The Destitute Teacher

If you are anything like me, you have FAR to many jobs on your "To Do" list in the holidays. Six years into this teaching gig, and I still struggle with my holiday workload. For the first couple of years, the reality is that your classroom will dominate your life. You will have SO MANY things that you need to get done, and the only time to do them will be the non-contact holiday time. So here are six lessons that I have learned in my first six years of teaching: 1. Choose ONE project for the holidays that will make a difference to your life next term. Clean out a cupboard, sort some resources, source some resources.... ONE project. Too many projects will rapidly become a mess. They may end up half done, or just wear you out even more. 2. Clean your house. Seriously, it has probably been neglected during term time, and super neglected during report writing time. A spring clean will make you feel way better. 3. Freezer meals will save you come term time. I try and put a couple ...

I LOVE to be organised. It gives me a little thrill to be able to lay my hands on what I am looking for, in a quick and efficient manner. It makes me feel like I have super powers! Managing assessment papers can be tricky. My preferred method is one of those portable concertina file-boxes. One section for each student. Because I have 24 students and they come with around 30 pockets, I use the ones at the back to store assessment master copies/ marking guidelines and the occasional piece of assessment that is easier to be kept as a whole set. This method particularly comes into its own around reporting time. The file-box is convenient to pick up and take home to refer to if necessary. Better living, everybody!

My current school recognises ANZAC Day (Remembrance Day) every year with a whole school assembly as close to the 25th of April as we can. The local RSA members come along and each class lays a 'wreath' dedicated to our fallen soldiers. The whole effect is just beautiful, and every year I am blown away by the variety of crafts each class presents. This year we worked with our buddy class to create some layered fabric poppies. I got the inspiration from this site here . Originally I had high ambitions and wanted the children to sew layers of eco-cloth together to create the poppies. My hopes were quickly dashed, and we resorted to hot glue gunning the layers together. Nice and fast and probably more effective... most sewn efforts were a disaster. We keep our hot glue guns on plastic plates. The plates catch the drips and when the children glue the gun to the plate, it easily peels back off again. The class then brainstormed how we wanted to present our poppies. We chose to g...

I don't have a teachers desk in my class. The desk I had took up far too much space and was always a mess. So it went to another classroom. Often I regret it, but mostly I rejoice at the extra space. Now I no longer tell children to 'put it on my desk' to deal with later... things get done immediately. Less mess, less stress. I need a place to keep my stickers and stamps though. I recently cut up and cleaned a couple of recycled milk bottles. I chopped off the tops and added a gorgeous little strip of fabric tape and some labels. These are now pinned on the wall next to my IWB. You might notice that I keep my smelly stickers in ziploc bags. This keeps them smellier for longer. As I took this picture it made me think of the red spotty tin that sits at the top of the teachers workstation. I have a series of decorative tins along the top- one for felts, one for permanent markers etc. The red spotty tin is specifically for WHITEBOARD markers. That way my students are able t...

I love a good display, and this one lingered in the back of my mind before becoming an actuality. Black fabric $4.99 p/m @ Spotlight Star borders from an old display (or roughly $9.99 a pack) Clear A4 display pockets part of student stationery pack (or $3 for 10 @ KMart) Letters from an old display Laminated stars from an ex Book Fair display Paper clips Sellotape I popped a strip of sellotape along the bottom of each clear pocket and on the top corner of each back page. This stopped them from splitting and cracking when stapled to the wall. A paper clip on each pocket stops the front page from sagging. The idea is that during the year each new piece of published writing will be added to the front of the folder, creating some lovely displays. At the end of the year I will pull them down and the children will have a collection of their writing to take home. Note: absolutely in love with the crochet cushion cover I made (on the couch) to cover a cushion I purchased from the loca...

This year my school has purchased the LetterLand programme to improve our phonological knowledge and awareness. We are still at the very beginning of the programme, but I am hoping to feature a few ideas on here over the next little while, to help someone else kick start their programme if needed. This first tidbit is something that arose from our discussions before beginning the programme. We noticed that the train frieze does not have character names... and we wanted something to refer to on the walls of the classroom. I photocopied one of the BLMS from the Teachers Book, and blew it up to A3 size then laminated it. Each name tag was then cut out, and as we introduce each character the children take turns to blu-tack the name tag to the train. A simple idea that has been really effective. They love to have the privilege of tacking up the name tag, and love being introduced to new characters. Success.

I am slowly working my way through a massive backlog of posts that I have photographed and never done anything with.... Last year I made myself a vow that I would try and MAKE each of my students a little Christmas gift for them each at the end of the year. After much to-ing and fro-ing, I decided on CROCHET gifts, as there had been a wooly theme in the classroom. I found a super cute and super easy pattern for crochet monsters here . They work up quickly and it was a relatively painless process to make 21 of the little darlings. I started during the Term 3 holidays and gradually picked at the project. These little monsters were packaged up with a 3B1 notebook (which I bulk buy in the stationery sales at the start of the year... 5 cents each!), a pencil, and an eraser. The kids loved receiving them almost as much as I loved making and giving them. I also put together a simple theme for the chocolate gifts I gave to teacher aides, co-workers etc.... brown paper, twine and a little c...