6th Teaching K-6 Carnival

Welcome to the June edition of the Teaching K-6 Blog Carnival. The weather is getting colder now, here in Australia, and we're looking for opportunities to cuddle up by the heater with our laptops and search for some good reads. This month offers some great tips for those of us trying to make it through the cold of winter AND also for those in the Northern Hemisphere who are finishing off the school year and preparing for the summer months. This month we have a special category: "Taking it Home", for posts about extending learning into the home.

Brain Strain

As my regular readers are aware, I have been busy working on a Graduate Certificate in Educational Leadership. My contribution to the carnival this month is my post about the Microsoft Innovative Schools Conference that I attended in early May. Check out some of the links and watch some of the recordings - they're well worth it.

Taking it Home

For those in the Northern Hemisphere who are putting together Summer Packets of work for students to work through during the holidays, you might like to use the suggestions from Meaghan Montrose at TutorFi.com this month. They also make great homework supplements for those of us in the Southern Hemisphere.

• 5 Ways to Encourage Young Children to Read
• 10 Tips to Improve Your Math Skills Everyday
  

In her post Free Tutoring posted at Note from the Teacher, Erin shares tips for parents about ways they can support their children with learning at home. Erin provides practical examples that provide for a more consistent approach to consolidating new learning.

Gripes and Brags

Glowing Face Man presents Teaching With Pronouns posted at Awaken the Badass Within, saying, "An article about why you should make a conscious effort to use less pronouns when teaching."After reading this, I know I'll be paying more attention to my use of pronouns this week!

In the News

In "Hell is the classroom"nightwalker of My English Pages presents some strategies for creating a respectful classroom environment. He emphasises the need to have a preventative approach and outlines how this can be done by teaching with "love and logic".

This month Fiona Lohrenz presents the following two posts at Child Care Only to guide you through Child Care management:

• Guidelines For Preparing A Day Care Safety Statement
• Preparing For Day Care Toileting Accidents

Innovate - Beyond the Slate

At the Teacher's Desk Wm Chamberlain presents Allowing Students to Differentiate with Vocabulary Strategies. Here he and his students share strategies they find useful for learning vocabulary in reading. See how Wm Chamberlain differentiates to meet the needs and hear the students explain for themselves.

Myscha Theriault has got it right when she says that we need the right amount of spelling activities to provide students with variety but at the same time familiarity. This month she shares Spelling Activities: Twenty-Seven Ways to Practice in Style posted at The Lesson Machine Blogazine. She gets the balance right and her ideas can be applied in the classroom with minimal prior preparation.

Mathew Needleman presents Open House Parent Engagement Tips posted at Open Court Resources.com Blog. These tips will help you to think through the reasons parents come to Open House and consider the best way to hold their interest.

Look No Further

R. Garza presents "A remarkable collection of cutting edge resources for parents and teachers." with 41 Things To Do With Your Kids This Summer‎ posted at Educational Games for Children.

Why not submit your post for the next carnival?

The Teaching K-6 Carnival is posted monthly on the 7th. I am collecting submissions throughout the month, looking in particular for posts that discuss and exemplify innovative teaching and the integration of technology in the K-6 classroom. I also invite a few "brain strains" to keep our minds alert and challenged. Please submit only articles of which you are the author and refrain from using this merely as a sales pitch. For full details, please read my call for submissions.

If you have a relevant post that you would like to submit to the next edition of teaching k-6 carnival use our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Support this Carnival

If you enjoyed this edition of the carnival, you can support its continuation by sharing it with others. Link to us, add us to a tweet, stumble or digg us. Thanks!

Friday Fun - 6/3/09

Fun this week

The Egg
Our egg finished hatching and the alligator swam out into the container and kept on "growing". The girls took it home on Friday as we think it may have grown as big as it can.

3D Model of Rin
The same girls also made a lego model of Rin (from Rowan of Rin by Emily Rodda). They brought it in to share with us. They said I could include a photo on the blog. (I hope I've labeled it right!)

