Sunday 27 October 2013

Mail week

Some lovely post from Char and Ashlee in various parts of the world. 



And then my Outgoing mail. 💙





Saturday 28 September 2013

Rosie Posie nails

Saturday is a time for relaxing. Nothing relaxes me more than painting my nails.
Today I used:
From left to right- marshmallow pink - nail paint by Barry M, Porcelain- nail tip colour by Rimmel, Wave- supreme shine by Seventeen and Coral- nail paint by Barry M.

It ended up like this- a peachy gradient base colour with rose detail on the ring finger.
I'll also include a few more photos with other manicures I've done for myself this week=
Red, white and dotty.
Leopard print on pink and teal.
Classic french manicure

That's all for now.

A.

Travelling teddy bear

Our class bear is called Boofle. He was given to me by my year 6 students on my final placement when I was training to be a teacher.
Most teachers have a travelling teddy and I thought it would be nice to do the same.
 
I added a small letter "from Boofle" of course, giving instructions with what to do with him. 🐶
I think this is definitely a good idea, especially for younger children as it encourages writing for a purpose and introduces the idea of letter writing, journal entries and autobiography writing. All these examples they will learn further along in he school, but its a great idea to start them off!
A


Saturday 21 September 2013

Travelling teddy bear

Our class bear is called Boofle. He was given to me by my year 6 students on my final placement when I was training to be a teacher.
Most teachers have a travelling teddy and I thought it would be nice to do the same.
 
I added a small letter "from Boofle" of course, giving instructions with what to do with him. 🐶
I think this is definitely a good idea, especially for younger children as it encourages writing for a purpose and introduces the idea of letter writing, journal entries and autobiography writing. All these examples they will learn further along in he school, but its a great idea to start them off!
A


Sunday 15 September 2013

Apple and blackberry crumble

This went down a hit- I made it for Sunday dinner last week, having gone green laning and picked a shed load of blackberries. I've also had to make jam since there where so many blackberries!


Daily doodle

Doodle a day
14=farm

Send more mail!

The age where mail and communication is fast dying out; I came home last week and nearly cried at the bills that were sent to me through the post. Nothing was personal. No one really talks anymore or seems to care about the little things in life. In a world where time is money and no one has the time to stop and think, I have made a personal target this academic year to send more mail.

I have got in touch with a teacher in Poland and have started to exchange letters between the children in our classes and form a link in a Polish school. I feel there is a life skill to writing a letter. I made a writing frame for my children and got them to write about their favourite colours and food and a bit about themselves. More updates to come. 


I have also signed up for the post crossing. A completely free to join scheme I had been made aware of by our geography subject leader at school. The idea is great- to encourage people to send postcards to people in different countries and you will receive postcards in return. I hope to display the ones we receive in our classroom near our Language of the Month display.
This is a dying art, I urge everyone to get involved.

 http://www.postcrossing.com

Saturday 24 August 2013

Holiday 2013

Some photos of our summer 2013. 
 

Jason and I

Jason was told to "look up, not at the floor!"

Jason and dad ensuring the BBQ safety and even cooking of the burgers.

A tiny Jason on the craggy beach of Greenaway in Cornwall


Selfie.

My favourite place in the world- Greenaway beach.

Rock pools are really beautiful when you look closely- they are like tiny worlds.

Have you been working out- because you are soooo musselly! 

Thanks for reading.
A
XxX







Monday 22 July 2013

Voki

Ok, so this is a little gimmick that can turn a boring web page in to an exciting one.
Voki is simple and free to use. Once you have registered and have a Voki account, you can use the templates (and there are a lot) to create animated avatars. 
When I had finished playing around making one that looked like my cat, Saxon, I felt ready to make a proper one for my class VLE page. I had customised my avatar, the option is there to type a message for the avatar to say. It comes with the option to record and have your own voice speaking, so I chose to do just that. I then copied the source code and pasted it in to my class VLE page in a text box.

Pros- easy and simple to use- house of fun can be had.

Cons- it works using flash, so if you don't have a codec or driver for your Internet browser then you can't see it- I was unable to see it in google Crome on my VLE page, but I was able to view when I logged in through Microsoft Internet Explorer.

I can see a lot of uses with this. It could be the stimulus to a lesson setting a problem for the class, or it could be used as a message to someone as the link can be emailed easily.

Monday 15 July 2013

Usa style pancakes

These are so easy and taste amazing. I've been making them for years and I haven't met anyone who has not cleared their plate!
For this recipe you will need:

160ml milk
3 free range eggs
115g plain flour
1 teaspoon of baking powder
A pinch of salt

Makes 6 pancakes.

1. Separate the egg yokes from the whites. 

2. Mix in a bowl the yokes, flour, milk and baking powder.

3. Whisk in a separate bowl the egg whites and the salt until the whites 'form stiff peaks'.

4. Fold in the egg whites to the main mixture.


5. Fry in a non stick frying pan. I use a ladle to transfer equal portions of the mixture. This usually makes 6/7 thick American style pancakes, which is just enough for our house. If you do need to make more, just double the mixture.


