Homework in the Senior Classes

It can be hard to know how much homework is enough and equally, how much is too much. Often teachers starting out in a new class can worry about both of these situations. While there are guidelines as to the length of time a child should spend on their homework (this is a outlined here), there is nothing definite outlined as to what content should be covered in homework.

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Every teacher has different subject priorities when it comes to homework and while I'm in no way
saying that I am an expert in giving homework, I feel that my students generally spend the right amount of time on homework and I am happy with my current homework layout/content.
Here is some general information about how I deal with homework in a senior class:

1. Content:

In 3rd and 4th class the recommended time to be allocated to homework is 30-40 minutes. The homework I gave each night to my 3rd and 4th class included:

• Spellings: One box from the spelling workbook (Spellbound) each night and also one exercise from this book.
• Irish spellings: One box from this book (Fuaimeanna agus Focail) and one exercise from the book which involves using the spellings to fill in the blanks/label pictures/etc. I test them on the spelling of the Irish words and also the meaning of the words in the Friday test.
• Dictionary words: These are new words that come up in their class reader each week. On a Tuesday, after we have read and completed comprehension exercises on the story, we have a word analysis lesson on new words (3-4 words a week). They guess what the word might mean in class, look up the words in their dictionary and then write a sentence using the word. We play various fill in the blanks activities and then I correct their work. They bring these 'dictionary copies' home to study the words and I get them to write either the word's meaning or to put the word into a sentence for their Friday test.
• Tables: One group a week. These don't start immediately with 3rd class, but once the chapter on multiplication has been taught.
• Maths: They would get 5-8 questions from their maths book, a worksheet (in the case of something like long multiplication which is all about practice!) or a day in their mental maths book to complete.
• English: They read over the story we covered that week and completed one exercise from the class reader each night (either comprehension or word analysis). We also follow the Oxford Structured Reading Tree programme in our school. They would get about ten pages to read a night, as well as going over any words they didn't know in class that day or questions they couldn't answer.
• SESE/Music: They got one of the following to complete a night: learning physical features of Ireland (mountains, counties, rivers, etc), a piece of research, a tune to practice on their tin whistle, a project to complete or a page from their SESE workbook about a topic covered in class.

In 5th and 6th class, the recommended time to be allocated to homework is 40-60 minutes.The homework I give each night to my 5th class includes:

• Spellings: As above
• Irish spellings: As above
• Dictionary words: As above but with 5-6 words.
• Tables: one group a week. 
• Maths: They get 5-10 questions from their maths book, a worksheet to do or a day in their mental maths book to complete.
• English: 
• Monday: They have to read over the story we are covering that week and do a comprehension exercise from the class reader as well as their Oxford reading homework. 
• Tuesday: Word analysis questions from the reader based on the vocabulary covered in their dictionary words. 
• Wednesday: In class we will either be working on creative writing or comprehension skills. Therefore they either have creative writing to finish/edit or a worksheet with a story on it that they have to read and answer comprehension questions on. This is differentiated to the child's ability (higher ability, middle ability and lower ability).
• Thursday: A grammar exercise based on what we have covered in class.
• SESE/Music: As above.
• Irish: As the year progresses, I will get them to make 3 sentences using a variety of verbs/subjects/activities/time vocabulary given to them on a helper sheet.

2. Correcting/monitoring:

• The children have two homework copies: Homework 1 and Homework 2. When they are using Homework 1, I can collect Homework 2 and I have the week to correct it. I started doing this last year as I was finding it difficult having to correct all the copies at the weekend and this allows me more time to do so!



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• I check the children's work each morning. If I see it is completed, neat and laid out correctly, they get a homework star. When they have 10 stars they get a homework pass. I also give a star on Monday for signed journals and tests. If they do not have a copy or have not the homework completed properly, they get a penalty point. Once they get a certain amount of penalty points, I write a note home and if it continues, I will call the parent. I also note who is using homework passes and who brings in notes saying work was not completed for whatever reason. It provides a record to show parents at meetings. I have noticed a huge improvement in classwork and homework since implementing this system!
• We correct maths in class at the start of each lesson so that children can see their own mistakes and we sometimes correct simple word analysis exercises in class too. Even if everything in the copy is corrected, I still collect the copies at the end of the week to monitor the progress of the children.

