The Year That Was - 2009

I've been doing lots of thinking about the year that I've had and the many things that filled it. It was possibly the most productive year I've ever had, but I don't feel I had time to really live and enjoy it. Here's what happened...

January - Enjoyed the holidays and joined the Twitter 365 Project group with Flickr. Unfortunately I couldn't keep it up for long once school started back! Started Tech Tips Tuesday and The Teaching K-6 Blog Carnival. Camped a night with my sister at the coast. Did lots of coast trips with my hubby and dog to put more kilometers on the car for our car lease!

February - Started school again, back where I feel challenged and inspired, and began teaching Year 4. Started a unit of work on the book Rowan of Rin by Emily Rodda. Joined the School Board as a teacher representative. Organised Harmony Day Assembly.

March - Started my Graduate Certificate in Educational Leadership. Began mentoring an intern teacher.

April - Presented at the Edna Mini-conference. Went to my Nana's 90th Birthday in Gosford. Began using the Flip Mino and Blue Snowball microphone in the classroom. Began weeding on the Ridge.

May - Went to Sunshine Coast for Microsoft Innovative Schools Conference - presented during the unconference. Started an Integrated Inquiry unit of work on Australian History and a Literacy unit on the book New Gold Mountain by Christopher W. Cheong. Year 4 Camp to Warrumbui.

June - Prepared nomination for my school in the Excellence in Teaching Awards. Year 4 students performed Fairytale plays and Fife and Drum music for their parents. Went to Gosford with my Mum to visit my grandmother.

July - Began a higher duties role in my school which continued until the end of the year - this involved less time on class and more time working on school projects and planning/managing/mentoring etc. Began training in Microsoft Peer Coaching. Ordered and kept chasing laptops for the school (which didn't actually arrive until late November!) Year 4 visited the Ridge for more weeding and made the local paper.

August - Ran in the City to Surf road race in Sydney. Went to Pink's concert. Had my first go at geocaching. Presented at ATESOL workshop. Started Integrated Inquiry unit of work on Textiles and Design. Experimented with Cooperative Reading Groups in Literacy. The Showboating Showoffs began to learn creative dance which they later performed in an assembly.

September - Had an article published in EQ Australia. Worked on ABC 3 Promos using claymation and other video production. Year 4 excursion to the CSIRO. My class attempted geocaching for the first time. Returned to New York City for a couple of weeks holiday - enjoyed all the favourites yet again and caught up with friends. Ran in the New York Fifth Avenue Mile race.

October - Began an Integrated Inquiry unit of work on Space. Struggled through the rest of my uni studies. Trained our school's team for the GATEWAYS challenge. Bought Guitar Hero for XBOX 360 - great stress relief at the end of the day!

November - Collected and sorted data about enrichment programs at my school and presented these to staff and also to principals from my district. Year 4 excursion to Questacon. Went to a friend's wedding in Sydney.

December - My youngest brother got married. We drove to Melbourne to pick up an old fashioned bathtub to hold drinks for Christmas. Struggled through the last few weeks of school. My class did another geocaching adventure on the Ridge and helped our department's Learning Technology Support Officers to create a video about geocaching. Cleaned and cooked for Christmas lunch at our place.

I considered putting in links so that you could read more about these things, but realised that that would make for a lot of hyperlinks and would be annoying to read. Instead, if there's something you want to know more about, you can probably find it in the archived items for that month, or if it's a unit of work - in my Units of Work section.

The Year That Was - 2008

January - Spent most of the school holidays rennovating our new house - ripping up carpet, sanding and polishing floorboards, painting, etc (still haven't completed this job!)

February - Started the school year at my new school. It was a bit of a rocky start and it took me a little while to figure out how to function effectively there. Started Spanish 2 Certificate at the local Institute of Technology.

March - I had nominated to be The Primary School Sports Association representative for my school. I received no information about this, but suddenly some of our boys had missed their cricket trials. I was given permission to run another trial and manage a second team for our area. Up until this point I had never watched a full game of cricket in my life! I found some people who actually know about cricket and we worked it all out. The team I was managing actually came second!

