Christmas Tag

Thanks A Crucial Week for the 'Christmas Tag'. Here are my responses to some Christmas questions!

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1. What's your favourite Christmas movie? It would have to be The Santa Clause (it never gets old!)
2. Do you open your presents on Christmas Eve or Christmas morning? We all open one each Christmas Eve and the rest on Christmas morning.
3. Do you have a favourite Christmas memory? This is a hard one, I suppose setting alarm clocks with your siblings in places you would hope your parents wouldn't find to get up in the early hours to see what Santa brought! The excitement of creeping into the sitting room to find all our presents.
4. Favourite festive food? It has to be my mum's potato stuffing with the goose! And hot ports!
5. Favourite Christmas gift? Ed Sheeran tickets!
6. Favourite Christmas scent? Real Christmas Tree
7. Do you have any Christmas Eve traditions? We always get a new pair of PJ's from mam (even now!) and we all choose one present to open on Christmas Eve.
8. What tops your tree? A gold Star
9. As a kid, what was the one gift you asked for but never received? A Gameboy
10. What's the best part about Christmas for you? This year, it will be having everyone back at home for Christmas, including my nephew. It will be his first Christmas with us so I am really excited about that.

Happy Christmas everyone!

Christmas Art Activities

It's finally time for Christmas excitement and decorations in the classroom. Below are some Art ideas that I will be doing this month with my class.

Christmas Snowmen 

I recently saw this online and thought it as very cute and quite easy to do.  I will ask each child to bring in any sock that may be odd at home (the more colourful the better) to make the hat and the scarf for the snowmen. We will use little pompoms or felt rather than pins. You could also use buttons if you have enough for the class (again they might have spare ones at home).  Check out the video tutorial on Youtube.

Christmas Cards

Christmas cards are always a nice art activity to do for granny/grandad or even members of the class. It can be a useful activity on the last day or two before the holidays. I really like pop out cards for the older classes as it adds an extra challenge for them.

This is one that I used as inspiration for my class last year.

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Glass Painting

A useful way to recycle jars from home. the children add the outline of their design first and then choose suitable colours to paint them. They are lovely with a candle lighting inside them for Christmas.

Symmetry Snowmen

Doubling up with a bit of Maths these are really cute symmetry scenes.

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Nativity Scene

This is a nice group activity where the children can make a 3D version of the Nativity scene in a shoebox. Adding straw is a nice touch if you or the children can get their hands on some.

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Or try out this Nativity silhouette.

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Winter Hats

This would be a good print lesson for the children.

Christmas Tree Decorations

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This can be made using felt (it is nicer if you use the strong felt as they are more sturdy). The children can choose to make any Christmas related felt shape. PVA glue or a hot glue gun is the best way to stick the felt together.  Pop on a ribbon at the end and it can be hung from the Christmas tree. Here are some ideas!

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I'm sure a lot of you have seen this one, I had to add it in because it is so simple yet really effective!

Other ideas here & source

Here is another simple but effective example that would be lovely as a Christmas card.

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And finally, one that can be a whole class or whole school piece of art. Everyone can decorate their own star as they wish and combine them all to make a masterpiece!

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Please add any other ideas or links you have below :)

Bridges Project

I previously posted on my Facebook page about a project my students carried out this year on bridges.  I have outlined below how it ties into the curriculum and scope for integration. The project comprised of both a research booklet (available on my TpT store) and making their own bridge following studying Bridges in Science.

Theme: Transportation/Overseas Adventures

Subject: Science
Strand(s): Materials/Energy and Forces
Strand Unit: Properties and characteristics of materials/Forces

Brief overview of Lesson:

-Show children a range of bridges (from locality/famous bridges)
-Discuss the various functions of bridges and the types of bridges
-Investigate through experimentation the strength of various bridges (arch, plank, walled & corrugated). Record results as a class and compare. (Equipment-jenga blocks or similar as bridge wall, dominoes or counting cues, ruler to measure distance between blocks, paper to make arch/wall etc.)

Integration:

English: Oral Language, Procedural Writing based on experiment
Art: Construction of bridges
Maths: Measurement, lines & angles, weight
ICT: researching various bridges

Then the children completed their own project on bridges. Have a look at some of the finished products below!

Lights, Camera, Action!

Drama Games (5 uses for the '10 Second Drama Cards')

If you have a look at my TpT store here, I have uploaded resource cards for Drama. Outlined below are 5 uses for the cards, not just for Drama!