3. Differentiation:

• Lower ability students get less Irish spellings and less Geography to learn during the week. I simply mark the ones they have to learn into their book on a Monday for the week. I will call out these spellings first in the test. 
• Comprehension worksheets are differentiated to give children who get 0-2 out of 6 in their reader exercises a chance to feel success and work on their comprehension skills. It also offers higher ability students the chance to be challenged. Try Superteacherworksheets for some good comprehension worksheets!
• Oxford Reading Scheme readers are divided into stages and each child has a book matched to their ability level. 
• I ensure I do not give maths homework that wasn't explained in class (unless it is a revision exercise!).
• Geography learning is taught for ten minutes in class each day. I test the children using the interactive board and giving them strategies to learn the names of various mountains/rivers/etc that night. Table patterns are taught to children in class to aid in their learning of them.
• Higher ability students are given extra spellings to learn each night and in 5th/6th they must put the words into sentences.

Obviously homework depends on all sorts of different factors: Textbooks differ, different schools will have different resources and policies, and of course every class is different! It is important therefore to keep in mind that what I've written above is based on my own experiences and classroom environment. If you have any other homework ideas, leave a comment below as I would love to hear what works for you!

Throwback Thursday: Infant Timezone!

For two weeks in January, my classroom was in a very special 'timezone'. Taking on the idea of developing the children's sense of time and the language of time was a much wider topic than I had originally thought and provided many lessons worth of integration!
Here are some activities Senior Infants got up to during that...time... (excuse the pun!).

1) We sang some songs I downloaded off YouTube to teach the sequence and names of the days of the week and months of the year... only problem with these is that they were so catchy I found myself singing them to myself for the whole fortnight!
Days of the week:

Months of the Year:

Months of the Year Flashcards

We played a variety of games using these songs to help them to learn the correct order. One game involved lining up the months/days on the board and playing a game of Cluiche Kim (Which month is missing??). These are the documents I printed and cut out for each pair to sort:

Days of the Week Flashcards

2) We made a class outline of what we do on each day of the week to refer to each morning and also to end the questions of 'when are we doing art??' etc. I got their ideas at the end of each day to see what we should include and drew pictures beside each to aid comprehension of the chart. (If I were to do this again I would use the interactive board to create this with the class and then print it out for the wall. There are lots of lovely timetable templates available online these days!)

                                 

3) Rhymes: Hickory Dickory Dock: 

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We said the rhyme and talked about the parts that rhymed and the parts that didn't. We then composed another version as a class so that the whole rhyme... rhymed! 

Our rhyme:                                                    

                                           

                  Hickory, Dickory, Dock,

                 The mouse ran up the clock,

                  The clock struck one,

                  The mouse was done, 

                  The clock struck two,

                  The mouse bit you,

                  The clock struck three, 

                  The mouse ran up a tree.

4) We made clocks! They looked so good we turned them into a class mobile when we had finished the unit on time, by sticking them along a piece of string and hanging them from the ceiling. We made them from paper plates. I had stuck on address labels onto where the numbers should be to give them some guidance as to where they would write them. I added hands to the clocks and they used them to tell me various times throughout our maths lessons. They loved decorating them to look really colourful!

5) We played 'What Time Is It Mr Wolf?' in PE. See here for details as to how to play the game: http://www.littlesteps.eu/?/getting-active/running/What-time-is-it-Mr-Wolf/

6) We read the story 'My Great Grandpa' for history. I got this book from Amazon for next to nothing and the kids loved it! We talked about young people and old people and the concept of generations.

We used our bodies to learn about the family tree following our reading of the story. To symbolise older people at the top of the tree we stood on our toes, in the middle, we stood normally and for people at the bottom, we crouched low down as babies. We made family trees of the characters in the story, placing the older characters we drew at the top and the younger ones we drew at the bottom.                 

7) We listened and responded to the 'Syncopated Clock' in music class and also learned about Ta and ti-ti (the timing of crotchets and quavers), by telling them the story of Ta the deaf cat and her baby kittens (ti and ti). 

9) We also started timing ourselves in terms of how long it would take us to get ready to go home every afternoon. With my whiteboard marker, I would put a line on clock to mark when we started cleaning up and we would count the minutes that had passed when we had finished. This helped us get out quicker and also gives them an idea of the length of a minute or 5 minutes verses the length of an hour.