Readers' Theatre
This week's script was about a family walking across the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It included lots of facts about the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Prior to reading the script for the first time, I played a Flickr slideshow of images of Sydney Harbour Bridge and gave them some time (about 5 minutes) to talk about both the images and their own experiences of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Students were allocated to new groups and settled and sorted themselves quite quickly. We performed on Thursday - some in the school hall and some at the school amphitheatre. I made a video recording that we can look back on later to determine the progress students are making.

Integrity
Our Integrated Inquiry focus this week was on Integrity. This is a tricky concept for children (and many adults) to grasp. We broke it down to honesty and responsibility. I also tried to explain it as knowing the right thing to do and doing it, even if no one else will see. We read and discussed a story about a king who was looking for an heir to his throne. You can read a version of the story here. We watched the following video:

We read and reflected on a comic about a boy, George, who wanted a puppy and had to learn about responsibility. I tried to show the following video where adults discuss the topic of integrity, but only the sound would work.

Maths
We were working on four times tables this week and using the strategy of double it, double it again. For example, if you are trying to work out 4 x 3, you can double 3 which is 6, and double 6 which is 12. I found that I needed to use a number of strategies with the four times tables as some students were finding them quite difficult. We will use next week to review the strategies we've learnt so far for the 2, 5, 10, and 4 times tables.
We've also been trying some more difficult number patterns that include two elements. For example, in this pattern the rule is + 3, then -1:
6, 9, 8, 11, 10, 13, 12, 15, 14, 17, 16
We also did some pre-algebra work balancing equations. For examples, please check out this video clip.

My Classes and SuperClubsPlus
In the lab this week had all the passwords we need so we spent some more time becoming familiar with My Classes. Students were able to create their own book reviews for others to read and comment on. The reviews were pretty good for a first try, but I'd like to see a little more effort put into content and editing. Students are getting a little lazy in an attempt to get their ideas down quickly.
Students are incredibly engaged with SuperClubsPlus and it's giving them a chance to achieve many of the outcomes in our curriculum. Students are communicating with one another both online and in person in order to "get their stars" and set up their homepages. In their reflective journals, this week, many students commented on their challenges, successes and plans in terms of what they are achieving in SuperClubsPlus.

Friday Fun - 20/2/09

Fun this week:

Bushwahzee
On Wednesday we had a travelling performance group, "Bushwahzee", visit the school. They worked throughout the school day to coordinate a range of dance moves with our classes. Then, in the evening, families came back to the school to see the performance. This year's theme was "Beach Party" so the kids came dressed up in board shorts and Hawaiian shirts. Some even wore grass skirts! It made for a really enjoyable evening and everyone seemed to be having a lot of fun. Things like this are great for bringing the community together, raising morale and building a sense of unity.

SuperClubsPlus
I had a mix of good and bad news this week. The good news was that everything is just about ready for us to run with SuperClubsPlus. The bad news is that my state's Department of Education doesn't support student blogging, so it seems unlikely that we will be able to have a class blog in the near future. We will still be able to communicate with families through My Classes, The School Website, and my blog; and we'll be able to explore a safe Web2.0 through kid-friendly SuperClubsPlus. This week I introduced students to SCP and sent home the registration forms. Once I get these back we can get registered and get moving.

Voice Thread Challenge
I tried to implement my newspaper idea using Voice Thread this week, but I kept coming up against obstacles. When I signed up for Voice Thread, it seemed that I could use it free as a teacher, but since then I have been receiving messages to say I need to pay money. I could cancel out of those pop-ups, but then I kept having issues with the running of Voice Thread. It kept jumping to the save/embed page and for some reason our voices weren't recorded. On top of all that, I've been told that my state's Department of Education doesn't like us using anything that publishes student work on third-party websites. So...after all of that, I have decided to use the Smart Board software or maybe PowerPoint to achieve these outcomes instead! If I use PowerPoint, I should still be able to share the final product with families through school websites.

