Placement - Creating Environments Part 3

The Handwriting Table 

The children in the kinder room love to write. Some have mastered their names already and write it on every piece of paper they can get their hands on while some of them are still experimenting with what letters they can trace, draw and recognise.

In knowing this, my AT and I have been doing everything we can think of to support this current interest of theirs. When choosing the order to wash hands, put on jackets, get place mats etc. we draw a letter or a name on the board. Some children knew their names and others while others had more fun sorting out the false names from the real ones. During my full control week, I asked the children what their favourite letters were and why for their morning minutes questions and I received some very thoughtful and insightful answers.

When it came time to change one of the activity tables, I had the perfect idea; a writing table!

I got the idea for the banner from here but cut out yellow and pink paper instead and painted on the letters. After laminating, I used a hole punch to punch holes (duh) and strung it up using twine. I had to redo some pencils so that they could match so for your convenience and found at the bottom of the post, I have made a template that you can print out and either write, type or paint the letters onto.  The milk carton pencil holders were my AT's idea and sorts out the pencils by colour. After placing the banner up, setting out a tablecloth and some paper in a natural tray, I set to work on the most important part, the names!

The Victorian Modern Cursive Script font is the best tool you could have installed on your computer. It is the font used in Victoria to teach handwriting and to create handouts, posters, practice sheets...you name it, you can type it with this font! I used the holy grail of fonts to type out the children's names and placed them up around the table with Velcro. I decided on Velcro so that they could recognise and pull off their own names should they need help to spell it or what the letters look like,  and then place them back when they were finished.

From the email I received from one parent, "F has asked me for paper and pencils so that he could write his name at home but when I got it for him, he said he needed the table and the banner to write," the children really enjoyed the new edition to the room and what they can do here!

DOWNLOAD BANNER TEMPLATE HERE

Miss Tracy xx

My Assignment Folder

Hi!

So my first year has come and gone and so has a very large amount of assignments. One of my tutors gave me some very sound advice during the first semester; hold onto every single assignment you do, no matter how badly you did, no matter how insignificant the task seemed, no matter what KEEP YOUR ASSIGNMENTS!

And to date I have followed her advice, I have keep all my assignments. But shoving them into one big folder was not enough to me, I had to further organise and this was how my assignment folder was born.

Each assignment is placed in a plastic pocket. It the first plastic pocket, I keep spare cover sheets as well as the ones that I have already filled out and a sheet of coloured dots.

The front page has a large table with columns so with a quick glance, I can tell what the assignment was, when I completed it, who my tutor was and what my final grade was. Following my colour system, each title is  highlighted in the corresponding colour and each cover page has a coloured dot.

This year, rather then sort according to due date, I would like to sort according to unit. This would mean that each assignment is sorted by unit than due date and making it easier to find thing on the same topic.I also need to start writing in my assignments in the book earlier so that filing them doesn't become a hassle later in the semester.

Overall, this system works really well for me and I am looking forward to the day when I exclaim., 'THANK GOD I KEPT THIS ASSIGNMENT!' Until such time, I hope that some of you can see some method to my organised madness and drop me a line if you decide this folder could work for you.

Miss Tracy xx

Resource Find - Free Education Books

Hi everyone,

Well recently I have really discovered how expensive uni books are. Each semester, I spend around $450 on textbooks alone, ones that are readily available at my library. BUT... they are on limited loans. Limited loans range from 2 hours, 1 day, 2 days, 3 days and 7 days. For someone studying for the whole semester, I cannot make do with these loans if my assignments focus on the set texts.

So you can understand my surprise when I saw a sign saying free books near a trolley out the front of the library! The first few times there were some good books but for other faculty's. But I persisted and recently found the best education haul yet!

Teacher Education in the English Speaking World; Past, Present and Future

Edited by Tom O'Donoghue and Clive Whitehead

500 Tips for Open and Online Learning

Phil Race

Critical Readings in Teacher Education; Provoking Absences

Anne Phelan and Jennifer Sumsion

Becoming a Teacher; Knowledge, Skills and Issues

Colin Marsh

Advances in Web Based Education; Personalized Learning Environments

George D. Magoulas and Sherry Y. Chen

The toal values of the books is something around $400 and I managed to snag them for absolutely nothing! From a quick look through, the books look great and my hope is that I can use them for assignments, further resourcing and during my actual time in the classroom.

Most are the second latest edition, so my guess for their removal from the library is that they have bought the latest edition. My only complaint so far is that I had to lug all of them home in my handbag!

Stay tuned to see reviews when I get a chance to really scour them, perhaps I'll even use my new bookmarks from Knock Knock stationery!

Does your university give out free books?

What have you been lucky enough to find?

Wish your university gave out free books?

Send me a line at any of the LMST sites!

Miss Tracy xx

My Planner

Hello again,

So I'm sure everyone is part of a rewards club, maybe it's Flybuys, Myer One, Everyday Rewards, coffee shop or some company that I am not aware of, but most likely, everyone as a stack of cards in their wallet that entitles them to discounts or builds up their points. 

