better for me ????

Last Week

We had some principals from Matamata area come and look at our class while we were doing science. We did some work with lemons and how to make a nicer tasting drink. Lots of good language came out of our experiments including:
Look at my sour face when I licked the lemon.
I shivered when I licked the lemon.
We can't put in too much sugar because it will make us hypo.
Nav Kamal really liked his lemon drink.

Science

I asked yesterday for people to let me know what they are doing for science. There was only one reply so more reason to hope my science fellowship goes ahead 2011.I like doing bits and pieces with science and water is proving to be a good wide basis.

Inquiry

I have been reading Bruce Hammonds blog again -he has so much worthwhile material on there -it really makes you think about your teaching. I need to see if I can make our inquiry about water so much more a real part of the class programme not just something extra. I want to use it more for literacy at least. What can I do with this picture from our Waimangu Valley Trip. I will see tomorrow.

The Week that Was

We had a great week with the highlight being the trip to Waimangu Valley. I am compressing the photos and I will blog some soon -here and on the kids one.Lots of experiences and language. We used the IWB for our previsit Y chart and then checked back into it after the trip. I did the old fashioned making a dictionary about the trip using the kids illustrations. I will make another one using the photos.I tried toload the Y chart from the IWB but I cant.
My family had a fun time in Fiji and I am going there for dinner tonight.

Inquiry Model

We had an elearning/inquiry etc curriculum meeting today so that we could come up with an Owhata School Inquiry Model. I think after looking at several different models that what we really have to do is to come up with some memorable name for our model -something that both kids and teachers will be able to use and understand. Wouldn't it be great to have something that reflects our community/culture as well.
Lets brainstorm the stages and see what can come out of---
1.This is the finding out stage ,first ideas and what will we do to excite, engage, >ignite the inquiry.
2.Acquiring, finding, locating etc what we need. Also sorting it out so we get the best info/skills we need.
3.using, presenting our findings
4. The so what aspect of the inquiry -the big picture part, why did we do this inquiry, what action are we going to take.
5. Relecting, evaluating, assessing stage
Now I just want to come up with another word for each stage that excites me - can I do that???

Diary

What did we do this week?

had a great conversation about what good readers and writers do. We made a chart for the class and we will revisit this regularly.

I read Sheena Camerons work and next week I am going to be a lot better at doing before,during and after reading work.

Our fish art looked great (get some photos)

We are going to be doing some work about the seasons- lots of language can come from this.

I remembered my class is only 5 or 6 so we did some work on animals mothers and babies.

Pepe the baby penguin went missing -'apparently" he hid in A. lunch box and ended up at her place. Earlier in the week T wrote a story about kikorangi and Pepe going to netball. Both P and T received a principals award and their names in the school newsletter.

Science

The other morning it was really foggy and frosty. I took some photos of the fog early on my arrival to school so we can do some scientific discussion about what fog is. Unfortunately it had all disappeared by the time the kids arrived at school. Never mind, the frost was still there and through observation the kids worked out the sun had melted the frost as there was still frost where the shade was. I like using the digital camera.

Another Blogger

LW as given me WW's blog to have a look at. I like what I read -I feel

that her blog is about life , not just school stuff. I hope she picks up my comment and replies to me. My IWB is going well and the little kids love writing their name and using the stamper. Room 8 kids are working on setting up some early morning IWB activities for us. Kids being teachers again.

I have been asking my class what do good readers and writers do. Later I will record their comments. Its great to hear them saying about reading and writing being connected.

Photo

I am posting this photo just because I like it. I wish I had done that project where you put in a photo you like each day. I had a burst of doing photos that show learning -especially ones where children are using ICT to help with the learning.

Science

I went on to http://www.royalsociety.org.nz/ and saw the photo of the lucky 13 teachers who got to start their science fellowship. It also had the science facility they were working with. I was so jealous. I have been in contact with John A. from RS and he said that he will sort out things with AD from Scion soon. I still really want to do the fellowship - probably even more now when I am seeing more and more the value of science in a junior classroom.

Here is Traci predicting which white kitchen substances might dissolve in water - before she tested them.

Diary as a reflection

I'm encouraged by what I read on BH's blog http://leading-learning.blogspot.com/ to reflect on my classwork. Kind of like a diary about what has been happening ,especially with my kids learning. In no particular order:

We have been doing water in science - just little experiments. We have mixed white material from the kitchen -salt. sugar etc with water to see what might dissolve. It was great to predict what might happen, then observe what really happened, then record our results.

