Hey Everyone
Sorry its been so massively long since I’ve last posted. I’m not sure how many people know but my landlord sold the building and the new landlord has yet to put in the internet. LAME . So I have to come to Uni to do it and during the week I generally have no time after I’m done planning lessons and such to post. Sad days. BUT I’m doing this post that hopefully makes up for it ? Its 5 full pages in Microsoft Word?.....
Prac: Interim Report
Prac has been going INCREDIBLY well for the past five weeks. After the first three weeks I got my interim report and (not that I expected less) but I’ve got all my checkmarks in the good /excellent part of the sheet. YAY ME ! This teacher has been so awesome in helping me out and giving feedback. Its so good to have a second year teacher that knows what its like to just start out. Plus shes been great with giving me all sorts of resources all that are electronic so that I don’t have to fly home any papers. How sweet is that!?
Prac: Parent Teacher Interviews
This past week has been parent teacher interviews and Sandy /the parents have been letting me sit in which is AWESOME because it’s something that’s never covered in school and isn’t something you get practise with. Any teacher can tell a parent that their child is fantastic..etc. but how do you tell a parent that their child is failing EVERYTHING. Well I got to see it. It was prob the best learning experience of the entire prac. I learned so much. Yay for having such a great prac teacher.
Prac: Poetry
So for the past 4 weeks I’ve been teaching the students different types of poetry. As you know, the first week we did Haiku poems. The second week I did limerick poems with them…it ended up going pretty crappy. A lot of them just couldn’t get the form of a limerick even with tons of help. Next we did colour poems (where you use similies and metaphors and the 6 senses to describe a colour). These went SO well and I got some really creative ones out of it. Last week was probably my favourite type so far. We did “If I rules the World” poems. Where the first line had to be “If I ruled the world,” and the rhyme scheme is abcb. They needed 2 verses (so 8 lines) then add on a 9th line that said “If only I ruled the world”. They were so creative and awesome! Here is one of each type (Limerick, Colour , If I ruled the world) of poem. If you want to read more / see their final decorated good copy I have them – well my favourite ones - as a pdf file and can email them to you…just ask!
Ellas Colour Poem :
Green
Green makes me feel peaceful
Green feels like a silk scarf
Green sounds like water running down a lonely creek
Green looks like the world growing more knowledge
Green feels like furry moss slowly growing on the rocks
Green sounds like birds singing in the morning
Green tastes like juicy grapes dripping down my throat
Green looks like the trees blowing in the wind
Green smells like freshly cut grass
Green tastes like a green apple with a crunch
Green smells like a bitter-sweet smell
Green makes me feel calm
Lochlan’s Limerick Poem
There once was a man called Fred
Who forgot to take his meds
So he went on a spree
And ate a key
Now he is confined to his bed
Buddy’s “If I Ruled the World” Poem :
Budalopalis
If I ruled the world
I would be real happy
I would watch a lot of movies
But nothing to sappy
Everyone would say Woohoo
Because their king is so cool
But if anyone dissed me I would
Chuck them in a pool!
If only I ruled the world
And because this was my favourite poem done in the whole time I was there: Gabriels “If I ruled the world” Poem:
Principality of Gabriel Land
If I ruled the world
Kids would have rights.
Money would be printed more
And there would be less fights.
The Mona-Lisa would have a moustache
And pizza would be free
Spelling wouldn’t matter
It would be very happy
If only I ruled the world.
All of their poems were so great that we had 14 of them read theirs out at assembly where they also thanked me for all the hard work I’ve put in to teaching them about poems –which I didn’t tell them to do fyi. It was sweet J
Prac : SOSE
Well my 6 week SOSE unit is going really really well. I’ve only got one more lesson to do (this Friday) and the unit will be finished. My favourite lesson I did last Tuesday and it was kick ass! The kids were so engaged even my teacher wanted to be involved. We were learning about catchments and looking specifically at our local creek. I started with a clear container with water in it that represented the river. Then on the projector we went through a story about a river. Where the river travels through all these different things. As the river went through these situations we emptied out a cup full of whatever it was. For example when we talked about the factories polluting the air that lead to acid rain we dumped into the river the cup full of “acid rain” (aka vinegar) the kids thought it was awesome and partsof it gross. I was on the floor laughing my ass off at them being so disgusted. It was so funny. As if id actually go get manure and sewage just so that they could do this activity, im dedicated but not THAT muchh ahaa – in case your wondering the manure was thick mud and the sewage was dark yellow water with Kleenex in it. Word got around though, and by the next break the whole school heard about us having sewage and manure in our class. Too funny. All in all a great lesson though.
Smart Notebook
So I did a fantastic pd on interactive whiteboards and this awesome program that it uses called Smart notebook. The best part being that you don’t need to use Smart notebook with a whiteboard, it can be used with a data projector or even a desktop computer! Aaaand since the school bought the program it’s legally allowed to be on all the teachers’ laptops and home computers. Because my prac teacher is FANTASTIC she gave me the software and the product key so I always have it !! YAY. Oh! and another cool thing is that most of the resources that come with the program (over 6000 premade lessons and activities and cool things like dice that roll on screen when u click on em) are Canadian/ American. So ill be able to use it back home :) I’ve been using this program for all my lessons since I got it and its freakin fantastic.
Sports
As you know there are some massive sports stuff that’s everyone is following here in Aussie. Firstly the World Cup – of course- and how can you not be pumped up about the Socceroos (the aussie team) with commercials like this playing à https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTWhyAWbrB0&feature=related Wicked eh!? Here’s their theme song too à https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTxmHZfwHi0&feature=related . – Not sure how many of u watched their first game but they lost hugely lol . But even though they wont win at least they made the finals which is more then I can say for the Canadian team.
The other major sporting event is State of Origin. This is a rugby tournament between all the state in Australia. The first match was a couple weeks ago QLD vs NSW (HUGE Rivals) here was the commercial for the match à https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3P29KBLnzs&feature=related WOOO Maroons ! Qld ended up winning too :D YAY ! My students almost disowned me for not watching the match lol that’s how serious this is. Sweet eh? Here’s the Queensland commercial that XXXX (beer brand) made up to pump up the fans à https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqmX3L9sB1A&feature=related
Because you need a song to dance to : Reba’s “why haven’t I heard from you” makes me want to dance. Wanna dance with me? à http://www.cmt.com/videos/misc/429922/why-havent-i-heard-from-you-from-invitation-only.jhtml
Better then the original Videos: K you know that UBER annoying song by Beyonce called “If I were a boy”. Well Reba re-did it and made it slower and country-fied it and it’s no longer annoying. I wish I could download this version. SO much better then the Beyonce version. Check it out à http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20388249,00.html
Because its sweet video: Big and Rich singing “Lost in this moment” A very sweet song about a groom being lost in the moment with his bride. à https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TbHIhEP53U&feature=channel
Touching video : Amazing Tribute to the American soldiers. Big and Rich tell a soldiers story. FANTASTICLY done. à https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozpdBvB0hek&playnext_from=TL&videos=zEn8ccrgn6k&feature=recentlik
Cool website to check out/ have a play with:
www.makebeliefcomixs.com You can create your own comic strips..how cool is that!?
Well that’s all for now. Im probably missing a ton of things but I cant think of them at this exact second. So whatever I miss shall be posted in a new post.
xoxoxo
Manda
Ps 15 DAYS!! WOOOO