April - My school had a big birthday. I had a couple of 1st year preservice teachers in to observe my class for a week. We did a three-week unit of work on artists - Monet, Turner and Van Gogh.

May - I ran the Great Ocean Road Marathon (well, I walked a bit of it). This was a killer and really put my stamina to the test. I haven't really got back into my running again since, but still hope to pick it up again at some point. I had another preservice teacher in to share the teaching of my class. We started a unit of work "Home Sweet Home" which involved an excursion to a local construction site, building houses from straws and paddlepop sticks, and building a class cubby house.

June - I turned 30. My hubby organised a trip back to New York City for us. We rented a place in Chelsea and lived the life for 5 weeks. It felt like we were home again. New things we 'discovered' and enjoyed this time included Hooters buffalo wings, Shakespeare in the Park, Honeymoon Beer, 4th July fireworks, weekly softball, Gordon Ramsey's "The London" restaurant, The Steinway Piano Factory, mojitos, and poker with friends.

July - I started exploring things more on the computer. I discovered podcasts and began downloading them to listen to on my ipod. I also remembered my love of reading and enjoyed reading a bunch of books.

August - I began this blog. I continued to learn and grow in my knowledge of ICT and its use in the classroom. We started a unit of work on the Olympic Games. At home, we struggled through what was left of winter without a heater.

September - I got hooked on Twitter and started my Link 4 Learning podcast. Reached 7 year wedding anniversary. Hubby was away with work so he sent a beautiful bunch of flowers and organised a trip for us in Brisbane. Started a history unit of work on "The Way We Were".

October - Went to Brisbane for a holiday and enjoyed taking it easy for a few days and soaking in some sun. Also got my iPhone. Where would I be without my iPhone!!

November - Started weeding my veggie patch and planting seeds. They took forever to grow. Wrote reports. Started new unit of work "Are We There Yet?"

December - Finished off the school year and packed up all my stuff. House was burgled on the second last day of school. Enjoyed a quiet Christmas.

Author Study - Jan Brett and Jackie French

At the end of last week I concluded a 3-week author study on US author/illustrator Jan Brett. There were similarities to the author study I ran with my New York City kindergarten class, but as always, I made a few adaptations. Whilst in New York, I had much easier access to all of Jan Brett's books, and could even get multiple copies of some for use in small reading groups. Here in Australia, I can't access her books, but I have much better computer access and so have made better use of Jan Brett's website. I really enjoyed using her resources on the Smart Board in my classroom. I really recommend her site to teachers - particularly those in the US - as she does absolutely everything she can to share her work with children. There are great Newsnotes that show how the stories took shape, regular newsletters (in audio format) for children to hear what she is up to and be inspired, and even video snippets where Jan Brett takes children step-by-step through how she draws her characters.

So, having said all that, this week we began an author study of an Australian author - Jackie French. In many of Jackie French's books, the main characters are animals, and more specifically Australian native animals. Jackie French has a particular interest in wombats. So today we began with one of Jackie French's wombat books - Smudge. And prior to reading, we thought of all the things we know about wombats and listed these on a fish-bone chart under the headings: food, characteristics, appearance and habitat. As it was, my students had a great prior knowledge as their starting point. I found some really great internet resources to expose students to wombats visually. Flickr had this great set about Wally the Wombat, and You Tube has some videos of wombats in action. I particularly liked this one about a wombat getting comfortable. Later in the week we are going to read Diary of a Wombat, and then my students are going to take turns to take home a stuffed-toy wombat and write in his diary. I think (and hope) that they will be very excited about this idea.

I'm now a big fan of using author studies in the classroom to motivate students to read and inspire their writing. (And I had fun finding all the web resources about wombats!)

Update: I now have a way of making some teaching materials available to you. These are for use in the classroom, not for commercial purposes. Please contact me for further information. I am happy to email worksheets that are not compatible with Google Docs.
Jan Brett Author Study Overview
Jackie French Author Study Overview
Jackie French Worksheets: My Facts About Wombats