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.