Well, I shop at Woolworths so I have an Everyday Rewards card which is linked to my Frequent Flyers Account. I realised if we are spending money every week, the points shouldn't go to waste.

Now a couple of weeks ago, I bought the hot roller set I was saving my points for (massive sale at Myer) so I shopped around for what I could spend them on instead.

And what do I see when I open the browser? A lovely spread of Kikki K stationery. Usually, I cannot afford their stationery; while it is so pretty, of excellent quality and extremely functional, I cannot afford their products. I cannot justify spending $80 on a planner.

But points are different story. So I splashed out 8,500 QANTAS Frequent Flyer points on the Leather Personal Planner in Fuchsia.

My favourite features include:

• 6 ring binder
• 18 month calendar, refills availble
• 7 customisable tabs
• 3 sheets of stickers
• elastic pen loop
• card slips
• 'today' note pad
• a5 notepad
• zipped compartment 
• button closure
• genuine leather  

And it looks super cute!

Since it arrived in the mail, I have written down EVERYTHING! And I have found it so much easier to stay on top of things. While I don't take the planner everywhere, I have it perpetually open in the same spot on my desk. This way I don't have to worry about opening and closing it it and it's always in the same place if I want to write something down.

The only thing missing was a hole punch but I managed to buy one online for a couple of bucks. I am now set to live an organised life!

Do you use a planner?

Why, why not?

Fill me in!

If you do want to buy the planner, you can from here!

Miss Tracy xx 

In Review - Notability

My Colour Coding System

Guess who's back? Back again.

I was reading back over some of my posts regarding my notes and university and realised I haven't explained my colour coding system, which is basically the cornerstone of my sanity.

This system is the best. I would be completely lost without it. It makes study, filing and locating information and paperwork so much easier and faster.

So this is how it works.

I have four units a semester. Each has a unit code. For example, this semester I have:

1. EDFD 136

2. EDFD 227
3. EDAR 366
4. EDLA 167

My system assigns one of four colours (pink, yellow, green or blue) for each unit, so they would look like this:

1. EDFD 136
2. EDFD 227
3. EDAR 366

4. EDLA 167

So I have unit outlines, assignments, notes and handout from each unit, which all get filed under the relevant coloured tab in my semester folder. I take my lecture and tutorial notes on pastel coloured notebooks which are same colour as the unit. My assignment cover sheets have a corresponding coloured dot in the corner. I use only the unit colour when highlighting anything. Even my reminder sticky notes are in the unit's colour!

In short, one colour = one unit. The final colour coded product of a semester' work looks like...

I often find myself asking people, 'Do we have blue next?' when talking about our next tutorial/lecture!

I also managed to implement this system with my OneNote notebooks, which is the way to go with taking notes (I think so).

I swear by this. I started using a simplified system in high school but I have definitely kicked it up a notch since starting university. With a little time to set it up and get use it, it really helps to organise things and keep things moving smoothly.

In short, one colour = one unit. The final colour coded product of a semester' work looks like...

Semester Folder

Notepads

(available in assorted colours)

Binding

Assignment Coversheet

Highlighters

  

Do you have your own organisational system for notes, handouts etc.?

Drop a line via any of the LMST sites, I would love to hear from you all!

Miss Tracy xx

Placement Preparations - The Reflective Journal

As one of my many placement requirements, I am required to keep a reflective journal documenting my experiences during this period. By the end of this, I should have 10 complete entries.

Featured below is the paragraph from our placement handbook, a sort of checklist for what each entry should contain.

However, this journal will not be my first experience with reflective writing. Last semester I had to complete a reflective journal for a single unit. This was not my favourite activity and since I had little experience with this form of writing, I didn't end up putting much effort into this task. My entries were very brief and ended up sounding rushed, incomplete and didn't dig very deep into my learning. I want things to go differently this time, I don't want any of these entries to be like my previous...

So in comes my placement journal. Very similar to my previous journal, I purchased a white faux moleskin leather journal from Colette Accessories for a mere $3.00 (RRP $9.95, available here).

For such a price, these journals have the look of luxury and an unmatched functionality. While each journal has 120 feint lined pages in a light sepia tone, a ribbon bookmark and an inbuilt, reinforced pocket located at the back of the book, I also customise these journals for increased organisation; I add tabs and number the pages.

The tabs allow me to split my entries into 5 sections, one for each round of placements I will undertake. By adding the numbered pages, I can easily note pages for later reading while also making the pages easy to refer back to in further entries or for referencing in writing.

The last piece of the puzzle is the template. The admin have left it up to the students to decide whether they want to use a template or note and to even design their own template. This leaves me with some questions.

'Should I use a template or just write?' 

'What template would work best for this?'

'Should I design my own template or use a pre-existing one?'

I still have some time to think about this but in the meantime, how do you think I should approach this journal?

Please feel free to leave a comment, ask a question or just press follow this blog!

Miss Tracy xx