1. '10 Second Objects'

Originally, this is what I made the cards for. This game can be a warm up/cool down activity in Drama. The children are in groups and select a card from the pile. They have 10 seconds to make this object using only their bodies! (More variations included in the resource.)

2. Extend that Story (Oral Language)

Each child selects a card. One child begins by creating a sentence using the word on their card. The next child extends the story using their word and so on until all children have contributed to the story.

3. Story Starter (English)

Select a number of the cards from the pile (maybe 3-4). The children then write a creative piece of writing using the objects on the cards.

4. Make a Mime

Use the card to mime the object and the other children have to guess what the object is. 

5. Divine descriptions (Oral Language/Writing)

Without saying the word on the card, you must describe it to the class and they try to guess what the object is. The first person to guess is next to select a card and describe it. This could also be used as a descriptive writing activity, with each child having a different object. They can read it to the class afterwards and see if their description was detailed enough for the class to guess!

I'm sure you can come up with even more uses for the cards!

Pasta Art

Pasta is a very useful resource for Art lessons.  I have used it many times for Halloween art lessons but it can be used any time of year. Below is a few examples of how we used pasta to create some spooky Halloween objects.  The children chose their pasta shapes first of all. Then, they did a rough outline of the object they wanted to make. Next, they painted the various pasta shapes in different colours. We used PVA glue to stick down the pasta shapes at the end. (If you paint the pasta, it may be better to do the Art lesson over two days as it takes a while to dry.)

Have a look at some other inspirations below for Pasta Art!

Halloween Art

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Christmas Art

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Animal Theme

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Maths Week Websites

Maths Week 2015 is about to start (Oct 10-18th)! I have outlined some of my favourite websites to use in the classroom for Maths that might be useful for the upcoming Maths Week .

1. Interactive Sites

This is not only for Maths but it has some great interactive Maths games for the children to practice. It is easy to navigate as it breaks it up into Maths categories. As it is an American site, it isn't too useful for measurement but aside from that, I use it regularly in the classroom.

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2. Countdown

The senior classes love this They have six numbers and a target number to make using the six numbers and any operations. It is an excellent way to put their tables and mental maths to use!

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3. Woodlands Maths
This is a firm favourite with many teachers. It also has tools that you can used teaching such as interactive hundred squares.

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4. Topmarks Maths

My favourite game on this a timed game converting fractions to decimals or vice versa. It can also be used to convert different lengths. It is a good assessment tool to see if children can convert them quickly.

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5. ixl.com

What I like about this site is that you can select your class level and particular skill/topic that you are teaching. It does have a daily limit of the amount of tasks you can complete but can be a useful early finisher activity.

Have a look at the official Maths Week Website here for more ideas.

How to Cope with Early Finishers!!

Sometimes the last thing you want to hear 10 minutes into a task is 'Teacher, I'm finished!' only to see that they have put in a great effort and are indeed finished.

I always try to keep them occupied and busy, particularly as if I am teaching a multigrade class. The following are strategies I use to keep children challenged in a meaningful way (I don't see the point in giving them 20 more of the same Maths sums or 10 more sentences in English. Instead I prefer to give them critical thinking tasks or problem solving tasks).

1. DEAR Time (Drop Everything and Read)
Encourage the children to have a library book on their tables always and they can pick them up as soon as they are finished a piece of work.

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2. Free Writing
Allow them to have a copy where they can write without any guidance. It allows them to be creative for themselves. While I always monitor these copies, I don't correct them to allow the child to take ownership of their writing. I usually do this as a whole class activity 3 times per week for 10 minutes. Last year, children surprised me by practicing genres we had previously explored, writing poetry and even pieces as Gaeilge!

3. Busy Bee Area
Depending on the class I have I either make a Busy Bee Area or a Busy Bee Booklet for the children. Included in this area are brainteasers, Sudokus, book review templates and tasks to challenge the children. They automatically go to this area/booklet when they have completed their work.  Take a look at the link here if you would like to set one up in your classroom.

4. Boggle/Target Numbers
We might have a boggle board in our room and the children have a weekly challenge to make as many words as possible.
A weekly/daily target number which they have to make with a specific set of numbers or make that number using as many operations as possible. Click on the image below to find a free outline to download.

5. Computer tasks
Whether it's typing an article for the school blog, writing up an excellent piece of work they have previously completed or doing Interactive Maths games, it's great to use the ICT facilities that you have (hopefully!) in your room.