6. Stack up and serve with warmed maple syrup. Yummy!

Monday 1 July 2013

Letters and sounds folders

Phonics has become more important recently with the new Year 6 Spelling and Grammar SAT paper.
We teach phonics by separating children by ability on small focus groups following the plans based on the DfE Letters and Sounds program. In the early stages we combine Jolly Phonics for phase 2 and 3.
As we have lots of support staff whose responsibility it is to deliver the lesson I have organised folders for each member of staff new to teaching phonics this year.

Each folder is divided into sections, with the plans for the phase they are teaching in one section. I have colour coded the plans to go with the colour of the letters and sounds document. This example is for phase 5. I would like to achieve consistency in all teaching staff and have put in my daily lesson plans 4 parts- review, teach, practise and apply.

I added some mnemonic flashcards so people can cut out and laminate them as they need.

 
...and some different ones that show phonemes from phase 2  to phase 5

I have also included in separated sections; each part of the vast letters and sounds document. The chapter you see here is for phase 2.

Letters and Sounds is a big part of KS1. It works very well and I am trying to fit in practising 'alien' words in preparation for the Year 1 Phonics screening assessment.

Sunday 30 June 2013

Reflection corner


 
This is my lent reflection corner that was mostly contructed by my wonderful LSA. All the classes in the school have reflection corners. This is an important part to the classroom as we are a Church of England school, the importance of fostering these values is paramount to the running of our our school daily life. We say a prayer before lunch and at the end of the day. Our daily collective worship altogether in the hall helps to create a unity in the school and a caring environment. 

My reflection corner works really well for the age group that I teach, there are chairs for quiet reflection, past prayers displayed on the prayer tree and extra blank leaves for the children to write new ones for things on their minds. This helps on many levels, helping our children to think more about the wider world and environment, as well as their relationship with family, friends and themselves. Some children feel they can not talk to anyone directly, so it helps to write it down. 

Other features include; the guided subject we are thinking about ( in this case in the photo it's lent), also the cross with a coloured ribbon which indicates what part of the waiting cycle we are at. We also have on display The Lords Prayer, a bible, some books about worship and a poster of our school's 'family'. These are fictional characters to represent all the different religions of children that attend our school. It helps support the unity that we try to foster and understanding of other faiths. It also helps to support inclusion for children of other faiths to write prayers for themselves, that otherwise they may not of felt they could do.

I think next year I will try to update this area of my classroom more often as it is central to the values and thinking skills that our school tries to promote.

Language of the month

I found this idea from a Primary schools website.
They chose to do this as a whole school initiative, but we do it for year 2. 
This is the Japanese display:

And the Spanish display:


The idea is that we cover a different language every month; try new food, learn about other countries' customs and traditions and possibly get guest speakers in.

The children love this lesson and so do I; it gives me the scope to be completely creative with my planning and link in other skills that the children need to learn.

In addition to this both classes have pen pals. I have set up a link with a Polish school, more to come about this subject so watch this space! 

A
XxX

Spelling


My first LSA made this at the start of last year and its been so useful, I didn't take it down until the end of the year! I love the idea of using a play on words and using little soup bowls with the letters and sounds phonemes inside them. I also think the little touch of dotting spoons round the display was also very cute. 
I need a fresh new display this year, but I really loved this display and wanted to pay homage to it.

:)

Audacity



Audacity is an audio editing program which is completely free to download. It allows you to record simple tracks or more complex multi track recordings. It is an extremely effective as a program and it simple to use. In our primary school, we use Audacity to edit interviews for our school radio and to edit songs to re mix them. The children that utilise this program for the radio are typically year 5 (aged 9 and 10).
Even if you don't have special radio microphones, I find audacity simple enough to use in the class. I usually record straight on to the audio track, but it is also just as easy to record a podcast on a portable USB microphone and import the track on to the editor. 
Once you have the track you can then listen and highlight the parts you don't want and then delete them. Depending on the quality of the initial recording this might take some time, but is always good practise to do to get a professional sounding recording. 
The next step is to export your finished file and save it to the folder or area that you would like as an MP3 file. This enables it to be in a format that can be played on most media players, such as VLC, windows media player, QuickTime and iTunes. 


It took me a little while to figure out the controls and I definitely have not seen all it can do. It is a very clever and useful program. It's user friendly and perfect for primary school level children.

Thanks

Aimée

Saturday 29 June 2013

Raspberry Pi

 
I really can't wait until the summer when I have time to buy and set up a Raspberry Pi. I think they're brilliant and definitely think that are an exciting way to help kids in to electronics and programing. For more discussion read The Geek Gurl diaries (www.geekgurldiaries.co.uk ).