Teaching Irish Verbs in Senior Classes

Recently I've been asked how I teach Irish verbs to Senior classes. Often verbs and grammar form a large part of the Senior class curaclam Gaeilge but textbooks only seem to go so far as using 'fill in the blank' exercises to teach these. I have used a variety of different methods to teach kids their verbs,

but below I have outlined my current favourite lesson structure. I find my kids pick up their verbs quite easily and generally enjoy the lessons too (as much as possible when you are teaching grammar!!).

I start with easy verbs like ól, ith and rith at the beginning of the year, which they will already recognise as ‘action words’ and will learn easily. I taught one verb a week in 3^rd and 4^th and teach two a week in 5^th. The objectives of the lessons are not only to recognise the verb, but also to learn the Aimsir Chaite version of the verb and the changes that happen to it when converted into the Aimsir Chaite. (Please note: I also teach a grammar lesson once a week. In this, I go into depth about the Aimsir Chaite or whatever other topic we are covering so I don't spend too long on grammar rules in these lessons!)

Lesson Introduction
I begin the lesson by playing Deir Ó Grádaigh or simply a group mím using phrases like: ‘bí ag ithe, bí ag ól, bí ag léim, bí ag rith, bí ag scríobh, bí ag léamh’, etc to familiarise and remind them of basic verbs. As the verbs you are teaching get more challenging, drop the ‘bí ag’ and replace it with the imperative: Dún do shúile, léigh leabhar, scríobh litir, cuir do lámha ar an mbord, etc. (I deliberately don’t use the plural in this situation (e.g. lasaigí) as I think using the singular (e.g. las na soilse) in these types of lessons teaches them the stem of the word they will be converting to the Aimsir Chaite.)

Body of Lesson

1. Get them to write out notes on the verb being covered in the lesson. As you go, explain what the Aimsir Chaite is and make casual references to ‘always adding a ‘h’ to consonants or a ‘d’ to vowels’ to turn it into the past tense.

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E.g:  Briathra

Tit = To fall

Aimsir Chaite: Past Tense:

Thit mé = I fell

Thit tú = You fell

Thit sé = He fell

Thit sí = She fell

Thiteamar = We fell

Thit sibh = Ye fell

Thit siad = They fell

2. Read through as a class and perform actions e.g. pointing to self, pointing to me, pointing to a girl/boy, etc.

3. Solidify the understanding of the verb by playing some games:

a.   Get a child to perform an action and ask the class ‘Céard a rinne sé?’ (E.g. Rug sé ar an liathróid, chaith sé an liathróid, bhuail sé an ___, etc.) Ask the whole class for a few rounds and then ask individuals. I give a ticket for correct answers.

or

b.   Choose three children to line up, get the class to close their eyes and one of the three will perform an action. Once the class have opened their eyes ask e.g. ‘Cé a las na soilse?’ and get the class to guess which child did it. The chosen child will answer e.g: ‘Níor las/las mé na soilse’.

or

c.   Give a child an action e.g. ‘rith sé’ without letting the class see which one he has been given. They will then act it out in front of the class. When they perform it, get the others to write on their whiteboards the action the child did and hold it up (e.g. rith sé). You can test sé, sí and siad this way. Get them all to do an action for mé/sinn and then do it yourself for the tú version.

Lesson Closure

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Play Biongó using the verbs covered in the lesson as well as verbs covered in prior lessons e.g. rith mé, d’ól siad, d’ith sé, etc. Get them to draw out a table of nine boxes in their copies and fill in the words. Call out the words in English or use pictures and whoever gets three in a row/column wins the game.

or

Draw stick men on the board/use pictures on the interactive board of different people doing the action that you were focusing on in the lesson. Ask them to draw the stick people pictures into boxes in their copies and label each as ‘d’ith sé/d’ith mé/d’itheamar/etc’.

Make sure to keep revising previous verbs in lesson introductions and biongó games throughout the year to keep them fresh in their heads.

I test them on their verbs now and again in their Friday tests, asking them to write either the English for the verb or the Irish for the verb.

I hope you will find this post useful and let me know if you would like me to write some more grammar lesson posts in the future!

Throwback Thursday: Even Teachers Need Their Space!

