Summer Sparkle in the Northern Hemisphere

As I sit here huddled over the heater and watching the miserable weather being covered on the evening news, I can't help but be envious of our teaching friends in the Northern Hemisphere who are entering their warmer seasons. My sister- in-law in the UK has been posting beautiful spring  photographs of the countryside in the North around Marple, lately.

But then when I look at the great fun we had here over our unless summer of 2014/15, and I'm satisfied. As part of my Seasons unit to help teach Y2 about Colour Theory, one class focused on the colours of  summer and produced some stunning pieces.

We worked on A2 paper for these as I was curious to see how they would cope with a larger canvas. Well what do you think? I think they produced beautiful artworks.

I used the Marzano scale to write up the levelled  success criteria for this unit and have included these for you as well. They cover, drawing skills, painting skills and Colour concepts.
Marzano examples on Pinterest

Summer Sparkle is completed and written up in my familiar step-by-step format, for you to enjoy. Click on the RESOURCES button next to the HOME button at the top of this page to link to my stores.

With love, as always

Thank you for visiting,

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http://www.youtube.com/user/HelpMeLearnMaths
http://pinterest.com/tkwillemse/boards/

Poetry - End of Year Reflections Poetry Writing lesson

Hello friends,
It is Term 4 down here in New Zealand and we are all winding up the end of our year with final assessments due soon, Term 4 reports to write and wrapping up our year in general. Two years ago I came across a poem in this School Journal.

This great reflection poem by Maria McMillan, jumped out straight away as a creative way to sum up our year.

And here is a close up of the words:

Aren't they great - you can just picture the year's learning events unfolding through the words. I decided to use it as a model text for my Year 4's and reflect on the year that was. Everyone published their poem digitally as I was teaching a 1:2 digital class at the time. Once we finished, I printed a copy of each poem for the kiddies to take home in their portfolios, and a copy for the wall too. This way, when my new class arrived at the start of the new year, they had these awesome poems from the previous class to read and think about what lay ahead for them.

Here are a few samples from my kiddies (Dec 2011).

These kiddies were all 9  at the time.

I didn't teach this poem again last year because I was changing levels and moving up to Y6 and my new Y6's wouldn't want to know what my Y4's learned about last year. But now that I am about to complete this year, I will do them again with my 10/11 year olds. Simply dying to see what they produce and hope to post samples for you.

If you would like to have a go at writing these great poems with your students, I have written a lesson for it which includes instructions, graphic organisers and teacher models. Student handouts are in both UK/US spelling, where needed. 

These lesson guides are available from both my TPT store - One Teacher's Journey HERE,

and from my website - Help Me Learn HERE

Thank you for visiting,

http://www.helpmelearn.co.nz/
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/One-Teachers-Journe
http://www.youtube.com/user/HelpMeLearnMaths
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Art Lesson - Back to School Portraits Project for Upper Elementary

Hello friends,
I hope you have enjoyed following our Calendar Art unit, which I called 'This Is Me,' as it developed over last term.

I have now compiled all the photographs and instructions into my latest, comprehensive, step-by-step teacher support resource. 
Are you looking for the perfect back to school self-portrait art project to create with your students in the first weeks of school? Your students will love working on this engaging Portrait Art lesson as they include personal ideas in their artwork and make unique self-portraits to share with the class. Also included is an introduction to US contemporary artist, Eden Gasior - who inspired and endorsement this comprehensive teaching guide.

I have sent all our orders off to the calendar company and look forward to seeing the final products.

✅ This resource is great way to create self-portraits at the start of the year, for getting to know each other, or end of the year to summarise student's growth over the year.
In creating this art project, your students will explore how to use the art elements of LINE and SHAPES when composing artwork and creating patterns or TEXTURE. You will also learn about the innovative ideas and artwork of Eden Gasior.

✅ This lesson has tons of built in choice for differentiation, while keeping the skills taught consistent across the class, to save your sanity.
But you don't need to take my word for it, see what teachers say about the added value they gained from this product.

PRAISE for the SELF-PORTRAITS teacher resource from other teachers

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ "Excellent, easy to follow instructions with beautiful examples to inspire."

