5th Teaching Day

Wednesday 9th September:

Today was hilarious, and such a valuable learning experience - I talked to the cooperating teacher about how shocking their behaviour was yesterday and my goodness did she give it to them! I really think they needed that shock to wake up to themselves and their behaviour, and today, for the main part, they were excellent! The other Year One teachers also made comments about how appalled they were with my class yesterday and the kids seemed so ashamed that they wanted to make up for it. But it really just shows the range of kids behaviours, and how if their normal routine goes out the window, so do their manners.

Today I gave a PE/Fitness Lesson in the morning. The kids really did pay attention to me after being talked to by their teacher and the lesson went well. I just wish there had been more time, as the kids were having a lot of fun! We played these games:

What's the time Mr Wolf? - One player is the wolf and he/she will stand with his/her back turned to the others about 5 meters from the others. The others call out, "Whats the time Mr. Wolf" and the wolf turns to face the others and shouts out a time. Eg: 10 o'clock. The others would then take 10 steps toward the wolf. The group will take the same amount of steps toward the wolf as the amount of hours in the wolfs time. eg, 2 o'clock = 2 steps, 6 o'clock = 6 steps etc. etc. The wolf will then turn his back to the group again for them to yell "whats the time...." (He looks at the group only when he shouts the time at the group". When the group gets close to the wolf the next time the group yells "whats the time Mr. Wolf" the wolf will say 'DINNER TIME" and run after the group who are running back to the start line, and hopefully catch one of the group who will then be the wolf.

Here, There and Everywhere - Define your play space and then identify 3 landmarks (a tree, a cone, a tape line, or any other visual) – name them “Here”, “There” and “Everywhere”. Start all the kids on “Here”. The Caller says “Go there” and all the kids go to the spot identified as “There” – anyone who goes to the wrong place is out. The next command gets called – “Skip everywhere” and anyone who goes to the wrong place is out. Keep repeating with new ways to get here, there and everywhere until you declare a winner.

Octopus - One person will be "the moving octopus" and will stand in the middle of the playground. The rest of the kids will line up on a base line.. The moving octopus will then say go and everyone else must run to the other side of the gym. The first person who the tagger tags will then help the 'moving octopus'. The rest of the people that were taged must sit down. The kids that are sitting down can only use their waving arms to tag people (like an octopus). This then goes back and fourth until your down to the last person who then starts the next round. The objective of the game is to get everyone sitting down. Last person standing wins.

I found that all the kids LOVED these three games, and there was lots of groaning when we had to go back inside! The strategies I used for behaviour management, was making them repeat my instructions as I gave them. This worked well and everyone understood. I have been reading another UTS Student's blog (Vanessa), and she has used some great PDHPE games/activities relating to healthy eating, which I will definately be trying out in future pracs!

During the mid-session, I gave the Mathematics lesson I was meant to give yesterday based on 2D shapes. I made the lesson about going on a ‘shape-hunt’, which the kids really seemed to enjoy doing. Before really explaining the lesson, I decided to think of a creative way to introduce them or have them revise the concept of shapes. In our Uni subject ‘Music, Movement and Dance’ we played games where the teacher called out types of shapes to us (long, pointy, triangular, rectangle, small, tall etc) and we had to make them with our bodies. I put on some calming rainforest music and had them do this activity. They really got into it, however I stopped when kids were laughing and getting to excited.

I had made up a 2D shapes worksheet that they had to complete, and you can tell the kids that just love maths finish straight away, but the kids who are more creative prone, take ages to finish. I had learnt my lesson from the week before, and this time I had in place an activity for early finishers. They took two die (dice) and made up their own addition sums to do themselves.

With the behaviour side of things, I really need to tune my ears to distinguish between ‘busy’ noise and ‘disruptive’ noise. I tended to make them quiet down whenever they started becoming noisy, however I realise now that sometimes it is okay to have them talk to each other and socialise while doing work.

Most kids worked really well, and the two children I was focusing on seemed to get the job done without too much fuss. The child that constantly interrupted, did interrupt, and I explained to her and the class that interrupting people was unacceptable and I would simply not answer her if she did it again. I told her this in a polite and respectful way and she didn’t interrupt again for that lesson. However, at the end of the day, she was back to her old ways, and again I realised that because she had gotten away with interrupting people her whole life, one correction from me could not stop that way in her.

Overall, it was a much better day than yesterday and I am continually learning that a teacher’s work is never done!