Monday 19 September 2016

Question word posters freebie

Ahoy there!

I have just added a freebie to my TPT store. It's this set of questions posters. 



I'm going to have my class fill the blank spaces with answers to these questions. Alternatively, you could get the children to put examples of questions using these words. This makes the display much more meaningful for the class.

Enjoy!

Saturday 10 September 2016

First class Twitter experience

Hi all,

Last May I posted about ways to use a class / school Twitter account to connect classrooms across the world. So it was time to put my money where my mouth is and get my class Tweeting. I teach Grade 3 (7 year olds) in Italy. I'm hoping the children can interact with other English-speaking children through Twitter.

Here was our first venture. We tweeted a photograph of our resources before doing an investigation.


Unfortunately we didn't get any responses during our school hours so I mentioned a few of our followers and asked if they would like to join in. Then we got these responses.



I'll show these to the children on Monday and we'll Tweet a photograph of our results and some of the children's reactions. Here's the photo we'll be sharing:




On a side note. If any of you were curious to see how our bulletin board outside the classroom turned out with the children's first day work on it, here you go! Each badge has the children's name, favourite animal, favourite colour and the superpower they would like.



Monday 5 September 2016

Classroom reveal: Superhero-themed Grade 3 PYP classroom

Hi all, 

The children in my class started today and I finally got around to taking some photographs of how it looks. If you've seen my classroom reveal post from other years, you'll probably recognise things from other years.

This is the main display outside the classroom:

The children each coloured a superhero and wrote some details about themselves on badges. I'll add those to the board when I have some more energy!


And here are some more superhero accents around the room.

This Tiger basket that I decorated with mix and match clipart.


Of course, I couldn't resist labeling the bins superhero-themed too.


Keeping the Learner Profile in context, I added this "Are we being principled?" sign above our behaviour management clip chart.



I've kept last year's idea of displaying the transdisciplinary themes on superhero style badges on a cape. 

Here are a few snaps of the entire room. Scroll down for specifics!

The PYP attitudes posters on the line block the other displays from this angle but it's not so bad from child height.




Our essential agreements display:

I spent an embarrassing amount of hours last year, tracing, cutting and laminating to make these Lego superheroes. There was no way they weren't going to be reused this year. So we decided on our essential agreements (class promises/rules) for this year and handed them to Batman and co.

Magic maths words display:

My school is having a big focus on problem-solving in maths this year so I wanted to make a more prominent maths vocabulary board in the classroom. This is the basic board. The children will suggest words (e.g. add, total, plus, more) to put in each section as the year goes on. 
Title banner: Sparklebox
Symbols: Fun for Learning
Adhesive googly eyes and ribbon: Tiger

Editing board:

The giant pencil was free from The Teacher Wife and the "capital letters detective" display was made by me (and is available in my TPT store).

Calendar/birthday board:

Owl-themed classroom birthdays display: Halle Hird
Owl-themed calendar set:Apple Girl Amber 
Header: Sparklebox
All other elements were made by me. 


Reflection / reading area:

I've got 6 sheets in the reflection area - collaborative group reflection, peer assessment, 2 stars and a wish, self-assessment of understanding, PYP Learner Profile goal-setting sheets and PYP attitude goal-setting sheets. You can get these from here if you like. Each child has an A5 sized plastic envelope in the box in which they keep their reflection sheets for the year.


Wonder wall and PYP Transdisciplinary Skills

I made all parts of the wonder wall and the skills posters. If you're in an IB school and want the skills, you can get them from here.

I hope you enjoyed this tour!