Next we froze some water and notice that the water expanded when it froze. We tried several ways to melt the water and made decisions about what was the quickest.

For art and science we are doing fish. They loved the virtual dissection. For art we are doing Hundewasser fish. I will post a photo when we have finished.

We sometimes mind some big kids when school can't get relievers and our class look on this as a postive experience as the big kids help with oral language, teaching games etc.

No Blogging

I haven't blog for a few days -why? I want to reflect on that and post a blog about it. I want to get the kids one going better but I havent even done that because I have forgotten how to get rid of a mistake.

Something good that has happened though is that I found my VERY first photostory I made -about Kikorangi coming to school and the kids LOVED it and asked could they make one too. Sometimes with new learning I forget about some of the good old stuff. So maybe the kids blog can just go on the back burner for a while and we'll collect our photos for a new photo story.

ICT use

I am going to list some of the ICT stuff I have done over the past 2 days

Joined our school inquiry wiki and successfully posted my Science PP. also looked at other peoples presentations.

Been on to J's class wiki and used her children's voice to help me learn about Thinking Buddies.

Made comments on 2 other blogs including a rambling about why I blog.

Used my GD's class blog to show my class a virtaul dissection of a fish -as a motivation for our science unit on water.

Made a time with LW to learn more about blogging.

Been on to both my personal and class blog.

Used my IWB for learning in Maths, reading, science, singing. (I am just getting my pens sorted out and then I will be really away.

Read my emails and replied where needed.

Day 1

I really enjoyed Room 20 kids today. C and Jo came in to set up our IWB so we can really get into it. Some great inquiry sharing today - more things to help me to learn. I have done the feedback sheet for R. The wiki being set up for sharing sounds great - I hope I can stick on my Science PP. I am going to book a blogging session with LW so I can jazz up my classblog and involve the kids more.

kikorangi

Our little blue peguin has really disappeared but because I want to do the travel buddy experience with my new class I am going to get a twin. I am also going to get back into classblogmeister with my new class and work hard at making it look good. Its great that LW has put up some of the clusters blogs to motivate us.My grandaughter knows how to do blogging so I will ask her to help me.

Staff meeting

Today we had the beginning of our staff sharing about our goals. BOY some people have so much to share -what a lot of talent we have at OPS. I just know my own learning has so far to go but at the same time I know I have people who can help me continue with my own learning. Also there was a soul searching email from LW and I responded to it.

slide

I have made a slide show, but can't work out how to get it onto this blog. If anyone knows can they help please.

I see on my grandaughter's class blog that they use it frequently to share school events. I have been playing with the digital camera over the holidays and I still find it one of the best ICT tools around. It's just that I want to do more with the photos and then I want the kids at school to use it more - to help their learning and to share that learning.

I am going to use some of my holiday photos in my blog -this is Tapacat.

New Class

My blogging is all about my new class at the moment. Looking back over the last 200 blogs I tend to do that -write about my learning in clumps. I spent 5 hours at school today just sorting out the room plan and furniture. No IWB up yet but I am sure it will be all in place when school starts. My grand children's school reports were about National Standards so it was good to look at them from a Nana's point of view.Most of the children in my new room appear to be behind where end of Y1 and Y2 children should be - but then I remembered we are only half way through the year -so its up to me to make sure I am doing the best teaching I can to get them there. I want to do it with science, art, using the environment, inquiry, ICT, using all the Literacy Arts and maths. I want to do it with enjoyment (for both the kids and me) and the involvement of Whanau.

IWB

http://owhatamaths.wikispaces.com/ has lots of great teaching things under animations that I can use on the IWB at maths time -so I will make sure I include them in my weekly planning. In my favourites I have lots of word games so I will include those too. Also there is the PM readers for the books and activities. I must remember http://rellco.wikispaces.com/ as well for literacy. On user bookmarks the BBC science site is useful as well. I think I have enough to start for my IWB planning.

Plan for R20

I want to have the 10 Y2 in desks, the Y1's on 2 tables, a mat by the IWB, an interesting science area including the trolley from R3, a library with a couch, a maths area, a reading area and what else I will discuss with the kids. I want to do samples on day 1, first ideas and photos of kids about water, go for a wandering walk, use IWB, and heaps more. I guess I will start on wednesday to give time for the letters to go home and reaction from parents. I hope its positive about me being their teacher but I promise myself I wont get upset if its not. I will remember to do learning intentions to share with the children. I can't wait to start-room20 will be a great class.