Monday Musings: My Philosophy for Literacy Teaching

Okay so I am knackered. Yesterday I rushed from one Christmas holiday job (uploading content onto a council website) to another (at Marks and Spencer) and didn't get home until 8.30pm last night. I am really tired, and today I'm back in the council offices...My goal today is to get there at 10:30 (it's a flexi-time thing) so that I can have a bit of a morning chill-out. Tomorrow I re-live yesterday all over again so I may as well make the most of just having one job today.

So, onto my little bit of procrastination for the morning. 

Last week I handed in my English assignment which means all being well I have now just one more module and a placement until I have finished my teacher training. I thought I would upload my philosophy for Literacy teaching as a nice little way to round off the semester's learning. 

As a Literacy teacher I believe I have a responsibility to inspire and motivate children to want to learn. I am passionate about encouraging a classroom of readers and writers that are engaged with and enjoy their Literacy learning. My approach to the teaching of Reading, Writing, and Speaking and Listening would include the following 10 commandments of good Literacy teaching:

1.     Modelling passion and enthusiasm – Our attitude equips children to use the English language with ‘confidence and flair’ (Brien, J (2012:15-15) Teaching Primary English. London: Sage Publications Ltd) and I believe that emotional engagement is the key to all-powerful learning. As with all subjects, if we teach literacy with passion and enthusiasm, students will respond with mirrored passion and enthusiasm.

2.     Inspiring children’s love of reading and enthusiasm for writing – I will value and seek to develop children’s early reading behaviours and emergent mark making skills further through stimulating and developmentally appropriate activities. I hope to provide children with motivating, imaginative and engaging writing activities and will teach multisensory phonics strategies that accelerate sound and symbol knowledge so that children can learn powerful decoding skills and understand how the reading process works.

3.     High expectations and a strong belief in the young learners I teach - As a teacher, I love the challenge of building success for each individual learner. I am constantly learning and open to new insights from educational research and teaching colleagues. My high expectations for children’s literacy development, thinking skills, and love of learning keep me challenged and reflective.

4.     A multisensory and differentiated literacy curriculum within a busy, caring classroom community - I am committed to nurturing a love of the written and spoken word through planning engaging lessons with clear learning intentions and communicating effectively with the children so that they understand what they are learning and why. I believe literacy is the foundation for all learning and future opportunities.

5.     A respectful, caring partnership between the classroom and home to be nurtured where possible - I have a shared responsibility with parents for teaching their child and it is my philosophy that ‘children are made readers on the laps of their parents’ (Emilie Buchwold). I hope that through celebrating books and reading, and encouraging parents to do the same at home, we can support readers who can and do read for pleasure and for their own purposes.

6.     Continually develop my knowledge of a range of engaging texts for different purposes - I believe we must carefully choose the literature, songs, poems, and rhymes we give our children, because these language models are the seeds that inspire children who love using language and grow them into powerful writers and thinkers. I want imaginative language, poetic phrases, and metaphors to become a part of my children’s thinking, speaking and writing.

7.     A supportive environment for speaking and listening. - Developing the childrens’ capacity for language and thought will underlie everything I do. Literacy should be a social endeavour in which children can memorise, recite, and perform many wonderful pieces of language, turning print into sound and the pleasures of sound over to an appreciative audience. I believe that we must provide children with speaking and listening activities that engage and motivate and which ensure all children are involved.

8.     A print-rich environment – I want my classroom to provide children with countless opportunities to learn about letters, letter sounds and the concept of print so that they can build on their knowledge that printed words hold meaning.

9.     Sensitivity – A classroom is a diverse place and learning is a personal thing.  I believe that each child has unique strengths, varied prior language learning experiences, and preferred learning styles. My teaching must be differentiated to provide enough challenge and support for all children to build on successfully and to develop positive attitudes towards learning.

10.  The essential nature of assessment - In planning for children’s development in Literacy I will use my assessment to form links, ensuring learners have sufficient knowledge and understanding to enable them to learn new things and I will make these links explicit for my learners.

Friday Fancies: Gingerbread Men recipe

(N.B. This picture was made using digestive biscuits and has absolutely no relevance to this post at all!)

So Christmas is 12 days away and I am getting in the festive mood!