Friends Book
As part of our unit of work on the FRIENDS values, we put together a book about all the people in our grade. Students chose a name out of a hat and thought of three or more positive things about that person. After they decorated the page, we bound them all together and read the book. It's a great resource to get to know the kids better and made for a great team-bonding activity.

Maths
This week my maths group was focusing on 10 times tables and place value. I finally got around to setting up a Smart Board Notebook with all the pages I like to use in a Year 4 Maths lesson. I have a timer, hundred chart, place value chart, calculator, piggy bank and coins, number line, website links and other activities to promote Mathematical thinking. I also tried out my webcam/document scanner for a dice activity. Below is a video demonstration of this activity. (My first demo video - feedback is more than welcome!)

One place value game the class particularly enjoyed is called Wipeout. Students typed 21 469 into their calculators. Then they had to 'wipe out' the numbers using subtraction. For example, to wipe out the 4, they have to subtract 400. As students become more familiar with this activity they can play it together in pairs, or even individually.

Williamstown High School Band
On Friday afternoon we had a visit from the Williamstown High School Band (from Victoria) who played a number of great songs and introduced their instruments to us. Our children were enthralled and bobbed along to the music. I always love to watch the way students respond to music - it really adds to the atmosphere and has a positive effect on mood.

Rowan of Rin
We began reading Rowan of Rin by Emily Rodda and completed a number of activities related to the book. I will publish these in a separate post over the weekend.

Classroom Chats #1 Reflections of Beginning Teachers

Classroom Chats is a new feature of the Teaching Challenges Blog. Here teachers chat about the challenges they face in the classroom and the successes they experience. In this episode I chat with Bec and Kym, two beginning teachers, as they reflect on their teaching in the past year.

Bec has previous experience with relief teaching, teaching in a school library, and in 2007 shared a year 2 class with another teacher. This year she had her own class with all the related challenges.

Kym is Early Childhood trained and did her Internship at our school in 2007. In term one of this year she directed a pre-school room in a childcare setting. She joined Bec and I in Year 1 at the beginning of second term. She had the challenge of joining a school partway through the year and taking on a difficult class in her first year of teaching.

Thanks to Matt for the guitar intro to classroom chats. You're a legend Matt!

Click here to listen to our classroom chat.

If you are having trouble with the links, you can see the original to download the audio file.

Dealing with Conflict

This week I read a post on Successful Teaching about teaching students social skills. I have been working with my students on dealing with conflict. I am trying to train them to work through their problems independently. I stand by to mediate, and then at the end check that both parties are happy with how the situation has been dealt with.

I taught my students this basic script:
1. Tell the person how you felt when they did what they did.
eg. "When you pushed me I felt annoyed and it hurt my arm"
2. Tell the person that it was disrespectful:
eg. "It was disrespectful"
3. Tell the person what you would like to see happen in order to move forward.
eg. "I'd like you to say 'sorry' and not push me again"

At this point, it is up to the 'offender' to respond with apology and/or appropriate action as suggested by the 'offended'. I often find that students will then turn the tables with the 'offender' describing how they have been offended.

For the most part, students in my class can now work through this quite well on their own. I do, however, step in when one party refuses to listen, acknowledge the impact of their behaviour, or responds aggressively to the discussion.

This strategy is based loosely on Restorative Practices - Corridor Questions, but I am trying to get my students to own the resolution rather than having to guide them through questions step by step.

Teaching Responsibility

I am discovering my own personal benefits of teaching social/emotional skills. When I teach my students about things, such as being responsible, it helps me to see the areas in my own life where I can improve further. And I've decided to share this honestly with my students.

Yesterday I read the book "I'll do it" by Brian Moses to my students. It helps children to explore the idea of responsibility. We discussed the pages as we read and then we all decided an area that we need to work on to become more responsible. We posted these goals next to our photos on the goal wall (see this post for more detail). I realise that I need to get better at doing things without reminders, and take more care for my things. My specific goal for this week is to take care of my computer and my iPhone.

