The Celts

Seeing as the season of giving is almost upon us, this week, I'm sharing a full History/Drama lesson with you all based on The Iron Age/The Celts.

When I taught this topic to my 5th Class, I used this interactive PowerPoint throughout the lesson. It worked really well as a lesson because it was interactive, it involved collaborative based learning and very little teacher talk. You can go through the PowerPoint lesson below, or you can download it off SlideShare here (it's free to sign up and you can download as many PowerPoints as you want!). By downloading it, you can also edit it, use it offline and the animations I have added will become fully active (which in turn makes it easier to use with a class). 

The Celts from SeniorInfants

I hope you find this resource/lesson useful and don't forget to let me know how your class enjoy this lesson!

10 Christmas Art Ideas!

This week's post features some old and new Christmas art ideas that I have used with various class levels over the past few years.  

1. Sock Snowmen: I have explained how these are made in my Winter post, but I love them so much, they are getting included again! They are really easy to make and the children love them! This is a craft that can be adapted for any age level too.

2. Reindeer Christmas Cards: These thumbprint cards are very effective while also being very simple! Here is a sample of one I found at: Madeinthedessert 

3. Christmas Brown Paper Stockings: I made these socks with a Senior Infant class. While they require some preparation (hole punching and gluing the sock together before you get the children to sew the edges together), they look great when finished and decorated. I put chocolate Santa lollies into each of them as a Christmas surprise on the last day of school. I got the idea from Enchanted Learning.

4. 3D stars and angels to hang from the ceiling: 

5. Christmas Wreaths: I have tried these out with senior classes, however, I think they would work well with younger children also. They start by cutting the centre out of a paper plate and colouring it green. Next, the children trace their hand on various shades of green paper and cut them out. They stick them around the outside of a paper plate. They then can add bells, berries and holly to their wreath with coloured paper. 

This particular example is from Rockmybabynewzealand.

6. Gingerbread Houses: When I taught Senior Infants, I made Gingerbread houses with them. The children brought in shoe boxes, painted them brown and then finger painted 'smarties' on the walls and roof. They drew and coloured in some 'sweets' to stick onto the outside of the house. They then added cotton wool to the roof, along with a chimney. The most difficult aspect of this project was attaching the roof the the house (it took up a lot of teacher's time unfortunately!). It's one of those painstaking projects which you feel very proud to have accomplished and vow never to do again, all at the same time! 

7. Christmas Tree Decorations: This year I am making two Christmas tree decoration crafts with my pupils, both of which I found on this wonderful website, pagingfunmums. The first is a clay owl decoration (which you can read all about here), and the other is a reindeer craft (which you can find here). I also really like this Christmas tree craft too!

8. Festive Scene: I was browsing through the Lidl (I think!) Christmas brochure a few weeks ago and found this really nice craft idea. I had my class bring in shoeboxes, they used the lid as the base and the box itself for the figures and the 'roof'. We then dangled stars from the 'roof' using thread. As my class are a 4th/5th class, they were given the freedom to decide what to put in their scenes (but also the advice to 'keep it simple!'). 

9. Paper Plate Crafts: I thought these paper plate Christmas character crafts from kixcereal were really eye catching and although I haven't made them with a class, they would be quite an easy art lesson for a younger class.

10. Pine Cone Christmas Trees: Recently I have seen a lot of pine cone Christmas tree art ideas and if I had a younger class, I would definitely try some of them out. Have a look at one idea here.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Behaviour Management Strategies for Senior Classes

My post this week is all about the various behaviour management strategies that I have found useful in my teaching of senior classes. Some I am using with my current 5th Class and others I have used with classes I have taught in the past. It is important to note that what works for one class may not work for the next, so don't be afraid to try out different strategies and see what works best for you!

Raffle Tickets:

www.tesco.ie/groceries/Product/Details/?id=259048224

I use raffle tickets in my classroom as my main reward system. This is my favourite way to reward behaviour in senior classes. I have tried lots of other reward strategies (ticks for groups, smiley faces on a chart, golden time rewards and Class Dojo), however I find that tickets are handy as you can carry them around the classroom with you and they act as an immediate reward.
I give out tickets for: good work, working quietly, handwriting and presentation of work, answering questions, quizzes, kind deeds, helping teacher, etc. On a Friday, I choose my pupils of the week and they each get 3 tickets. I choose someone as Gaeilgeoir na Seachtaine, someone who was an enthusiastic learner, someone who showed respect and kindness and someone who showed good sportsmanship in P.E. I also give 3 tickets to the student who has won 'Work of the Week'. The children's tickets then go into the draw and winners get a homework pass.

