Innuendo

We were considering techniques to develop writing ability today.

In one of the classes, we were each given a Smartie. We had to look at it, feel it, suck it and then crunch it. Whilst doing so, we had to scroll down adjectives to describe our findings. It was so hard to keep a straight face! Every time the tutor said we had to pop it in our mouth and suck it, but not bite it, we burst out laughing - and he said it more than once lol. The descriptive writing we did as a result was pretty funny too - lots of eruptions and oozings in people's mouths! I know that probably suggests we are quite juvenile, but I think a little light-hearted relief is necessary on this course. Especially as tomorrow is the day our STCC grades our preliminary placement and, in my STC, we have a full on PE session with him. Fun times that'll be lol. :)

Snappy!

In DT today, we made a snappy crocodile. Our tutor said it is the sort of thing you can use when teaching about using wood, hinges and safe working practices with saws etc. Mine is, as a friend said, a bit goofy, but I think that is perfect fine. :D

Placement Display

I was charged with taking down an old display on France and making the preparations to replace it with a Jolly Postman display. The first job was to put up hills and a blue sky, before characters collaged by the children could be added. Below are some pictures from the start, although there is a huge pile of work to go up on it and we decided that some of the characters would need a bit more work. :)

At first, I was a little nervous. It is a huge display and is on the only corridor in school, outside the office and headteacher's room [one and the same], by the main entrance. The rolls of paper were huge and putting everything up meant standing on a tiny chair lol. Still, whilst the other pgce student in my school laughed a little as he stood observing an assessed writing activity, I think I had the better time. I mean, I love being in class and being with the children, but what is there to do when you are just observing a test? I mean, the teacher didn't want anyone to provide additional help, as she had given as big an input as she felt was justified given the fact it was a writing assessment, so doing something productive and creative with the time was far better. :)

Teaching Practice

My first lesson was a little difficult, as getting the children's respect was quite hard. I also lost all sense of time [there was no clock in the room and I didn't stop for a second to check my watch] and ended up failing to do a plenary. My third lesson was better structured, with a greater sense of pace and far more engagement by the children. I even managed to do my plenary, however the main activity I had created for my year 4s was a little too hard. An extra three questions on the classification table, leading to another three food items, confused them, so that was a bit of a disaster.

However, my second lesson was pretty darn good! :D
We looked at adjectives and characterisation within the Jolly Postman. The children seemed really engaged and each created some fantastic Venn diagrams, compairing two characters, which they used to write comparative sentences. The plenary 'guess who' game also seemed to go down well, as the children had to work out which characters I was describing from a completed Venn diagram I put up on the board. Despite the need to quickly replan the lesson, due to the unexpected absence of ICT, it went really well and the children seemed engaged. :)

I just need to make sure the 40 lessons I am teaching on my next placement, with that class, are like the literacy lesson and not my less successful maths and science attempts lol.

First Day On Placement

Despite a 2am fire alarm - the result of someone getting distracted by WoW when cooking eggs! - to disrupt my sleep, today has been a great day.

My placement school is lovely! The teachers are really friendly and the headteacher has already reassured us that we needn't worry about things like making it in for 8.30am if the weather is awful [quite possible around here, so I'm told].

The school is tiny. Some 78 pupils enrolled at the moment. There are three classrooms, a hall with incorporated ICT area and a cupboard in place of the staffroom. It is thoroughly charming, although the building is very cold due to the wooden walls. I've also discovered that I'll have to rethink my previous types of lesson plans in a big way, as there is no carpet area/room for that sort of thing, nor does the school have interactive whiteboards [something to do with asbestos in the walls preventing them from installing them]. Nevertheless, I have had a really wonderful day. :D

When I come home from my 9am till 5pm Mondays at university (which invariably include over 4 hours of science, an hour on core issues [like safeguarding] and then two hours on things like PE, art, music or DT), I can't face doing anything. Today, I got home at around 4pm and I worked until 7pm on PGCE stuff! I can barely believe it of myself lol. One of the activities I completed was to help with the school pantomime though. I wasn't asked, and there is no guarantee that they will use what I've made, but I spent an hour on it nevertheless. They had the music for one of the songs, but not the words - which they like to put up on a digital projector. So, now they have the full song, with the words perfectly matched [because I am OCD like that] and some animations for the instrumental bits. I hope they like it. :D

Inference

We looked at higher order reading skills today, in relation to language comprehension. One of the big things was inference and we did a variety of activities linked to encouraging children to infer from the text.

One of the tasks was to come up with a sentence, just a simple sentence, which could be used to launch a debate. It was quite illuminating and rather amusing, as our first resposes seemed to follow a pattern. Some people always thought the worst, some tended to go for a nicer angle and others tried to infer something particularly humous lol.
Our sentence was something like: "He ran swiftly along the road, carrying a bag." Some people thought he was theft, others that he was late for his train. Someone said he could be trying to return the bag to someone. Another that he was carrying ice-cream home from the supermarket and didn't want it to melt lol.
One of the other sentences we came up with was something like: "She stood alone on the street corner, on a dark, cold night." You can just imagine the first idea to pop into some heads lol!

I suppose, inference is something we all do without thinking about it. When you read a headline in a newspaper or a tag line to something, often they are not completely clear and yet we all make an assumption - a prediction or a judgement - as to what it meant. :)

I think sessions which bring in that sort of skill would be really interesting to teach. Once the children develop some confidence with it, I'm sure you could have some very lively exchanges and debates about something so simple as a short sentence. Pretty groovy, to me at least lol. :)

Nice Feedback

"Dear All

I just want to thank you for the enthusiastic and wholehearted way in which you have approached the course so far. Workshops and lectures are a pleasure and your contributions intelligent and well-informed. Attendance has been excellent and colleagues have commented on the high quality of this year's cohort.

We hope you thoroughly enjoy your time in school and take every opportunity to gain as much valuable and varied experience as possible. If, as I expect, you make the same impression upon school staff as you have on university staff, both your and our reputations will continue to be enhanced.

Have a wonderful time!

Best wishes"

Unexpected Planning Days

"Hi All,

Good news! Something has cropped up on Thursday that I cannot get out of. Options for the day include, contacting the placement school and organising a visit, get on with assignment, get to grips with paperwork for the placement or pub...."

We were good as well - we made contact with our placement school and they said they didn't need to see us before we start on Monday. So, a guilt free lie-in is definitely on the cards. After all, I'll be all the better when it comes to my assignments and planning if I've had a good nights sleep lol! :D