First Steps Writing (Narrative Writing)

Last year, our school undertook English Writing as an area of SSE (School Self Evaluation). We decided to take on the First Steps Approach to Writing. It breaks each genre down into a seven step approach which you build upon over seven-eight weeks. I felt that I really improved my teaching of English Writing as it was a more structured approach that allowed the children to progress steadily over the term. The difference in their initial draft and their final sample at the end of the 7-8 weeks was remarkable!

Available here

The writing genre book is available from PDST here and it incorporates the ideas of First Steps Writing.

This term, my class is focusing on Narrative Writing. And we are going right back to basics! We started looking at characters in our weekly story and discussing their traits. In particular, we have worked a lot on showing character traits throughout our writing rather than just stating them.

Next we began to work more on settings and how important it is to set a clear picture in the mind of the reader.
Both character and setting worksheets are available here.

Only then did we move on to planning the 'skeleton' of a story using story planners.

Story planner available here

At the end of the Narrative Writing genre, each child will have a few samples of their own narrative writing. they will select the piece their are particularly proud of and I will bind them all together as a booklet to add to our class library.

Assessment

Each child self assesses their work to identify areas they did well and aspects they could work on next time.  Free checklists are available here.

1916 Easter Rising Book Review

I just received this book from Poolbeg, which I plan on using this academic year for the 100th Anniversary of the Easter Rising.  It is a nice way to extend their knowledge of the Rising in Ireland at the time through the diary of a twelve year old girl living in Dublin.  It is a well written book with many snippets of humour to engage the students and the topic will probably engage even the most reluctant reader! It is certainly worth investing in a few copies for your class library or doing collectively as a class novel.

I would recommend the book for a good 5th class or 6th Class as the vocabulary is quite challenging. It could also be used with 1st years in Secondary School. Included in the book are a list of useful links and resources to explore the Easter Rising further.  It also has a useful glossary of groups and individuals involved in the Rising.

It has huge scope for integration with many subjects areas. I have listed a few ideas below.

English: 

-Diary Entries from the perspective of other characters in the story
-Create newspaper articles during the week of the Rising.
-Book Review of the Novel
-Persuasive Writing (E.g. The Irish were right to fight for their independence)

Drama:

-Create improvisations based on the characters in the book
-Use of conscience alleys to help the characters make difficult decisions
-Hot seat characters from the book and ask them a variety of questions
-Thought track characters from the story at different times throughout novel

History:

-1916 Rising
-World War I in Europe
-Historical Figures (Pearse, Connolly etc.)
-Compare Dublin now and then
-Create a timeline of the events of the Easter Rising

Geography:

-Mapwork based on landmarks mentioned in the story
-Scoilnet maps to identify landmarks from story
-Dublin City (Ireland)

Art:

-Design a new front cover for the book

-Choose your favourite scene from the book and draw it

-create a movie reel of the main scenes from the book

Science:

-Inventor Thomas Edison (is mentioned in the story)

Music:

-learn words to Amhrán na bhFiann
-learn tin whistle tune to Amhrán na bhFiann

Project Work

-Assign a specific aspect of the Rising for the children to research
Examples include:
*Research a person involved in the 1916 Rising
*Research the landmarks involved in the 1916 Rising
*Write a different ending to the story
*Write a review of the book
*Write a letter to the author outlining your recommendations (likes/dislikes of the story)

Finding time for Mindfulness....

It has always been an area I have found interesting to try out in the classroom but for many reasons (probably excuses really) I have never actually implemented it as part of our routine in the classroom. From being too busy with such a varied curriculum to having a split class it isn't easy to find that extra 5 minutes a day. In fact, it can be hard to even find 5 minutes in the week! However this year, I am going to try to incorporate mindfulness into our daily routine particularly as it will be well suited to my students this year.

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Last year, our school had a copy of the following CD and many teachers loved it and felt it had a real calming effect on the children.

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Even better it is now available as Gaeilge aswell. That is where I hope to start this year! If budgets are limited there are a huge amount of mindfulness resources on the internet that you can also use. (The Mindfulness Matters resources are also cheaper if you chose to download them rather than purchase a hard copy.)

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If you know of any other resources that have been tried and tested leave a comment below to help get us started.

All things Irish.... (September Thematic Planning)

Each month I choose a theme to teach the children. I find that it really helps me with time management, learning becomes more meaningful and connected for the children and it gives you time to explore a topic in depth.

For September, I usually choose a theme relating to Ireland. This year is fits in even better as the Rugby World Cup is on!

I have uploaded an outline of my thematic planning for free here is you want to download it. 

Here is a brief outline of ways to integrate 'All Things Irish' (or choose another suitable heading) for your class.