Golden Time:
I used this with my 3rd and 4th Class last year and found it quite successful as a reward system for the whole class. I used this Golden Time Race Track to record their progress throughout the week. Golden time choices (board games, extra P.E., drawing, etc) were then given to the group who won group of the week from ticks on the board.

Cushions:

This year, in order to motivate my 5th Class to complete extra work once they have finished their classwork, children can receive 2 points for their group when they complete a worksheet, Maths card, write a poem or come up with a Maths problem. The group that has the most points at the end of the week, win cushions to sit on the following week. 

The Quiet Sign:

I've found this works as well with 3rd and 4th class as it does with infants. I use a door hanger sign when children are engaged in independent written work. The sign has a picture of a child working and says 'Sh, quiet time'. When the children are about to start writing, I go to the door, pick up the 

sign and slowly bring it to the handle while counting down from 5, getting quieter each time until 1 is only a whisper. When it is on the door, everyone including me must not speak above a whisper.

www.clipartbest.com

Chants:

When I am looking for attention I say: 'Hocus Pocus' and the children reply: 'Everybody focus!'. If they don't hear me the first time, I will repeat it and they will usually reply the second time. I emphasise how focusing involves looking and listening with their lámha trasna. 

Sign a contract:

In our school, we have a set of school rules that we discuss with children on the first day. We talk about which rules they feel are most important, whether any rules have been left out and whether they feel any rules are unfair/unnecessary. Occasionally when they have broken a rule, I ask them to take out their contract and find the one they have broken. They must explain why it is important to keep that rule and they are reminded of their signing of the contract on the first day.

The 3 Warning System:

Unfortunately, no matter how much positive behaviour is rewarded, there must be consequences for children who repeatedly misbehave in class. I give my children 3 warnings: 

1. Verbal warning
2. They must move seat
3. Extra work to be completed during break/at home. 

Once a child has gone through all of these warnings and they misbehave for a third time, parents are contacted.

Class Discipline Problems:

Sometimes some classes can be particularly challenging and need to be reminded constantly of the behaviours expected of them, especially in 5th and 6th. In the past I have used this checklist to monitor class behaviour during each lesson. Children can then be rewarded for getting a certain score at the end of the week. This score can increase each week as they reach their target.

Last But Not Least: Keep Them Busy!:

Make sure you have activities for children to undertake when they finish their work, as many discipline problems happen when children aren't focused on an activity. You can read about some of my early finisher activities in this post. Songs, poems and reciting tables are all good transitional activities to do while children are changing books to reduce noise in the classroom. Make sure you give them time before a lesson to take out books, line copies and write titles and dates so that when it comes to the written part of the lesson, they can start straight away.  

Throwback Thursday: The Sun, Moon and Stars

We have been learning all about the sun, moon and space over the past couple of weeks and the kids enjoyed this immensely! Here is our current classroom display: (Apologies for poor lighting, it is directly under a window!)

Geography/science: 

We discussed features of daytime and nighttime (sun, moon, stars, light and dark colours, people who work during the day and those that work at night, etc) and completed the above poster as they named the various features. We discussed how the sun is still around during the day even when it is cloudy. We discussed how we are never in total darkness because of the moon and stars. We also created night and day pictures. 

The following day, we learned about how the earth rotates and how this causes night and day. We pretended we were the earth as we all held hands in a circle. One child held the Irish flag (they were Ireland) and the other children were other countries in the world. One child held a flashlight (facing the child holding the Irish flag) and pretended to be the sun shining on the earth. They started by shining it on Ireland and I got everyone to rotate around, as the earth does, as day passes. I told the girl playing 'Ireland' that when she could see the sun, she would shout out daytime. When she could not see the sun anymore, she would call out nighttime (as it is now dark in Ireland, with no sun). We then did the same thing with a globe to check whole class understanding. We stuck a sticker on Ireland on the globe and we all shouted out daytime when the sun was shining on Ireland, and nighttime when it wasn't. 

History:
We discussed the first moon landing. We brainstormed things we knew already. We then looked at a PowerPoint which told us about the first people on the moon.

First walk on the moon! from SeniorInfants

We watched some Youtube videos of the moon landing and talked about how the moon was different to earth. They then wrote about one thing they had learned about the moon landing.

We also read a story the following week on Neil Armstrong's life. We discussed this and created timelines of his life (What Armstong was doing as a child, as a teenager and as an adult).

