Field trip update

1. The dad that came in who works for Electric Ireland put on a fantastic presentation about energy, electricity, and numbers for the students... he didn't get to finish it all but will be coming back in some other time to finish it up.

2. the musical- it was great to see so many different schools there to watch the performance. Everyone was even given a snack during intermission from the secondary school.  It was kind of hard to follow but the music was good-- can't go wrong with Queen. Although, there was some swearing in the play that was not exactly school appropriate, but the kids didn't react to it so that was good.

3. We have been practicing for the carol service-- their christmas play. The students have done an excellant job in acting their roles. Quite sad I am barely going to miss their performance... It takes place Monday night, the 19th.

4. Tomorrow we are going to the ASPCA with the kids to talk about animal cruelty and the responsibilities of being a pet owner. I am quite pumped because I love animals. The kids already asked Mr. Malseed if they could adopt one of the animals as a class pet. (The response was no to that if you were wondering).

Field Trips Galore!

Even with funding cuts and a strict budgets Irish schools seem to find the ways to still give students great experiences through educational field trips. Tomorrow, one of my students father is coming in to do a workshop with the kids over Energy. He works at Electric Ireland so should be great. After that we are walking to Newpark school in Blackrock, a ways down the road, to see them perform  their musical We Will Rock You Then we will return to school and the day will be finished! On Friday we are going to DSPCA, which is an animal rescue place. The students will get a tour and learn about how they care for animals and wildlife, and the responsibilities that come with a pet. Looking at their website they have some cute residents. 

On another note, the Christmas tree is up in the classroom and we are doing a Kris Kringle gift exchange next week. Definitely wouldn't experience such a thing in public schools back home. It was funny the other day in the teacher's lounge they started talking about how in the states we have division between church and state. Most the teachers couldn't believe it and had questions about what all we could do in schools and what we couldn't in regards to religious holidays. When I told them how Wal-mart called their Christmas trees 'Holiday Trees'  they all couldn't believe it.

Lost

Apparently my last post didn't actually post and is not in any of the drafts... but here is my weekly update:

1. Been teaching more regularly now. Which is great! I love being able to introduce the students to my style of teaching mixed in with theirs.
2. I have just started a unit on Length (metric system) with them in math. Thinking about everything in metric units does make me pause. The kids also corrected me right away when i wrote on the board "meter" because they spell it "metre".  I first introduced lengths to them by asking them what system of measurement do they use in ireland (metric system). I also asked them if anyone knew the name of the system that we use in the united states (English System)  none of them knew but that was ok. I gave a brief history on the system and why the states have a different one. I then progressed into the lesson with having them list the names of metric units from the basic meter. I wrote them down on the smartboard as we went.  We then went over prefixes of the units and how each related to the meter.  We then dived directly into conversion of mm to cm and vice versa. The students caught on to this immediately. Class then had a break. Later in the afternoon we returned back to math. I discussed with them the tools we use to measure length.. a trundle wheel, a ruler, a metre stick, and a tape measure.  I had the kids tell me what kind of situation would be appropriate for each tool.  I then did a quick review over the names of the units. Progressing on, I told them we were going to have a scavenger hunt. I had them get out their math copy books and a pencil and to make the chart I was making on the smartboard with me to record their data in. Once I had that complete I explained that in the scavenger hunt they would be in pairs. One student would draw a card (which i had made) and read what the measurement was on it and record it (i.e. 5 cm). The same person would then have to look around the classroom for an object that they thought was the same length and record what it was in the chart.  The second person then would check their partner's answer by measuring it using the appropriate measuring tool. They were expected to write down the actual measurement. Last part of the chart was that they had to find the difference between the actual length and the length that they were looking for and record it. In the end once all the cards had been used they had to find the average (many of them had to convert cm-mm or mm-cm for this to work.  They did great with measuring the objects they chose and using the correct tools. I did have a student though who was way off task after multiple attempts of me to get him back on track. He was not working with his partner he chose and was instead distracting other groups. I had to take him aside and talk with him about my expectations and directions for the activity. I am not the only one who has been having difficulties with this particular student behavior wise. My mentor and the resource teacher have been constantly having issues with him as well. I have tried multiple approaches and none have worked. Contact was made today with his family and I am researching more behavioral management ideas and approaches to try to use with him.  
3. Dec. 9th I get to go on another field trip with the kids to the animal shelter up by the mountains. Should be a really great trip!

Field Trip!

Today after school the class went on a field trip to the Irish Times printing press. The Irish Times is the longest running newspaper here in Ireland. It is a non-profit newspaper and is ran by a Trust group, not a corporate company (so no shareholders). It is not that often that they give tours through the place so it was a great opportunity for the kids.  They took us throughout the printing facility and we got to get up really close to everything (which health and safety would probably have had an issue with, but what they don't know won't hurt). Personally, my favorite part was the paper storage area with the robots... so incredibly cool. No school transport was used for the trip so parents were vital to making this work. We had 4 parent volunteers drive the kids over to the press and join in the tour.Upon arriving we broke the kids up into 2 groups to make it more manageable to do our tour in. The whole printing and distributing process was explained to us along our tour. The students asked a lot of great questions in regards to supply and demand, cost, employment, and technology. I was especially proud when they asked how Eco-friendly the company was.
I was also impressed by the fact that in planning this trip the students were given the permission slips just yesterday for the trip and all of them remembered their forms today to go.
Even if there was not a specific connection to our units of study the field trip was worthwhile in that it exposed the students to another career path and how the use of technology has increased production and cut cost.

- I also taught a comprehension lesson today with the focus on Salvador Dali... used the smart board (which I have fallen in LOVE with... I want one in my future classroom.!!!). Went well except all the students got really into looking at the pieces and making comments to each other so it got a little out of hand and I had to really pull to get them back on track.  Will be finishing the lesson up tomorrow with them writing responses to a specific piece.
- Correcting their English: I was so frustrated in seeing their  half completed (which should have been completely done) corrections with so many mistakes.. even when I wrote in the correction they needed (all they had to do was re-write the sentence with the corrections, easy peasy). I think a lot of them rush through their work and don't really take the time to do it correctly. I would think they would know when to capitalize letters in a sentence at this point in school but I am just not seeing it from them in their individual work consistantly. I need to construct some more lessons for this upcoming week to work on core grammar to get this cleared up. They are such great creative writers.... if only the mechanics were perfect as well!