This easy recipe for gingerbread (makes about 15) men makes great Christmas presents or decorations and is perfect for baking with children.

Ingredients

75g light brown soft sugar

2 tablespoons golden syrup

1 tablespoon black treacle

1 tablespoon water

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 rounded teaspoon ground ginger

Pinch of cloves

Finely grated zest of 1/2 orange

95g block butter

1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

225g plain flour sifted, plus a little more (if needed)

1 tube of white writing icing (to decorate)

Please note you will also need baking sheets with non-stick liners.

Method

1. Put the sugar, syrup, treacle, water, spices and zest together in a large saucepan. 
2. Then bring them to boiling point, stirring all the time. 
3. Now remove the pan from the heat and stir in the butter (cut into lumps) and the bicarbonate of soda.  
4. Next stir in the flour gradually until you have a smooth manageable dough – add a little more flour if you think it needs it.  
5. Now leave the dough covered in a cool place to become firm (approximately 30 minutes). 
6. Pre-heat the oven to 180°C, gas mark 4. 
7. Now roll the dough out to 3mm thick on a lightly floured surface and cut out the gingerbread men. 
8. Arrange them on the baking sheets and bake near the centre of the oven, one sheet at a time, for 10–15 minutes until the biscuits feel firm when lightly pressed with a fingertip. 
9. Leave them to cool on the baking sheet for a few minutes before transferring them to a wire cooling rack. 
10. To decorate, use the icing to write names or make faces. Store in an airtight container.

Fabulous Friday: Sharing with you my exciting plans

So...this week; in between lesson planning, university, getting my head round some tricky Spanish phrases and attending a very poor theatre performance of 'Alien's Love Underpants'; I have been organising some rather exciting projects which I will be working on in June 2014. 

On Wednesday 4th June next year, I will be journeying over to Asia. There I will be teaching English as a foreign language in Hanoi, Vietnam. 

Education is something I am highly passionate about. I believe every child has the right to an education which develops their personality, talents and abilities to the full. I also believe primary education must be free for all children. It is something we take for granted in the UK, but elsewhere in the world 61 million children are still being denied their right to go to school (UNICEF, 2013). For others, poor teaching and facilities, or poverty, deny them the opportunity to fulfil their potential. Other factors excluding children, especially girls, from education include social attitudes and the pressure to work. For too many children who do go to school, it is not the positive experience it should be. Schools' should be protective environments equipped with trained teachers and adequate resources. 

Education is becoming an increasingly important issue in Vietnam. Traditionally, agriculture has provided jobs for the masses, but this sector’s growth has plummeted. Nowadays, international commercial trade governs the Vietnamese economy, especially in major cities such as Hanoi. This economic shift has created a greater demand for skilled labour and particularly a workforce that is multilingual with English being the main language required.

In recent years, access to primary and secondary education has risen significantly and schools have received increased levels of funding. Furthermore, there is a greater focus on physical, psychological, social and emotional growth, alongside general educational achievement. English language training was introduced into the national curriculum in 2010 as the government continue to recognise the importance of the ability to speak English to young people.

Schools’ in Vietnam really are grateful for any sort of input from a native speaker, whether just practising the alphabet with a small group of 6 year olds or holding a conversational English session, a bit of creativity and enthusiasm can make a difference and I feel I can really put my skills to good use.

For more information please visit my page:

http://www.gofundme.com/54n0do

Reference: United Nations Children's Fund (2013) Education. Available from http://www.unicef.org.uk/UNICEFs-Work/Our-mission/Childrens-rights/Education/ [Accessed: 8 November 2013].

Tuesday Temptations: Banana bread with blueberries

I absolutely love baking and seem to have a real gift with the blueberry themed delights! Blueberries add so much to a banana loaf. In addition to the berry flavour, they almost make the banana bread even more moist, without letting it lose the texture. Biting a slice of banana bread with blueberries is very much like having a slice of a berry cake: juicy and fruity, but without all the butter. 

A couple of things to note with this one:
1. The nuts element is entirely optional. (I personally wouldn't because my 2 year old sister is highly allergic to nuts)
2. The key to a moist and flavourful banana bread is to use very ripe bananas. Wait until they turn black on the outside and are really soft to the touch. When peeled, such bananas are still white inside but very soft and mushy, not really holding their banana shape. Mashing such bananas with a fork is very much like stirring a smoothie: effortless! That’s when bananas are at their sweetest, granted they don't look particularly edible from the outside!

