ANZAC DAY: Children's literature

There is some fantastic Anzac Day literature appropriate for young readers.

For the slightly older primary to middle secondary (and even adults will love it) there is:

Gallipoli The Landing: Z Beach True Comic  by Hugh Dolan & Mal Gardiner. It is a new release and is available online and at news agencies.

http://www.zbeach.com.au/

Hugh spoke to Jon Faine on ABC774's The Conversation Hour last week about the comic. The audio is well worth a listen and could definitely be used in the classroom.

http://www.abc.net.au/local/audio/2012/04/19/3481446.htm?site=melbourne&microsite=faine&section=latest&date=(none)

612ABC Brisbane has also identified some great children's literature to use as a base to explore Anzac Day.

http://blogs.abc.net.au/queensland/2012/04/krista-bells-recommendations-for-anzac-day-childrens-books.html

Author Jackie French has tackled the subject in a book called "A Day To Remember" - The Story of Anzac Day".


http://blogs.abc.net.au/queensland/2012/04/a-new-book-explains-anzac-day-to-children.html

Hope your school and local libraries have copies.

'Advice you wish you'd been given as a pre-service teacher.'

The elemchatarchive has some great resources for preservice teachers (like myself) from the April 14th 2012 chat 'Advice you wish you'd been given as a pre-service teacher.'

http://elemchatarchive.wikispaces.com/2012.04.14+Resources

A transcript of the twitter feed can also be located at

http://elemchatarchive.wikispaces.com/2012.04.14+Advice+for+Pre-Service+Teachers

Thanks to all the contributors for helping us preservice teachers out!

Heads Down Thumbs Up/Seven Up: a classic game with great teaching potential

We all loved the game 'Heads Down, Thumbs Up' as kids. Or 'Seven up' as it is called in the USA. This simple game is still a favourite with students today. A way to incorporate learning into this classic game was suggested to me today by some university colleagues.

You run the game the normal way. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Up_(game)

The difference is that the students selected to be the taggers who walk around pushing players thumbs down hold up signs and the players tagged guess who tagged them by referring to the sign. For example in a game for young students the signs might contain sight words, like 'it' or 'the.' If student A was a tagger holding up 'the' then the tagged students would say, 'I think 'the' tagged me.' The teacher would ask,"give an example of the word 'the' in a sentence"... If the student is able to give an example and if they guess the correct tagger they become a tagger.

The game can be used with older students in units of work when they are working with concepts. For example in a unit of work on the government the word 'democracy' might be a sign. Students would explain the concept, such as democracy, held by the person who tagged them.

Get students thinking about their Human Footprint

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/human-footprint/consumption-interactive.html

This site gets you thinking about your consumption in a interactive way.

Find out things like:

•  how many eggs you will eat in your life time?
•  how this number compares to other countries (U.S.A, U.K., JAPAN).
• what this means in terms of impact over your life time.
• and have a 'look behind the scenes' to see what it really involves.

A great interactive site to get students thinking about our impact on the globe over a lifetime.

Stone Soup: A recipe for cooperation

Group work can be great. It can also end in disaster. The other day I sat watching a group of students do research together on a shared computer. They argued over who had controlled and which sites to look at. This got the whole group off task and worrying about the laptop politics rather than the research. Sound familiar?

Starting a lesson with the fable The Stone Soup could assist in getting students to work cooperatively.

The Stone Soup story usually goes something like this:

"Some travellers come to a village, carrying nothing more than an empty cooking pot. Upon their arrival, the villagers are unwilling to share any of their food stores with the hungry travellers. Then the travellers go to a stream and fill the pot with water, drop a large stone in it, and place it over a fire. One of the villagers becomes curious and asks what they are doing. The travellers answer that they are making "stone soup", which tastes wonderful, although it still needs a little bit of garnish to improve the flavour, which they are missing. The villager does not mind parting with a few carrots to help them out, so that gets added to the soup. Another villager walks by, inquiring about the pot, and the travellers again mention their stone soup which has not reached its full potential yet. The villager hands them a little bit of seasoning to help them out. More and more villagers walk by, each adding another ingredient. Finally, a delicious and nourishing pot of soup is enjoyed by all."Retrieved from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_soup 

Fables have been used for centuries to teach practical lessons. The Stone Soup's message about the benefits reaped from working cooperatively could definitely have a place in my classroom.

