12.11.12: One good. One great.

Today, I was back on placement. Back with the Year 6 class, back in the chaos of schools, and back in charge.

The day began with Literacy - in which we are teaching the Jabberwocky - I took the lowest set, and we worked pretty damn hard to understand what a noun, verb, adjective and adverb are. We then dissected the first stanza of the poem deciding, based on the sentence structure, what nonsense words were (noun, verb, etc.)  and finally deciding how we each individually interpret the nonsense words to mean.

Tip of the week: if you do the above, do not let the children look up certain words on the internet (mimsy being one) as there are all sorts of issues....

This afternoon, we took a science lesson, 'on the hoof' as it were. I cannot take a lot of credit for the lesson as my placement partner took most of it, with myself interjecting mainly for clarification and more technical information (such as the difference between melting and dissolving). But it was an out and out success. I shall be leading this same lesson on Wednesday, so I took note of the positives and the negatives (there were very few) and as out double act goes, hope that it is fine tuned by then!

As for now, I am off to read a book for my assignment (told you I would do it...)

S x

26-18/09/12: Matriculation and sleep deprivation

The last few days have been a little hectic, and consequently I have not actually gotten round to writing on here. Wednesday (26th) was PE and Drama. We learnt more about how to organise a PE lesson for different abilities within a group, and a few games to help improve everyone's skills (rolling, kicking, throwing, batting etc) It's good for me to learn, because I never enjoyed games at school - and I hope that I can learn to teach with the encouragement that lacked in my education. Drama was my all time least favourite lesson. It was (and I guess still is) a popularity contest. The more popular people are generally more confident and so gain recognition from the teacher. I did not enjoy drama. I will always remember hating my teacher for forcing me to perform in front of people that I did not like or trust, and I think drama is all about trust in yourself and the audience. It is deeply personal, it is a time when you have to let down your defences because that is the only way to become a character. And if you do that you leave yourself open to be hurt. That is why I hated drama. The lesson therefore was walked into with dread. After the intro, we played 'hand touch' which I am awesome at it turns out, and then we did some improv - which I find really difficult (thinking on my feet.... probably a skill I should learn) and then we did some activities around a scene. The scene was a 'character passage' about being survivors after a long journey, and making this new place our home. No detail of where we were, or had come from, where why we moved or what happened in the journey. And we split into four groups. My group was creating a map of where we had come from, the second group did a set of two freeze-frames with thought tapping of the scene prior to leaving and whilst fleeing. The third group did four freeze-frames depicting the journey, and the final group did hot-seating of the thoughts post arrival. Finally we finished with a conscience alley. It was a lot better than I anticipated, and I actually look forward to the next lesson. I still don't like drama, but I will keep an open mind at least.

27th: Science and Music today. Music is always an odd one for me. On the one hand I love songs, and singing (I'm not sure I can sing, but I enjoy singing!) but in the other hand, I really can't play instruments.... I guess teaching music therefore makes me feel rather nervous! We started with warm up music games, which seem pretty simple - and were rather fun! Next we learnt different techniques for building up children's confidence with beats and rhythm, as well as pitch and harmony. Science was all about making the subject interactive - we did junk modelling to create the inside of the human body.

Thursday evening, was also matriculation. So, nice pretty dresses, lovely meal, and a strange ritual of Latin/Anglo Saxon (?) words whilst drinking wine from an African Horn.... Only at Cambridge.

28th: Today (because now I am caught up) is, as always English Friday! Poetry to be specific, we learnt different techniques to encourage and entice poems from our class, and a huge array of poets to read up/teach. One great resource is: http://www.poetryarchive.org/childrensarchive/home.do It is definitely worth some time - there are recordings of poets performing their work and interviews about works, and just thousands of poems! We did write our own poem (a group work) taking elements from the different games/lesson ideas we had been taught. Ours is a haiku, and I hope you enjoy it!

The wild cake robots

Blotted out the summer sun

darkness envelops

S x

24.09.2012: Reading, Poetry and Twister

Today has been another really lovely day - first day of my lift share (which made the journey go SO much quicker) AND, after we got to class we had to do an observation session.... which involved playing with children's toys :) I observed first - the rest of the group played with brio trains, and then it was my turn to play... and we played Twister! Which is the best game ever. Fact. And finally, we made a jigsaw puzzle (which is harder than it seems when there are four of you making it!)

This afternoon, we had a talk (well performance) from Tony Mitton - a childrens poet and picture book writer. He is a really lovely man, and his poems are really good - for all ages, Early Years right through to Secondary. If you are studying Early Years definitely check out his picture books, and some of his re-telling of classic stories (generally in poem form) as they are a great way to get children into the idea of rhyme with a story that they will generally know. If you are interested, check out his website at: tonymitton.co.uk

So that brings me to know, I have a lovely collection of books to read - mainly Harry Potter at the moment, but also The Diary of Anne Frank and Gangsta Granny by David Walliams. But first, I need to read a lot of text books/journals for my essay (oh yes, I still haven't actually started it)

Have a great night,

S x

22.09.2012: No rest for the wicked. Or trainee teachers.

It is the weekend, and I get no time to rest. 18 things on the to do list, I hope for at least 10 to be completed by tonight... But lets all hope for more!

English subject knowledge test and Audit. Nothing will ever fill me with more dread in my entire life than those words. I actually feel physically panicked at the thought of having to complete them again!

So, after a day of sitting and typing, I have achieved nothing at all on my essay, but I have done a lot of other things! There are 10 things left on my list, so I achieved my goal, but I could have done more.... If the links I needed had worked (connected to the right thing or actually allowed me to download my documents!) For the rest of the night I shall be doing my background reading for my essay in the hope that I will digest it all in my sleep and be more than prepared to write it all tomorrow. It is a short essay - only 2000 words, which is good in some ways - I should be able to write it in a day (like tomorrow) but such a short essay does mean I am likely to spend a long time chopping bits out....

Today I have also invested in some books - some being the operative word as I can't afford them all!! Student loans wrote to me today to say I need to send back another form and then they will think about sending me my money, so fingers crossed that gets sorted for next week! I would recommend buying your books prior to the start of your course unlike me, because its amazing how quick the essay has come along (that is our first essay was given to us on day two of the course...) I think my library card will take a beating this year as I have to create a reading journal for English also - full of children's books for all ages. I hope to have at least 100 books read and reviewed for their learning potential by the end of the year.

I'm off to carry on with my reading... well if CamTools lets me log back in so I can link to the articles...

Have a nice evening - I am celebrating this long, tiring, exciting week (plus getting my degree results) with a Chinese Takeaway :)

S x

21.09.2012: First Week Complete!

SO, it has been a long week, but I have loved every second of it!

Today, was (as Friday always will be, English day) I should probably explain now that English and Foreign Languages were my least favourite subjects at school, so the idea of a day of English fills me with dread. Saying this, I wasn't bad at them, in my GCSE English Literature and Language (and French for that matter) I got an A in each, so I know I am not particularly bad, I just don't enjoy it (in the same way that pretty much all my course mates seem to dislike Maths) But, it was all about the kids literature, so that makes me very happy!

I have to read children's books, so hello excuse to read the Hunger Games again, and Harry Potter, Famous Five, Charlie and Lola, Jolly Postman, Biff and Chip, and the rest! I am basically re-visiting my childhood (and teenage years, and my adulthood so far)

So, now I am off to read some story books. And write an essay.And read some uni texts. And write a journal. And takes a practice test. And update my CV. And fill out some paperwork. And you get the idea.

There is a lot to do, but its one week in, and I figure if I can cope with this week I shall be able to cope with the rest of the year.... Fingers crossed!

S x