Banana bread with blueberries

Total time: 1 hour

Adapted from Simply Recipes.

Ingredients:
2 ripe bananas, smashed
1/3 cup Greek yogurt
1/3 cup melted butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking soda
Pinch of salt
1 and 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped (optional)
1/2 cup blueberries

1) Preheat the oven to 350 F.

2) In a large bowl, mix mashed bananas, Greek yogurt and melted butter, using wooden fork or spoon. Mix in the sugar, egg, and vanilla. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in. Add the flour last, mix just enough to blend the ingredients; do not over-mix, the lumps will work themselves out.

3) Add chopped walnuts (optional...I think you get the gist now) and whole blueberries to the batter and mix them in to distribute evenly through the batter.

4) Butter a 4×8 inch loaf pan. Line the bottom of the pan with grease proof paper, butter the paper too. Pour the batter in the pan. Bake for 1 hour. Cool on a rack. Remove from pan and slice to serve.

Note: lining the bottom of the pan with grease proof paper ensures that the bottom of the bread will not get stuck. 

Monday Musings: Teaching

Love it!

Other tips from me for surviving teaching:

- Keep in mind: Every day is a new day

- Remember: We all make mistakes

- Nourish yourself: Work/life balance is important and you must know when to stop

Friday Fancies: Sparkly Pumpkin fun

With Halloween horror in the air pumpkin carving is a popular tradition in many households. We don’t celebrate Halloween but with an abundance of the classic Autumnal vegetable in the supermarket it seemed a shame to deny Lollipops the opportunity to paint and decorate one just for fun!

It’s great to try out new and unusual canvases for art work, and the spherical shape of pumpkins makes for an interesting change to the conventional.

I pulled out whatever I could find around the house and in my creativity box: glitter, PVA glue, beads and poster paints. The poster paints didn't take to the shiny waterproof surface of the pumpkin particularly well and so next year I think I will invest in some thicker paint like acrylic.

At 33 months she loved this messy, decorative hands on activity! Her older brother carved a face for it beforehand but this isn't necessary. Let's face it boys will be boys.

Hope you had a Happy Halloween! 

Wednesday Wanderlust: Be led by your dreams...

The only thing standing between my finished degree and I, is a little something called teaching practice. Now, this 'little' something is a crucial part of all teacher training courses. While it provides a great opportunity to 'throw yourself in' to something you are very passionate about and will be doing full time in the future, it is also highly stressful and overwhelming. You need commitment, perseverance and (for various reasons) 'a thick skin'.

My academic career to date has not been straightforward (for personal reasons).

I have always felt there was a wanderlust within me but believed it was not something 'I' could realistically do. However, after a long period of reflection over this past year, I now recognise within me a desire to 'live'. I want to travel and see the world. I have plans to spend summers in coffee shops becoming an expert on everything related to creative thinking. I have plans to explore beaches and buildings and desert thinking altogether, allowing thought to give way to tactile experiences. I want to see and do things that will leave me with a feeling I have experienced life.

However, before I can do all these things, I need to finish my degree. So in honour of life and my future plans, I am going to continually remind myself that working on completing my degree is the final step in achieving my dream, rather than viewing it as something to be anxious about. I feel that this outlook will help me produce better work too : )

I've been busy...

A little bit of crafty customisation and I've fallen back in love with this mini chest of drawers....

That is all! 

Play dough Recipe

This is an excellent (and foolproof!) play dough recipe which is fun to make for adults and children alike, and it can be adapted according to your requirements/imagination.

You will need:

1 cup plain (all-purpose) flour

½ cup salt

2 tablespoons cream of tartar

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 cup water with food colouring added

1 teaspoon vanilla essence*

Instructions:

Put all the ingredients into a large saucepan, and stir over a medium heat until the dough forms into a ball. Allow to cool, and then knead until smooth. Store in an airtight container (a Ziploc bag with the air pressed out is good).

*Optional but it makes the play dough smell lovely. You can also substitute for/include different scents or glitter!