English

• Study an Irish poet (e.g. The Lake Isle of Inisfree by W.B. Yeats)
• Read an excerpt from 'Under the Hawthorn Tree' by Marita Conlon McKenna (It has excerpts in the Wonderland series if anyone uses these text books)
• Write a set of interview questions for an Irish author/sportsperson

Gaeilge

• Mé Féin
• learn words to Amhrán na bhFiann
• Caitheamh Aimsire (a perfect time to do more about All-Ireland Final & Rugby World Cup)

History

• Irish Myths & Legends (Poolbeg has some lovely versions available here)

• History of the GAA (Download a useful booklet here)
• History of your locality

Geography

• Learn about Irish counties, rivers, lakes & mountains (Ask About Ireland Website)
• Learn about your locality

Science

• Learn about my Skeleton

Music

• Learn Amhrán na bhFiann
• Learn tin whistle notes to Amhrán na bhFiann
• Learn Ireland's Call

Drama

Depending on the SESE you do, it could be linked to

• Irish myths & Legends
• GAA match commentary

Art

• Draw your impression of the Lake Isle of Inisfree using pastels
• Self Portrait (could use Picasso as stimulus although not Irish!)
• Design a Class or County Jersey (Download the template here)
• Make a clay model of an Irish landmark/symbol (e.g. Dublin Spire)
• Create a wall frieze of an Irish Legend 

PE

Now would be a great time to introduce the children to Touch Rugby or develop their hurling/Gaelic Football skills

Project Work

• Research an Irish County
• All Ireland Final Project Work
• Research an inspirational Irish player (hurling/football/rugby etc.)
• World Cup Project by A Crucial Week

Feel free to comment more ideas below!

First Day Back to School Activities

We all have different routines for our first day back to school. Some like to get straight into a routine with the children while others like to settle in without the textbooks or too much formal teaching.  Either way, I have listed some activities for the first day back to school that can be used for different subjects.

1.Rules (SPHE)
I always incorporate our class rules into an SPHE lesson in the first week. You made decide to come up with class rules together or have them ready previously. It's a good way to set clear expectations for the children.

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2. Summer Memories (Art/English Writing & Oral Language/Gaeilge)
This is a nice activity that allows the children to discuss their summer holidays. Depending on the level you teach it can be differentiated with a range of worksheets available. A senior class may be able to do it in Irish. Find it here

3. Get to know your students activity (link)
I always use this on the first day as it gives me an indication of each child's interests, helping me to get to know them better. Download one for free here

4. Take a class photo

When everyone is looking smart in their new uniforms/clothes, today is a good day to get a class photo for your class blog or the door of your classroom.

Say Cheese!

5. Beginning of Year Prayer (Religious Education)
Depending on the type of school you work in, you may decide to ask each child to write their own Beginning of Year Prayer.  If your school is not affiliated to a Religion, you could do a Hopes & Aspirations Paragraph instead.

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6. Allocate class jobs (SPHE)
I always delegate jobs to the children (which we usually change weekly). Start as you mean to go on by assigning jobs to the children. With older children, you could ask them to 'apply' for jobs by completing a form or letter of application.
This is a nice editable jobs list.
Classroom jobs

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7. Interview their partner (English Oral Language/Gaeilge)
If the children don't know each other, this is a good icebreaker to learn more about their classmates. You could play musical chairs to meet more of their new classmates. If they already know each other, ask the children to do the interview in Irish or another language. This is also a good opportunity for you to assess their ability informally.


8. We all fit in display (Art) 
This is a lovely First Day Back activity, allowing you to get to know the children and create a class display at the same time! Find the banners and jigsaw pieces on http://displays.tpet.co.uk/

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9. Maths
Mental Maths is a nice way to engage the children again. It also helps to identify areas that you need to revise over the first few weeks.

10. Circle Time (Drama)

A good way to allow the children to introduce themselves to you and the other pupils and to make everyone feel comfortable and settled. It could be simple clapping games, Chinese whispers or Follow the Leader action games.

11. Poetry (English/Oral language)

I came across this cute poem on Pinterest!

12. Read a Book
Who doesn't like to listen to their teacher read to them (good habit to start on the first day anyways!)? Last year, I read 'The Dot' to my class. You can read more about the boo and related activities in another post by clicking here.

Feel free to add some more ideas below!

Find other Back to School Posts here:

(An Actual) Back to School Checklist!

Printable Freebies for First Day Back to School

The Back to School 'Survival' Checklist for Teachers