I think it is important for teachers to reflect upon their own lives as they teach children values. None of us are perfect, or ever will be. There is something for each of us to work on, all of the time. Perhaps this is the best lesson that children can learn about values: to continually reflect upon the way we live our lives and be prepared to make changes.

What do you think?

Compliments to Strengthen the Heart

Earlier in the week, I did a lesson on "looking after other people". I followed this up by having my students work on complimenting one another. I photocopied an A3 heart, divided into 20 spaces (one for each of the kids in my class and for me to write a compliment in). After talking about some of the things we could write to build one another up, I set my students free to roam the room and write their compliments. We probably had about 20 minutes, and did not quite complete all compliments for all students. I think another 20 minute session will finish it off.

It was interesting to hear the comments that students made as they went around the room. Some, of course, got caught up in counting how many comments they had! But, most were really engaged in leaving compliments for others. I found that my students were quite interested in reading the compliments that I left. I think that they will learn more about how to compliment by seeing how others do it.

One little boy came running up to me after reading my compliment and asked, "How do YOU know that I am imaginative?" I laughed and told him that I see it in his artwork and in his writing. He confirmed it and told me that he is also very imaginative at home.

I really enjoyed this activity as it also gave me the opportunity to remember all the special things about these kids and to verbalise it to them. Too often I will think all the good things about them, but forget to tell them!

Behaviour Goals and Build-ups!

This week I'm trying a couple more things to work on how students are treating each other. Our class goal for the week is to "look after other people". I made a display with this goal and put up individual photos of all the kids in my class. Next to their photo, each student has considered a personal goal to meet this and written it on a post-it note. Some include "I will be a better listener", "I will say nice things", "I will respect property" etc. Throughout the week I will get my students to consider how they are going with their goals.

Today I also did a Circle Time session on "Build ups - Not Put downs". I showed my class the effect of put downs, by tearing up a paper heart as I gave examples of put-downs someone could receive in a day. In pairs students then brainstormed build-ups that we could use to build a wall. I taped the pieces of the heart back together as we went through the build-ups. (Unfortunately I couldn't get it back to how it was because my tearing was too eratic. If you want to do this activity, keep in mind how you will put it back together again!)

I've now made an A3 worksheet for each student with a great big heart on it. The heart has been divided into 20 sections (for the number of students in my class). Our next step is to travel around the classroom and write a build-up for everyone in the class. I am thinking that this should take a couple of sessions, as I really want them to be doing quality work and not just recycling the same compliment for everyone.

Teaching Morality

Here's an interesting idea to discuss: How do we teach morality in a government school? In recent years, schools have been taking on more and more responsibility when it comes to teaching children social skills. Many programs have been developed with this particular goal in mind.

Some parents of children in my class have come to me at a loss as to how to deal with children stealing, or playing inappropriately. As a teacher, I don't always feel competent to help them with their concerns. I know how my parents brought me up, but I was brought up with Christian values and the Bible as a guide. And this advice doesn't work for people from other beliefs. I know how I try to deal with things in my classroom, when they arise, but I feel that this really is an area where parents could be carrying the load.

I have been trying to teach my students more about the meaning of 'respect' over the past couple of weeks. We read a book about respect. We filled out a Y chart of what it looks like, sounds like and feels like. We made posters for our classroom to show how to respect our classroom environment. We made a book of how to respect others in our classroom. I've been using the word throughout the day and rewarding 'respectful' students with stickers and computer time. I've been reminding students if their behaviour is disrespectful. But it seems that all this talk and all this thinking through and planning has had little effect on how the students are behaving. Well...maybe that is unfair. There have been some changes - the classroom is being left much tidier. And it has been a while since someone actually told me that they thought my lesson was boring or refused to join in.

I guess I'm hoping to see some more evidence of respect in terms of how the children treat one another. Maybe that is an area that just requires more training...or more time.

Please leave a comment to let me know how you deal with the challenge of teaching morality.

(Photo by Trois Tetes on Flickr - some rights reserved)