Today my kids had a "dance" assessment. For the past 3 weeks we have been teaching them the 'evening 3-step'. Today they had to pair up with the opposite sex. It was hilarious!
The other Year 3 and 4 class got over themselves fairly quickly and actually seemed to enjoy it. Not my kids though! For the past 3 weeks they have been planning ways to break limbs (one girl actually did injure herself badly enough yesterday to need crutches), lose teeth, vomit etc so they wouldn't have to dance with each other....
So as I put them into pairs this afternoon I was met with groans and moans and horrid (maybe horrified?) faces and even a spot of dry retching. 2 of my boys worked themselves up to a state of tears and they all generally did their best not to touch each other (ah the good old waltz-hold-by-correspondence). It was hilarious. I am the meanest teacher in the world.
One of my girls, afterward, said "Miss F, girls and boys DO NOT MIX! It just ISN'T RIGHT!" hehehe I love that my kids still "have germs"!
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
A Notable Night
This evening the amazing 5/6 Think-track class held a "Night of Notables". Basically each kid had to dress up as a "notable" person from history & present a 3 minute speech in 1st person. Each character had a little stand set up with props and the audience moved around the room to hear their choice of the 13 speakers who were presenting at one time. Each kid did his/her speech 4 times, taking turns with a partner at their particular stand. (hmm it makes sense when you're there, I think I failed at explaining it though... sorry)
It was so good!
"Guest speakers" of the night included Abraham Lincoln, Leonardo da Vinci, Mary MacKillop, Moses and Bindi Irwin. The kids did so well stepping into character and presenting the information that they had researched. I was like a proud parent, I had taught at least three-quarters of the kids at some point of their Junior School experience (as their Kindy, Year 1, Year 3 and/or Year 4 teacher... I sort of progressed through Junior School with them :) ). They were so cute and grown-up! I took so many photos and made sure I wrote on as many "comments" forms as I could.
Unfortunately I didn't get to see all of the speeches (the being in 26 places at once is always a bit of a challenge), but their beautiful teacher has invited my class to come to the encore performance tomorrow! I'm looking forward to learning more about history from my ex-students!
It was so good!
"Guest speakers" of the night included Abraham Lincoln, Leonardo da Vinci, Mary MacKillop, Moses and Bindi Irwin. The kids did so well stepping into character and presenting the information that they had researched. I was like a proud parent, I had taught at least three-quarters of the kids at some point of their Junior School experience (as their Kindy, Year 1, Year 3 and/or Year 4 teacher... I sort of progressed through Junior School with them :) ). They were so cute and grown-up! I took so many photos and made sure I wrote on as many "comments" forms as I could.
Unfortunately I didn't get to see all of the speeches (the being in 26 places at once is always a bit of a challenge), but their beautiful teacher has invited my class to come to the encore performance tomorrow! I'm looking forward to learning more about history from my ex-students!
Monday, November 1, 2010
Show Your Working
Today my class did their yearly Maths test (while there was a thunderstorm crashing around us).
These tests are hard.
My kids did really poorly at their half yearly...and I have the smart kids. So I've been teaching them over the past month how to show the strategy they used, so that even if they got the wrong answer it would be possible for the marker (me) to see where they were going and give them some sort of credit for the attempt.
It was so interesting to see how the kids think! There were some kids who used the traditional strategies I had taught them, some who had completely forgotten that I had taught them anything and used half a page to work out that if 7 balls cost $56 then 1 ball cost $51..., and there were some whose mathematical thinking was so superior to my own that it took me a while to figure out what they were doing and how it led them to the correct answer!
My favourites were the kids who didn't know how to 'show' what they had done, so they wrote it instead:
The best was this one:
Which was accompanied by a diagram to show that she had indeed worked it out in her head...
Hahaha! I love my kids. They are hilarious.
These tests are hard.
My kids did really poorly at their half yearly...and I have the smart kids. So I've been teaching them over the past month how to show the strategy they used, so that even if they got the wrong answer it would be possible for the marker (me) to see where they were going and give them some sort of credit for the attempt.
It was so interesting to see how the kids think! There were some kids who used the traditional strategies I had taught them, some who had completely forgotten that I had taught them anything and used half a page to work out that if 7 balls cost $56 then 1 ball cost $51..., and there were some whose mathematical thinking was so superior to my own that it took me a while to figure out what they were doing and how it led them to the correct answer!
My favourites were the kids who didn't know how to 'show' what they had done, so they wrote it instead:
"I plused the hundreds then I plused the tens then the ones then I plused the answers and !"
(I love that her "ta-da" answer was in the form of an "!")
I just minust 254 from 567 simple!
I worked it out by doing this strategy [vertical algorithm] but I didn't remember half of it so I just worked half of it out on my own.
The best was this one:
Which was accompanied by a diagram to show that she had indeed worked it out in her head...
Hahaha! I love my kids. They are hilarious.
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