Miss Art of Teaching

Today I presented to the Year 7 cohort a presentation about bullying. It covered important information about bullying from the perspective of the bully and the victim. Strategies were also discussed with students. I also tried to give them examples from my own life. I shared with them my stories of being a bully and also my experiences on the other end of the stick - being a victim. It was a long presentation and it was good to see that students understood the importance of making the right choices and how to use their power of speech to uplift others rather than to pull others down.

After two work meetings in the afternoon, I drove to my local shopping center to hunt down a 'squistle whistle'. These things are harder to find than I had imagined. I tried three sport stores and none of them have them in stock. I then tried Kmart out of desperation. I happened to walk pass the bike section and had a look at the different bike horns. I ended up purchasing a pink/purple bike horn for $3. It pretty much sounds like a dog toy but louder. When I got home, my dog was overly excited and I had to keep it away from her. I plan to use it tomorrow when I have to round up the Year 7 cohort for a meeting in the school hall. I need to get the classes ready before directing them inside the hall. I have prepared a 'bullying' PowerPoint to address important concerns and to help students understand the perspectives of both the bully and the victim.

My 4x Year 7 classes and even the older students love rewards and classroom jobs. I've been taking ideas from primary school teachers on different Facebook groups. Things that work really well: 1. Ihelp chart. Looks like an iPhone with different icons. Each icon has one particular job. Every class, every student has their own numbers. I attach different numbers to the icons daily so students can take responsibility for a job. They love marking rolls, being a messenger, being a timer etc 2. Whole school rewards. I give students virtual points. I start off with five each lesson. Every time they are loud, they lose one point. Soon the entire class will say shhhhh and encourage each other to be quiet. I gently hit a chime each time they lose a point. Instead of saying you have now lost a point, I hit the chime. 3. I have come up with own rewards system in my classroom. It's a class vs class system. Each class starts off with 20 coins. During the fortnight they can lose or gain ...

I've had a really good week with my classes. I enjoyed knowing my students more and being able to teach my content with little disturbance. I hoped they enjoyed their time in the art classroom. Throughout this week I focused on understanding the ALARM matrix, getting out my Year 11 theory assessment task, making my students aware of their time management and productivity during class time, assisting Year 7 with their self-portrait drawings and decorating my classroom. During the week I also focused on looking for more prizes for the school rewards system: Vivo miles. I posted on different Facebook groups and had one response from a gentleman who works for Eckersley. He is offering art supplies and free medium workshops. I also promoted new prizes on assembly, through the school Facebook page and through student's notices. Students are snapping up raffle tickets to build a higher chance of winning a double pass to our local wildlife park. On the side, I am still activ...

Kindness At the start of the year, I explained to all my classes that the theme of my classroom is ‘kindness’. This theme does not stay contained in the walls of the classroom but in students’ process of speaking and their part in bringing kindness towards others. At my High School, we do not tolerate deliberate hurtful behaviour. Instead we encourage the use of kind words as this creates happiness for others and ourselves. We must remember that we have a great power when we speak. When we perform an act of kindness it can uplift others and when we choose to deliberately hurt others we can make someone feel really bad. 1.        Think before you speak. 2.        Use words to uplift others. I often ask students to think of things that make them smile. I encourage them to grab a sticky note and write it down. I am hoping to fill my ‘happy notes’ board at the back of my room.  On another note: My c...

My students got creative and covered a lot of areas in my room with the contact donations. We probably went overboard. Initially we only wanted to cover the shelves but seeing that my demountable is more than 40 years old and never had a face lift in it's time, we experimented. If the time comes and we get the funding to paint over it, then we can easily peel off the 'contact sticker sheet'. We still have a number of areas to cover but at the moment it covers a lot of old vandalism (before my time) and a hole in the wall.

I received a kind donation from a coworker on Thursday and only had time today to pick them up today. Her father owns a contact paper business and has kindly donated a bundle before closing up. I appreciate her thinking of my art classroom. I plan to use them to cover my shelves or wall. Some of the contacts are 'feelies' which means they have texture. I am particular excited about the raindrops one. Once the project is completed, I will post some photos up. Above: Contact paper I caved in and purchased more things for my classroom. I am 'Dory' from 'Finding Nemo' (please refer to my previous post). I found 6 classroom signs at $10 plus an additional $5 for postage. This means it is around $2.50 per sign. However, these signs are a MUST in my classroom as I can see myself actively using it. YAYYYYYYYYY. They will work beautifully with my chime in my classroom. When I ring the chime, I will hold up a sign and students need to respond to the instructio...