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0618152393/ref=rdr_ext_tmb

Art: 

We created blazing suns. We talked about colours in the sun, how it is too hot to land on (unlike the moon), and general sun safety (you can't look at it in the sky, you need to protect yourself from the sun, etc). We used crayons in yellow, orange and red to create the suns on A4 pages. We used a squirty container to squirt yellow paint around the center and then repeated this by mixing more yellow paint with PVA glue and glitter. 

Literacy:

We focused on the sounds: 'igh' and 'oo' and following various activities and a lot of practice in reading words containing these sounds, they were included in our morning messages each day e.g. we are talking about the moon today, we are learning about day and night, we are making a moon today, we are dancing to high and low music etc.

                         

Music: 

We sang the song See-Saw (The Right Note) and pretending we were on a see-saw, we went up and down  to accompany the high and low notes in the song. We then listened to pieces of music 'The Elephant' and 'Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy', talked about the music (whether it was high or low pitched), and responded to it through dance. I sang high and low notes to them and they showed whether it was high or low by bending down low or going up high on their tip toes. I asked individual children to do this also. 

Geography 2: 

We created a KWL chart of what we had learned about the moon so far and what else we wanted to know about it. 

We played an interactive game on http://www.earthsunmoon.co.uk/. We discussed through our playing of it, how craters are made, how mountains are made, how the moon moves around the earth and how the moon changes shape and what shapes it makes. We noted what we learned on the KWL chart and then created mini-moons from playdough.

English: 

We used what we learned about the moon to write a class non-fiction book about the moon. We looked at some non-fiction texts and talked about things that make a non-fiction text different to a storybook. They then drew a picture of the moon on a template and wrote some facts about the moon that they had learned over the past couple of weeks. We numbered the pages, created a contents page and added a coverpage to our book to complete it. It was then placed in the class library for reading.

So that's what I've been up to for the last two weeks, happy teaching!

Thematic Unit: Space

The topic of 'Space' offers great scope for integration across the Primary School Curriculum. Here are some tried and tested lessons based on the theme for senior classes (I taught them to 5th, however they can easily be adapted for younger classes too):

Geography: The Solar System:

Create a KWL on the solar system. Explore and quiz the children on this PowerPoint from Seomra Ranga, which gives useful, simple information on each planet. Divide the children into groups and give each a planet (or another topic like stars and constellations, etc) to research over the week and create a project on. 

Geography: Stars and Constellations: 

Discuss prior knowledge with the children and then go through the activities and discussion points in this PowerPoint:

PE/Music: Creative Dance:
Create an Outer Space themed creative dance sequence using the lesson outline provided on page 72 of the Teacher Guidelines. Revise different shapes, pathways and travelling movements with them before you begin teaching this dance. The dance itself is divided up into three different segments:

1. Countdown, explosion and take off: Encourage them to stay in the one place on the floor for the countdown and explosion, while using their bodies to show a build up of energy (shaking,
   
   flame movements, etc). Get them to take off and form groups of 5 with the first child forming a rocket front with his hands and discuss how the rocket moves through space slowly and gracefully. I like to use music from Star Wars for this section of the dance: John Williams – Anakin vs. Obi-Wan.
2. Landing on the planet Zor and exploring it: The children join together as a long rocket and then separate into two groups. One half of the children fall to the ground as if landing, lying flat. The rest of the 'rocket' makes its way off the 'stage'. As they begin to rise, get them to perform actions, struggling with the effects of gravity. The theme music from X-Files is a suitable piece of music for this section of the dance.
3. The Death Dance of the Whirly Gums: Read the poem with the children and discuss and create various movements to portray the poem in pairs, ending with the death dance. I like to use John Williams - The Asteroid Field to accompany this section.

Perform the dance with a clear start and end point and ensure all sections run smoothly from one to the next.

Art: The Solar System:

Use the song above to learn the order of planets in the solar system. Discuss the colours and textures of the 8 planets so they can recreate them as accurately as possible. Create a solar system picture using oil pastels for the planets and a black wash for the background.
They can also create 3D Papier-mâché planets like these:

Science: Light:

Explore this PowerPoint (as far as slide 17), discussing ideas and doing the experiments discussed along the way :

Sources of Light from blueroses0805

In the following lesson, you can go through this PowerPoint and set of experiments on refraction and colour mixing:

Light: Refraction and Colour Mixing from SeniorInfants

If you are looking for lesson ideas for teaching younger children all about space, check out my post for Senior Infant Adventures on The Sun, Moon and Stars!