Teaching Tips: ABC does

Hello Bloggers!

My teacher has been so helpful with giving me tips and advice so that I can become the best teacher possible. As a result she told me to read up on objective led planning on abc does. It's a blog written by an ex-headteacher. I love blogs like this as they are real experiences coming from someone who has been in the game long enough to have seen the vast changes made to education over the years. After reading these posts I have found so many new ideas I want to try as well as helping me understand objective led planning. I can't express how much I love this idea. It allows me to take the learning to the children in provision differentiating the activities they're engaged in, without them even realising. It doesn't involve pulling the children from provision to a table. This makes learning fun for children instead of being a task they hate doing!

Reading blogs and articles such as abc does allows me to feel positive about going into my own classroom in the future. I'm really excited to put these ideas into practice because I want to see the results for myself. If anyone is struggling like I do sometimes, with EYFS then reading up on blogs such as this one really reassures you! They give you so many ideas and tips to try. It's trial and error and I can't say every idea will work as every class is different!

Please read up on this blog if you have some spare time it really is a good read! Also if you have any good teaching tips/ideas please share them below! Would be lovely to see us help each other!

ABC Does blog: http://www.abcdoes.com

"The rest is still unwritten"

Megan 

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Teaching Tips: Ice Experiment

Hello Teachers!

Last year I was on my first teaching placement for my University course. Even though I had spent time in classrooms a lot the idea was so scary and daunting. I was placed in a Year 2 class and one of my observations had to be a Science lesson. Now I've never planned my own lesson before and I had to fit in with what the children were already studying. The topic was 'Fire and Ice', however my focus was on 'Ice'. Obviously, I picked to do a melting ice experiment.

'Save The Penguin' Experiment

The children were learning about animals in Antarctica and their favourite was the Penguins. I decided to freeze a picture of a penguin (which had been laminated) using the 6 paint palette trays. The ice cubes were a lot bigger for the children to see them melt and when they saved the penguin they could take him/her home.

We used 5 different materials to test melting these ice cubes. I used Sugar, Table Salt, Road Salt, Pepper and Sand. Due to the size of the ice cubes I had made up some word searches which focused on getting the children to find our key words. This allowed them to stay on task and wait to see which one melted the fastest.

I did this in table groups, 5 to a table. Each child on that table had a bowl and an ice cube and they each had a different material. This allowed everyone to be involved and in charge of something.

This experiment was done in Summer which was the worst time to do it in. It was good to talk about the misconceptions children had, as some thought pepper/sand was best to use, however this had melted faster because of the temperature. This was introducing the children to the idea of how some factors can affect our experiments and give us wrong results (anomalies).

The children loved this experiment and I would say it was a success. Of course like every lesson there would be somethings I would do differently. The most important thing is to keep children engaged and the best way to do this is to do practical work where possible. Children in Early Years and KS1 love being active and involved. This ice experiment was allowing children to explore and see what they found. We could then discuss the table results as a class and talk through the problems we faced e.g. the affect the temperature had on the ice cubes.

It was really nice to see some children had taken their penguins home and made bigger ice cubes and tried to melt them. We discussed in the morning how bigger ice cubes would take longer to melt than the size we had in the lesson.

Do you have any ice experiments that worked well with your children?

"The rest is still unwritten"

Megan

Teaching Tips: Nursery World Show 2015

Hello Bloggers!

As you know I went to London on the 5th-6th February 2015 to go to the Nursery World Show (NWS). This focuses on Early Years teaching and how we can make our practice the best it can be, to fit the needs of the children. I found this experience to be so helpful and enriching, being able to talk to skilled practitioners in the profession as well as listening to inspiring speakers who gave us vital information and advice. For me this show has helped me confirm what age I want to work with. Early Years is such an interesting age range for me that I cannot see myself anywhere else at this time. Of course to gain more experience I would teach in other years, however I am glad I am specialising in Early Years.

I enjoyed every single one of my seminars and found them to be particularly useful. I just wish that I could have gone to more of them! The seminars gave me lots of advice to put in to practice when I start teaching in Reception and has also given me more confidence. Everyone I met there reassured me that I would be brilliant when I started teaching. I also met two teachers from a nursery in Leeds who invited me to come and see how they work. What I forgot is that events like this allow you to network with professionals who can help you. I know that the contacts I made there will help me grow into the teacher I want to be, the best kind to help my class achieve their potential.

The NWS had plenty of different stalls selling lots of different resources, however one that I was particularly intrigued by was the Actiphons Stall. This made phonics so much more fun and engaging. I find that some children (mainly boys) struggle to be engaged by phonics because it doesn't interest them. This programme integrates phonics and physical activity. This is important in Reception and I think if used correctly it could work well in most classrooms. Actiphons works with many different phonics approaches so even if you were using Read, Write, Inc it can still be incorporated with this. I really liked their ethos and I would seek to use this if I had a class of my own.

You can find their website here: http://actiphons.com
You can also follow them on twitter: @actiphons

If you're a trainee teacher/qualified teacher check their website out and let me know what you think!

The NWS will be running again next year and I would advise any Early Years Professionals to sign up and go. It was worth every penny I spent just to get the experience and advice from the professionals. They have lots of stalls and live demos going on so there is definitely never a quiet minute!

If you want to know more about my experience you can message me using my links below!

"The rest is still unwritten"

Megan

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Teaching Tips: New Ideas

Hello Bloggers!

New post alert.

I've been thinking about how helpful teaching ideas and tips are. I'm training to be a teacher and I for one love reading about other teachers experiences and lesson ideas. I like reading these posts so I will aim to share 1/2 of these posts a month. This way if any of you are trainee teachers maybe you'll find these posts helpful! 

These will pop up on two Tuesday's out of a month! I will alternate with Tuneful Tuesday's as it's getting a bit difficult to write about music each week.

Let me know what you think of these. 

"The rest is still unwritten"

Megan