What's going on?

Hello Bloggers!

Thank you for bearing with me these last few weeks. It's fair to say I've been VERY busy! Placement is going well and I'm enjoying it, but it's really hard work. I really can't wait to qualify and have my own class. Yes it will be difficult, however I feel that I'll only improve once I'm spending more time in the classroom. Early Years has been a nice change for me and I'm so interested in how learning takes place during these vital years of a child's life. 

I have yet to decide what year I want to apply for yet, I suppose I would be happy with either Reception, Year 1 or Year 2. Fingers crossed the next year rolls on and I end up doing well at University and move onto a new and exciting job. 

I don't think I can stress how much Pinterest and twinkl have saved my life! They're so useful with providing resources and engaging ideas for my class. I can envision how I'd want to set up my class when I get my own classroom. I guess that makes me more excited. I just hope it looks as good as they do on Pinterest! I'd like to say I'm quite arty so hopefully the end product looks as good. 

I hope you are all well! I promise that when I finish on 22nd May my blog posts will be resuming as normal! It will be nice to get back into my blogging schedule especially when there are lots of exciting things coming up!

I'll cut this short as I have planning and resourcing to finish!

"The rest is still unwritten"

Megan 

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