Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Your Weekly lol 8

Do your students think you live at school?

I've run into few while shopping, and they're always so shy when they spot me.

What about you?








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Saturday, September 8, 2012

Sunday School Pre-prep 2012

Well tomorrow marks the start of another year of Sunday School classes at my church.

I'll be teaching the 2/3 class again this year, after teaching the first half of last year, and the last half of the year before.

Our church uses this curriculum for grades 2-10:
Seasons of the Spirit

When you open up to this week's lesson you'll see all the changes I'm making. There's technically nothing wrong with the curriculum, but I always modify it to match my own teaching style, and to include the Lord's Prayer in every week.
Seasons of the Spirit

When I tell the story starting this year I'll be using gestures and asking the kids to copy me like in Whole Brain Teaching.
WBT gestures bible story

I've marked off the nine months of curriculum to make it easier to look ahead and to prepare my "Month of Sunday's" bulletin board.
post it note page dividers organization

Every teacher has to wear a nametag so we are easily recognized as belonging there.
name tag

I'm displaying on one small board my "Month of Sunday's" featuring this pennant made out of old gift bags.

Month of Sundays

Each of the four Sunday's gets a page with the focus scripture and the theme of the week's lesson.
Month of Sundays

I made these two posters for my class. The first I explained here and the second is the Lord's Prayer. I still need t make a matching one for the Apostles Creed.
We Pray poster Lord's Prayer

I grabbed these from various unnamed sites online, and edited them to fit the paper. The first is the books of the Bible, and the other two are different ways of looking at the Liturgical year.
books of bible liturgical year posters

These are my Whole Brain teaching rules posters from First Grade By the Sea. I've mentioned before how much I love these! There's none for either raise your hand that also had an appropriate bible verse, so I'm omitting it for now since I usually only have at most 5 students, and they are often too shy to raise their little hands. We'll see how the first few weeks go to see if I add it later.
Whole Brain teaching Christian quotes 5 rules

My curriculum comes with these lovely posters, which I really don't care for. Each season I usually like 1-2, but never all of them. Again this year that hold true.
Pentecost 2 posters Seasons of the Spirit

I want my kids and their families to feel welcome, so I made this long pennant for outside our door.
Wrapping Paper Welcome Sign

I'm still colouring these, but that's ok, because I'm not entirely sure how I'll display them. I got them from Ministry to Children.
Bible Alphabet

Stay Tuned for my update on Monday to see pictures of the classroom!






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Wednesday, September 5, 2012

WBT: Program 515 Five Rules Certification Post


How to Successfully Weave the Five Rules into your Daily Instruction




“Our life is composed greatly from dreams, from the unconscious, and they must be brought into connection with action. They must be woven together”. -Anais Nin

I have a dream of a classroom where my students follow directions and know and use all my rules. I have a memory of a classroom where my students don’t know how I expect them to behave and ignore my rules. The way I’ve taught my rules in the past there has been a disconnect for my students in what I expected from them once they knew the rules. I believe I failed to weave a proper blanket for them: a blanket of rules, procedures and expectations.

Every classroom needs rules, whether they are short and simple or long and detailed, you will be hard-pressed to find a room without them. Some rooms have them posted for students to see, and some simply have them given but not posted. What every classroom has in common is the fact that they exist, but what makes a Whole Brain Teaching classroom stand out from the pack is how they are used. A Whole Brain classroom weaves the rules into many aspects of their daily learning, procedures and expectations.

The video, Program 515, explicitly teaches me as the teacher how to weave my own comfortable, cozy Whole Brain blanket for my classroom. It started with the reminder that my rules are not simply to be taught at the beginning of the year and only brought up again when used as a reminder for less than perfect behaviours, but must be rehearsed as part of our daily routines the whole year through. I must make it part of my teaching style to find quirky ways to engage my students when rehearsing the 5 rules at least three times a day. In this way, my day is wrapped in a blanket of rules.

One of my biggest weaknesses in my own past classroom management, was getting the students to follow my directions. I had failed to teach them why these rules were important, and what the consequences were for failing to comply. My rules were not a part of their unconscious thought. But with Whole Brain teaching, and specifically Coach Biffle’s method of weaving the rules into our daily routines, I believe I could make my day much better, and by extension, the days of all my students. Coach Biffle suggests for Rule #1 (Follow Directions Quickly) that it be made into a race and students are trying to beat their own collective best time to line up quickly, pass out papers, put away books, etc. By making this routine fun for students, we will waste less instructional time and students will feel responsible for this rule. The rule has become a procedure, and thus has been woven into our daily routines.

The rule which my students will need more help in making a part of their blankets and weave into their days will be #4 to Make Smart Choices. This rule is a hard concept for young students unless we explicitly teach it to them. They need to know what exactly IS a Smart Choice, so we must weave a picture for them. Together as a class we pose questions about real life situations and we can create anchor charts together which compare smart and silly choices. We can talk about any common situation, and as the year progresses if we come across new situations which could make their blankets knotted, we need to sit down together again and make new charts to see how this rule has its own set of procedures for every experience. This rule is not just for our classroom, it is for their lives outside of school and for the rest of their lives. By having this rule, we are saying we want them to grow up to be responsible people with dreams of a better future.

The last rule is also easily woven into the blanket of our daily instruction. Students will always deny they are breaking a rule even when we catch them knotting someone else’s blanket, but if we ask them if they are making us happy with what they are doing, they can never prove to us we are happy when we are not. If students are trying to keep us happy, then they are learning, because that is what will make us happy. Every teacher knows that with the shortage of teaching jobs, that the teachers who can prove their students are learning the curriculum, are the teachers who will be happily employed for another school year.

I have a dream where my students knit together beautiful multicoloured knowledge blankets which will go with them through every stage of their learning journey.







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Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Your Weekly lol 5

I so WANT these for my classroom!

But where would I put them?

On my desk and make a face?
I saw another blogger put them on her filing cabinet (who was that, was it you?)
On a bulletin board? "Looking Good"

What would you do with them?






***********************************************************
Do you have an idea for a future post, or are interested in guest blogging or having me write a guest post? Please comment or email me!

Want to find awesome resources for your Early Childhood Education classroom?
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