Around this time last year, I was teaching a multi-grade 3rd and 4th class (my first year-long experience of this!) and because of the increase in workload, I decided it was the perfect opportunity to become a more organised teacher. To be honest, my desk didn't remain quite this clean all year, but I did find some of the strategies I implemented quite useful. For this week's Throwback Thursday, I'm reposting some of these organisational tips and I will add in a few notes to let you know how each worked out for me throughout the year. Here we go:
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As I jump, head first, into a new school year, the one thing I have decided to be is... MORE ORGANISED! (Sound familiar??) As a result, I spent quite some time planning how I was going to organise my classroom this year, with the motto: "A place for everything and everything in its place" driving my quest for a less stressful, more organised environment for myself and the children. 
Not only have I labelled every cupboard and storage spot in the room, but I have spent a lot of time rethinking my filing systems and teacher 'things'.
Hopefully you will find the following ideas useful as you are in the midst of organising your own classroom and hey, if nothing else, I always enjoy getting a peak at people's rooms and desk space (probably the artist in me!) so maybe you are the same!

First on the list is my teacher's desk:

I love being able to see everything I have for easy access, as opposed to having to search through a drawer for a marker, pen etc. I know this may not be to everyone's taste, but it works for me! I still use my drawers for storing blue tack, my whistle, sweets, my stapler, mini post-its for the children and other things that cause a lot of clutter. (2014 UPDATE: I bought some drawer separators from IKEA during the year and they were very useful for sorting out the mess in my drawers. It also made changing rooms at the start of this year much easier as I could just move the boxes from one desk to another!)

As far as plans and records go, I only keep two notebooks on my table. I have an A5 one for my daily lesson notes, as I find I can bring it around in my handbag and bring it home easily in the evening. It also doesn't take up a lot of space on my desk, as sometimes my desk can turn into a dumping ground during a particularly busy day! (Often I have to make an effort to tidy up while the children are eating during lunch or I'd never be able to find anything!) I also have an A4 project book for keeping anecdotal records on the kids. I have the divider sections labelled with the children's names: A-C, D-H, etc. in it.

On the right of my desk, I have this new expanding file box:

Inside is labelled with the different subject areas and also has compartments for school notes, notes to parents, staff meeting notes and busy bee worksheet master copies. I like this a lot so far as it means I don't have to go searching through folders whenever I need to put something away, as more often than not, I will just throw the sheet in a drawer if I don't have an easier option. (2014 UPDATE: This is the BEST thing I used last year and I will use one forever more! I had no stray worksheets lying around all year and I now have easy access to them if I ever teach these class levels again. The only change I made to this this year was that I included an 'Absent' section to put in any work/notes that children missed when they were out, a 'Staff Meetings' section and a section for 'Tomorrow's Worksheets'.)

Beside this box, I have all my little buckets. I prefer buckets to those stationary storage containers you can get because, inevitably, I will run out of space for the many items which end up in there. I got the first in Ikea and use it to store all my spare pencils for the kids. (I have seen people paint these buckets if you want to get really creative, but who has the time??!) The rule is: if a pencil is facing nib up, it is pared, and if it is nib down, it is not. I have a child whose job it is before break times, to pare the blunt pencils.

I have another bucket I got as part of a chocolate gift package one Christmas which I use to store scissors, pens, highlighters, markers, tippex, etc, and a plastic cup with a handle for the children's whiteboard markers. (2014 UPDATE: I have changed the yellow cup and the metal bucket this year to these pen holders from IKEA:

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/images/products/dokument-pencil-cup__0136471_PE293899_S4.JPG

as they coordinate better with the white bucket and my mandolin folder.)

I also have a box of elastic bands, a pencil sharpener, a box of paper clips, post-its and a cute pig timer I picked up in Dealz. (2014 UPDATE: I've gone through 3 of these in the past year...maybe not such good value after all.) I go through little sweet tubs in school so fast and they make really good storage containers for your desk. I use them to store thumbtacks, staples and the like.

I invested in some paper trays this year also to store my 'corrected' and 'to be corrected' worksheets. Anything to encourage me to correct the work quickly is a good thing! (2014 UPDATE: This worked some of the time, however I often ended up with children's work sitting on them for weeks on end and random books ending up sitting on the top part...)

Never forget about the practical things in a classroom! I have tissues and  hand wipes (these come in more handy than you realise for after-art activities and general hand hygiene for me and the kids!).

Behind my desk I have a bench area and on it I keep this basket for resources. I put in the following day's teacher textbooks and resources in this basket for easy access the next day. It is so much easier to have everything you need in the one place!

My teacher bookshelf is quite far away from my desk which is annoying, but I have labelled the books by subject area so that I can find what I need as quickly as possible!