The Q&A Format in the classroom

http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/

We all love abc's Q&A. I think it's format could easily be used in the literacy classroom. Q&A has more adaptability than a traditional debate because students who have core arguments which are in opposition can agree on some aspects of the issue.

Questions from the class would be essential and maybe the conversation could be mediated by an unbiased student.

This would be a fantastic way to end a unit of work or explore a current issue.True democracy!

Kids Q&A- I think it has potential to be a new show on ABC. Can I host?

How my Basketball debut made me think about some students I know.

I played my first game of Basketball last week.
I had no idea what I was doing.
My mates said, 'Just defend you'll be fine.'

So I stayed in defence and gave away my full allocation of fouls before half time...Its five yeah? The umpire (or is it referee) said, 'That is five fouls number 9?'He waited for me to move but I just stood in there not having a clue what he was talking about. The other team said, 'Keep him on we don't mind.'

I got the ball soon after and was called for travelling.

My team yelled at me to move up the court not just to stay in the 'D' so I ran to the other end as we attacked. Then the ref got me in trouble for something like staying in a circle too long. I have no idea.

Anyway by the end of the game I had a little bit of an idea what was going on but my confidence was down, the ref clearly didn't like me and although my teammates supported me massively I felt like a failure.

The whole experience reminded me of the kids in some classes I have observed.

They don't know or understand some rules. They don't know or understand some strategies or practices others take for granted. Such as working in a team or the teachers vocabulary.   When you are doing something for the first time it can be exciting, cause anxiety and make you reluctant to have another try. I think we can all learn from my attempt at playing Basketball. Think about some of the children you come across who don't know what a classroom foul is, who cant do the skills like dribbling, and who have no idea about the time limits in the D.

Maybe we need to teach students the simple classroom practices and strategies we take for granted... I know I need to and I wish someone had taught me them before I hit the court.

Add some mime improvisation games to your classroom

Thinking the work of David Armand could be added to the classroom with a little bit of scaffolding.

Teacher Time Ticket

Here is another great idea from Jo Lange.

Do you find yourself spending more time with certain students due to them demanding attention more often or maybe because they need some extra support?

It is easy to forget the quieter students in your class. A smart way to overcome this is by handing out Teacher Time Tickets when you recognise that you might not have had that important one on one exchange with a student for a while. You might not have the time in that exact moment so they can hold on to the ticket to remind you to cash it in at a later (more convenient) time.

Sticky Notes- a great way to make a students day!

I was also introduced to a great way to communicate with students and acknowledge their progression on Friday by Jo Lange at the AEU Vic Branch Student Teacher Conference.

When you see that a student is applying themselves, working hard on something or for any reason write them a quick not on a sticky note and quietly place it on their work or table.

What a great way to make a students day! Can't wait to use it!

Fist to Five- gauging student's prior knowledge & receiving feedback.

Went to the AEU Student Teacher Conference yesterday. The keynote speaker was Glen Pearsall who gave us some great practical tips. One of these was Fist to Five which can be used to gauge students prior knowledge and to get feedback from students. It involves students raising their hand and signalling a ranking by the number of digits they hold up. A closed fist is the lowest ranking and showing five digits is the highest ranking.

To gauge prior knowledge fist to five can be used by asking the class to rank their understanding of a topic. This is especially helpful when starting or returning to a unit of work. For example you could ask, 'Rank your knowledge on the Titanic from fist to five. Fist being I have no knowledge and five being that I could be given an honorary PhD for my work on Captain Smith.' A digital photo of fist to five could be taken as a record. This could be used to decide what level the lesson is pitched or how you might structure groups. At the conclusion of the lesson, or unit, fist to five could be repeated and compared to the first photo as a way for students to reflect on their learning. It also provides you with feedback on how the student feels they are progressing.

Fist to five can also be used to get feedback from students on your performance. Ask questions like, 'Rank how engaging you think the activity was,' or, 'Rank how well you understand the instructions.'

I am looking forward to using fist to five during my teaching placements. Any advice or feedback on my understanding of the concept would be greatly appreciated.

Glen Pearsall has a few books full of great ideas like fist to five. These include And Gladly Teach, and Classroom Dynamics.