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ "This was comprehensive and easy to use. Thank you!"

I hope you give it a try and create beautiful artwork with your students too :)

Thank you for visiting,

Timea

Blooms - Oldie but a goodie

Hello friends,
When I first started teaching over a decade ago, one of the buzz words around at the time was Bloom's Taxonomy. I can't say I have heard it much lately but for this terms Daily 5 / Sustained Reading slot, my team decided to revisit it. We incorporated it into the Read to Self / Read to Buddy component of the reading block. First though, I'll recap on how last term went.
Our focus was as follows:

 Once we started of course, another goal came to light which was extending stamina (on-task focised reading) for a fixed period.
We monitored the Read to self (5min) as follows:

After listening to our buddies read, we discussed what it means to read fluently, and set this as the purpose for our Read to Buddy time:

Here are the anchor charts we used to give our buddy feedback (star) and feed-forward (wish or next step):

They worked a treat. Now in Term 2 we wished to extend into comprehension checkpoints, so our Bloom's Comprehension Fans were born.

First our stamina goals extended to 10 minutes Read to Self:

Next, the Read to Buddy time was split 3/2 minutes. Read to your buddy for 3min and discuss for 2minutes (up to 3 questions from the Bloom's Fans).

And the buddy still gave  feedback on fluency (out of 10) and on the ability of the reader to provide full answers.

As with last term, we will again reflect on the patterns that emerge after a fortnight of reading.

Finally:

FREE Daily 5 - Reading to self / Buddy Follow up.

used in Term 1  &

Bloom's Questions - Bookmarks or Fans

used in Term 2 are available here:
Teachers Pay Teachers - Reading at One Teachers Journey
Teachers Notebook
Help Me Learn (NZ)
And a BIG thank-you to...

Thank you for visiting. Would love to read about how you switch things up during sustained reading time in your classroom. Leave a link to your blog post below.

Using Traffic Light Self Reflections in Maths Today

Hello Friends,

Further to my previous post (CLICK HERE), I have add some photos of student reflections, using the traffic light reflection system, today for Maths. Its a great way to cover the Reflective learner profile for PYP too. As you glance down the separate images, you can quickly see how easily you can gauge the temperature if the group or class, about the lesson  you taught that day :)

This is my poster on the white board at the front of the room. I printed it A4 and laminated it.

Happy teaching :)

Traffic Light Self Reflections

Hello Friends,

A quick one tonight :)

One new idea I use this year (and really love) is the Traffic Light Self-reflection. There are a few versions out there on the net, to check them out.

I made a poster and played around with the wording a bit until I was happy with it and then put it up above the white board.

I regularly use it in the last 5 minutes of a maths lesson but it can be used anywhere you want quick feedback from your students.

This really encourages on-going self-reflection by your kiddies (and by you - about your teaching - bonus). I also ask the students to write a 1-line 'because...' justification for their smiley choice. This way I can reflect on the planning I do for following lessons and how to cater to my students more accurately.

If you would like a copy, hop over to one of my stores and grab yourself a set.
(TPT)
(TN)
(HML) 
Would love to hear ways you encourage self-reflection in your classroom?  Link in your ideas or posts below.

5W and 1H

Hello friends,

Today, for writing, I pulled out a section from my resource

Reading Comprehension Skills and Figurative Language Posters

It's the Who, What, Why, Where, When & How questions. I printed them in greyscale for my students, reducing to 2-1 as well. We make envelopes to keep them in and made our own tool kits for buddy conferencing.

Then we got together with a buddy to share our narratives. Students read 1 paragraph at a time, while their buddy held the question prompts ready to ask expanding questions of the writer. After taking turns with this activity, the kiddies regrouped and shared the results of their expanded sentences back to their table groups. What a difference!

This was a follow up to a great little digital motivator called "I made tea." Take your students through it by clicking onto each 'greyed out' word. It will blow their minds how you can expand 1 short, dull sentence into an entire paragraph.

(Here) is the link to the digital motivator and I added some images of our tool-kits, too :)