Dodecahedron Team Building Fun

Hello friends,

I just realised that I hadn't posted about this great idea, while trolling through my iPhoto folders. Not my idea for sure, but saw many great examples out there used for many  purposes. Here is how I used Dodecahedrons with my kiddies at the start of the year.

We started in Jan/Feb so I know that teaching friends in the Northern hemisphere who are heading toward the end of their current year, will be looking ahead to starting new adventures with their classes in September.

Being a 12 sided figure, there is a lot of work and time that goes into these mobiles so, to cut back on that aspect, I set them as a group challenge. The best group sizes would be 3 or 4 (multiples of 12). I made 2 versions of the faces, individual and group based. I then let the groups negotiate which faces they wanted to do independently and which ones they wanted to do as a group. They did this from the master  that I printed and we tracked this on the board. That way I only printed what they needed. I also printed on the 2/pg setting to reduce the faces from A4 to A5. This made them a manageable size for mobiles.

 The gluing together was a test of team work in itself. They used glue sticks and created the 2 hemispheres first before putting the orb together.

We knotted a string several times to create a lump on the end, then threaded this through before gluing the last flap together. You can just make them out below, floating beneath the self-portraits.

Looks great when a slight breeze comes through too. It reminds us of the bonds we built at the start of the year when making them.

Now if you would like a set of my team building dodecahedron, just pop over to:
Teachers Pay Teachers
Teachers Note Book
or Help Me Learn if you are in New Zealand/Australia. 
and grab yourself a PDF copy too.

Anti-bullying video

Hello friends,

Just came across this great little video on Facebook and found it on YouTube. Thought it would be great for the anti-bullying message in schools.

Til next time :)

Learner Profiles Matching Lesson extension

Hello friends,

I posted about my Learner Profile Mix n Match lesson for the start of this year in a post (HERE) earlier. I just wanted to show you our finished posters.

 

I took a photo of each students, with their backpack and Learning Journal, to represent the image in the resource. After drafting their Learner profile, they published them in these cute pencil frames from

http://allthatglittersinfirstgrade.blogspot.com

 

Remember you can get my activity forFREE from my TpT store - One Teacher's Journey - HERE.

or from my website - Help Me Learn - HERE

Enjoy! Would love to know how it went for you.

A Picture Book for Valentine's Day and Classroom Kindness

A Lovely picture book suited to all ages with its poignant message is "How to heal a broken wing" written by Bob Graham.

You can read more about it and the author HERE

Here is a link to the YouTube read-aloud video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRyWcwd4y8s

We used this book as a 'Reading-To' and reviewed our inference skills while making connections for text-to-self and text-to-world.

Our action (reader response) took the form of a Valentines Day challenge, fitting in with our Unit of Inquiry for ...
How We Organise Ourselves - Leadership.

Our central idea is: Leadership means living a life of integrity and of inspiring others,
with  lines of inquiry as follows:
Living a life of integrity everywhere.
Leader’s acceptance of others, allows others to accept the leader.
Leadership involves serving others with commitment and sacrifice.

And now for the challenge.

As a class we discussed what Random acts of kindness were and where we have actioned these in the past.
We have now set ourselves the challenge of completing 100 Random Acts of Classroom Kindness over the next 2 weeks.  When students complete an act, they collect a heart to fill out the information on and it's then posted up on our wall.

A HUGE thank you to MyCuteGraphics for the gorgeous Valentine's Day images :)

Here is our wall so far...

...and by the end of the first week...

Well done to my amazing students for posting such awesome RACK's on our topic wall   :) :)

Check in to see how we go by the end of next week. So how do you go about encouraging leadership in your students?

The resources and ideas for this activity are available in my Back 2 School Bundle - First 2 Weeks, that you might also like to preview HERE

Love to see your comments below.

The Learner Profiles for Back to School

Hi everyone,

With the start of the new year approaching, I have been thinking about and compiling 'Start of the Year' activities that formulate how the classroom will work cohesively.

At the start of each year we revisit all ten Learner Profiles (I teach at an International School that follows the curriculum framework laid out by the IBO). These are then incorporated into all our units, as well as our classroom behaviour contract.

This time I created a Mix & Match activity around the Profiles for a group activity. Download FREE from my TpT store - One Teacher's Journey - HERE.

Print and cut. Students then attempt to match the pairs in teams. This really forces them to read the definition of each profile and this can lead to good discussions.

I printed 6 sets for my class (1 per group) and paper-clipped each set together.

I also came across some cute posters created by Andrea Knight for juniors, that inspired this 'Parts of a Learner' poster. This poster is aimed at classrooms from Y4 - Y6. I integrated the essence of the Learner Profiles so that students could see how these related to their daily lives. It can be found in the same product mentioned above.

I would love for you to leave a comment below about these resources :)
Enjoy!

Digital Behaviour Management

I came across a behaviour management post by Tracey on her blog at OUR COOL SCHOOL about keeping it positive Digital Style.  Read more about it on the eLearning Reflections Page...