Now, some people may laugh at this idea, but I hide it under my desk for my own comfort! It's my Teacher's Bin! Again, this is a tub I bought Haribo sweet packets in and I like it as a mini bin because it is quite small but also pretty deep. I am lucky enough to have quite a large classroom, but my numbers are in the 30's and with all the tables, the children are pretty hemmed in! I store the bins at the back of the room because I don't want the children distracted by other children at the bin and to keep bin smells far away from me, but, as a result, it is not easy to get to! I find the teacher bin handy for used post-its, and the other small things that accumulate on the teacher's desk during the day, especially if you are using your desk for reading groups/tin whistle groups etc! 

The final things I have all around my desk are my precious checklists! I have the ones I use everyday stuck to the desk, hidden from view (words/sounds), and other ones like maths test results and P.E. observations stored in a proper assessment folder. I keep things like my class list, timetable, allergy information and a checklist for incomplete homework in this folder so far also.

Eventually, I will sort out some sort of a substitute pack in case I am ever out, but that may be on my to do list for a while yet! (2014 UPDATE: Yeah, this never happened...)

These are some sorting strategies that I find work for me, but everybody's different! Don't be afraid to share any good organisational ideas you may have in your room in the comments below, as I'm always looking for new ideas!

Until next time!

Assessment in Senior Classes

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I remember starting off my teaching career and feeling really overwhelmed when filling in that 'Assessment' box on my termly and fortnightly plans. I knew I had a folder full of great assessment ideas from college, but it seemed like a lot of these were quite impractical and required an awful lot of ongoing work throughout the year to undertake. Eventually after teaching for a couple of years, I managed to sort out some easy, low maintenance strategies which told me all I needed to know about how the children I taught were progressing. 

These are some of the main assessment methods I use in a senior class. I know most of you are probably using most of these things already (there's nothing very original/innovative here!!), but hopefully they might be useful for anyone starting out or even those of you new to the class level:

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1. Thumbs: When I have explained something or we are just about to begin a Maths exercise I will ask the children to put their heads on the table and give me a 'thumbs': Thumbs down if they don't understand, thumbs sideways if they are nearly there or thumbs up if they understand completely.

2. Ongoing Maths Observational Records: I keep this sheet handy so that I can write in the children who find a certain topic difficult so that when it comes to revision of a topic, I know who I need to keep a close eye on. I also broke children up into groups at the end of the year using this list and gave each group a mini lesson on the topic they struggled with during the year. It worked really well!

   

3. Art Scrapbook: When I have finished displaying the children's work, they stick it into their scrapbook so that at the end of the year they can have a collection of all the art they have created to look back on.

4. Creative Writing: Self assessment is a huge method of assessment here. I get them to create a first draft with a WILF list on the board which we have discussed. Once they have completed this (usually the next day), I get the whole class to check for the first item on the list (e.g. Did I use capital letters, exciting sentence starters, etc) by giving them 5 minutes to read over their work and make changes in red pen. We then move on to the next item on the list and so on. Occassionally we repeat the procedure again but having swapped copies with a neighbour. First drafts and final drafts are kept in a scrapbook during the year with samples of each genre of writing. 

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5. Records of Friday Test Results: You can download my record sheets for childrens' test results from Dropbox here:

Spellings, litriú, tables, Geography, English vocabulary.     

I also keep dividers in my assessment folder, labelled with each child's name to file tests under when they have been signed and returned to me. I put some writing samples for each child in here also throughout the year. 

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6. Anecdotal Records: I have a project book (A4 with dividers in it) where I keep observational notes about children's behaviour or other notes which aren't recorded elsewhere, under each child's name.

7. P.E. Checklist: I used this for some lessons last year, but I'm hoping to use it more this year! I have listed skills required for each activity (games, gymnastics, dance, athletics) and simply tick the box when the child has acquired the skill. It is difficult to do every week, but doing it once and a while gives me a good idea of who is struggling in P.E. lessons and who needs to be more challenged.

8. KWL Charts and Brainstorms: I get the children to write what they know about a topic on strips of paper before we cover it, write questions they want to find out the answers to on another strip of paper and finally, at the end of a topic they each make a little fact book/write a few bullet points about what they have learned and we create a class KWL chart. Brainstorms are also handy to gain prior knowledge and find out what they have learned at the end of a lesson. 

 I hope I didn't forget anything here, but if I did I will add it at a later date!