This year I want to balance social life and work life more. Last year I was almost burning out like a first year teacher. Funny thing about my teaching life is that I had a really easy first year and as the years added on, I was setting more challenges for myself. I am constantly trying to balance a lot more on my plate as there is so much I just want to do. This year, I am coping a lot better as I am used to the workload and I have a MUCH MORE organised classroom. Today a Year 7 put his hand up and asked a really important question 'Why can't all the other rooms in the school be as cool as this room?' It really felt like a big high five was passed around to me. I am finding that an organised room with the right amount of visuals and aesthetic appeal can really help students relax and take responsibility in the classroom. I don't want to jinx it but there has been hardly any rubbish left behind by students, sink is always clean and I am getting ALL my pencils, rubbers...

I started drawing and fell asleep while holding my pencil. Got up and decided to take a photo and place a filter on it. The filter creates a lot more texture. Starting the education blog has given me time to reflect on my own teaching practice and get a bit more creative. It is therapeutic.

This year, I volunteered to take photos at the swimming carnival. I ended up taking and uploading around 230 photos onto the school Facebook page. Students enjoyed having their photos taken. Overall, I had a great day but being sick and in the 39 degrees heat did not really help. My legs were extremely sore and my muscles ached.

My throat started feeling really itchy since Tuesday. On Wednesday, it was fired up since I had a five period day plus 'Meet the Teachers'. I also had to do a small presentation in the hall for Year 7 parents and students. Above: Hall presentation After getting home last night around 8pm and feeling really sick, I decided to call in sick and ask for a day off. Best decision because I can already feel that my throat is not as sore. However, my body still feels weak. I woke up at 7am today and couldn't get back to sleep due to body clock issues (I normally wake up at 6am). I ended up watching 3 episodes of Chinese drama before finally giving in to my tired body and slept for another three hours. Right now it is 2pm and I am finally eating my breakfast - congee. Congee is pretty much rice but overcooked so it is soft and mushy. Good for people who are sick. Above: Congee with carrots and mussels. You can pretty much put whatever you like in it. Apparently...

Feeling the love today. Above: Year 12 students (cupids) going to different classrooms to deliver roses. Above: Year 7 students leaving positive post notes on my 'Happy notes' wall. Above: Hoping to fill the entire back wall. Above: My partner and myself decided to have a DIY Valentines this year. We were not allowed to spend any money on buying gifts. But he still got me a rose. Above: He also made me 13 edible roses! Above: And I made him something simple.

Tomorrow is Valentine's day, so I decided to attach a few signs outside my room. The signs are from Woolworths. Tomorrow, is also the first year where I have told my partner that no monetary gifts are to be given. This means a lot of DIY. We are trying to cut back on our spending. Above: Close up of the signs.  Above: My staffroom computer has broken down -monitor does not work and the whole computer needs re-imaging. Hence, I have been either using my co-worker's computer or been doing things that does not require the computer/printer. I decided to cut out words today 'DONUT GIVE UP'. I'm a bit sad that I didn't make the sprinkles more obvious. Above: The pink side has positive notes left by students from 2016. Words of appreciation. Above: I used the coin chart today. It worked really well with one class and not so well with another class. Need to test it out more. Above: My happy area. I organised a Year 7 Team mee...

I have been working since 7am and I am trying to understand why it is already 10:38am. Sometimes, I think I work rather slow. A few things that I have completed in the few hours time frame: Updated the Powerpoint for Wednesday (there is a presentation after an informal 'Meet the Teachers' event). Sent work emails. Updated student notices. Maintained and organiseed Vivo school rewards program. Put up posts on the school Facebook page about Vivo raffle prize draw and school newsletter. Checked bank statements. Finally organised my receipts for my super late 2016 Tax return. Here is a small snippet from our first 2017 school newsletter. I try to write something in it every month so that I can reach out to our parents and students. There is also another post about students in Visual Arts.

In the crazy 47 degrees heat today, I decided to go shopping. I counted the number of suburbs that I had visited today and it came to a total of nine. Above: 11 Drawer Stackable Organiser from Super Cheap Auto for $46 Above: The organiser is generous in terms of space and fits all my newly purchased markers. I used my DYMO tags to label the drawers. Above: I visited two Woolworths as the prices were not consistent.  Above: I managed to spend a total of $116.18 on 26 products. Yesterday, I also purchased 6 x $3.75 DYMO tags (Rrp $15). Above: A few close ups of my purchase minus the 6 small whiteboards ($3.50 per one. Rrp $5 each). I have been forgetting to use my own classroom rewards system during the first two weeks of school. In the holidays I purchased 20 x bags of coins from Kmart. Each coin has the description 'you have been caught being good'. I want to create a friendly class vs class competition where they try to have the most...

I love seeing students sketching and documenting ideas in their Visual Arts Journal. Year 9 and 10 students are working on creating ideas based on 'Environmental Issues'. School photos was on today. Hoping the Year 7 enjoyed their first high school photo session.