Five EASY Lessons to Leave for a Relief Teacher

Often when relief teachers have to take our class we don't get much of a heads up, whether we are sick or have a scheduled meeting or maybe even a pleasant surprise of extra DOTT!

When this occurs it may not be practical for the teacher to just continue your normal lessons, especially if they require something you haven't fully prepared or is just to 'messy' to leave in the hands of someone who just isn't you.

These activities involve NO PREP, can be easily adapted to ANY YEAR level, require minimal resources (if any) and will be ENGAGING and have education value to the students. 

While there are some very special relief teachers who will come prepared with their own lessons, you still need to have lessons prepared in case they don't.
I leave a note for my relief teacher that tells them where to find my timetable for the day and class routine information. On the note I leave 5 optional activities in case they need it and they are so easy and fun that I wanted to share them with you today so you can use them too!

1) Foldable Monsters
This is my go to lesson when I need something quick. Hand out an A4 piece of paper. Fold into 3 sections (the more equal the better but it is not crucial). Take the top section and have students draw the head of a creature then fold and ensure the neck lines cross down into the second section. Fold so the top section is not longer visible, Collect and randomly redistribute. The second person draws the body including arms but not legs, they must extend the torso lines down to the next section. Fold out of the way, collect and randomly redistribute. They then draw the legs and open up to reveal the monster. Do a gallery walk to see all the creations! As a follow up students can write a descriptive writing piece or a story about their create of a profile.

2) Would you Rather Questions
There are so many activities you can do with would you rather question and students LOVE every single one!

Here's an example you can use with the questions above.

Speech Bubbles 

Present a question and allow students to write their reasons for picking a particular side and write onto a speech bubble (key words or sentences depending on age and time allowed) and then put these up on display. This encourages natural classroom conversation and debate as students visit and read the display.

Find more questions and activities in my Would You Rather Pack or read my blog on Would You Rather Activities for more ideas. 

3) Where's the Teacher?
I don't know whether this one is more fun for the students or for you to read when you get back! Students are asked to write a creative narrative piece about why their teacher isn't at school/in the classroom. Unique and funny ideas are to be encourage along with a reminder to use the correct structure of a story (beginning, middle and end). If there is spare time students should definitely read them to their peers or add pictures!

4) Before and After Reading Activity
Show students a non-fiction book and discuss the topic of the book. Have them brainstorm their current knowledge of that topic. Depending on their year level you might do this together on the board or have them divide a page into thirds and write it in the first third.
Read the book. After you have finished get students to record the information they know have about the topic. Then ask them to write any questions they know have. These may become research questions as another activity.

You can find the template above in the pack below:

5) My Numbers

Give students a sheet of paper and have then draw a circle in the middle and then divide the rest of the paper into sections stemming from the middle (or provide them with a template).
Students think of numbers in their life and complete a section for each. For example their age, number of siblings, year born etc. Lower primary students can simply write the number while older students can make up equations that have to be solved to work out the number. Students can fill up the rest of the space with a picture.

You can get the blank template above and one with prompts already included in this pack.

So the next time you are away, chuck a few of these lessons in and relax!

Teaching Fire Safety

With fire prevention week just around the corner for those in the U.S of A I thought I would share with you some of the activity ideas from my Fire Safety Unit.

This cute burning building activity is a very engaging way to get students to remember key fire safety tips like 'stop, drop and roll' and call '000/911'. They love making and decorating the building and it makes a great display!

It is important whenever possible to make lessons real world based. Have students draw their house (as best as their memories will allow) and plan their own escape routes. I use a worksheet first so students can focus on escape routes and then they draw their own house on the back.

I use this as an unit assessment piece and have students write what they remember according to the prompts. I have a marking rubric in my unit below. The firemen look gorgeous up on the wall.

Making a word wall with your class can be loads of fun. Have students brainstorm words and write them on cards with students drawing pictures to explain them. Alternatively you can purchase my word wall that can be made into a fire station!

Labeling parts of a fire truck is engaging while students learn the technical names for various features. 

This activity involves students stating what fire fighters are (nouns/adjectives) what they can do (verbs) and what they have/use (nouns). It is great for brainstorming at the beginning of a fire safety.

To prepare for the Fire Flow Chart activity students each get a turn to roll play waking up to a fire alarm. They must choose the actions they would take given a continuing scenario from the teacher including consequences for dangerous actions. If the student puts their hand on the door knob before feeling for heat then they might get burnt. Sometimes the door will have a fire behind it and they may have to go through the window instead. Try and make every student have a slightly different scenario until you have exhausted every possibility including staying in their room waiting for the fire fighters to come in. Allow them to move around the classroom and use the door/objects and windows to make the scenario as real as possible. If the student makes a mistake it is the next students go just to keep the activity fast moving. After everyone has had a go allow students to complete the flow chart!

You can find all the activities mentioned and more in my Fire Safety Unit.

You might also like these Fire Safety Barrier Games.

My NAPLAN Plan of Attack!

This year will be my forth year in Year 3. I feel like I have NAPLAN prep down to a science! Today I thought I would share with you my complete Term 1 planner.

Let me put in a disclaimer here: I DO NOT teach to the test. What I do is teach the Australian Curriculum which the NAPLAN test is based on. From that I pull out the items most likely to be covered by the NAPLAN and ensure I cover a wide variety of topics. 

Diary Writing: This comes up first on the planner because it's what I do first up on a Monday. It's a time where the students can practice writing skills learnt in the previous weeks. I set goals for their writing using this poster.

Get it FREE here!

 Reading: I will put up a more detailed post on my guided reading sessions soon. This term I am using past NAPLAN reading passages as my guided reading texts. I use past questions and my own to improve student comprehension. For whole class lessons I have been using stories by Beatrix Potter as you can get them online and use an interactive whiteboard to allow your students to see.

Punctuation and Grammar: I use punctuation characters to make learning and practicing punctuation fun because by year 3 the students think they know it all.

I made up a booklet of worksheets because I couldn't find any worksheets that would be suitable for a variety of skill levels. It ensures that all students are able to complete some of the worksheet but all students feel challenged.

Click here to purchase this product

Vocabulary is sectioned into three parts over the term. The first is descriptive words that help teach students interesting words to use in their writing, Then it moves on to a couple of word lists that are helpful to prepare for the NAPLAN Conventions test like conjunctions, The last part is test word vocabulary. The lesson usually just involves reading the words in a way that sounds like they mean (e,g, aggressive in a aggressive tone with facial expression), the students repeat it and we define the word when students seem interested in the word being said.

Click here to purchase my Year Long Vocabulary Pack

Word Study (which ends up changing to grammar) are the sounds most likely to appear in the NAPLAN Spelling test. I cover these by doing individual, group or class brainstorms of words that contain that sound. If a student says a word that does not have that particular sound in it I always make sure to write that word up so students can see what it actually looks like.

Maths: I have segmented my maths sessions into 3 parts (or you could say 4) this year to maximize efficency. I start off with a mental maths section covering basic skills. A lot of which I know will come up in NAPLAN.  I use this number crunch display to save paper. Students record their answers in their books and we mark as a whole class Monday to Thursday and I mark and record their results on a Friday.

Click here to purchase Number Crunch (Also comes with 4 worksheet versions)

The next part of the lesson is explicit teaching and demonstrating of maths skills. I always start from a very basic level before working up to what they need to know as year 3s. I also chuck a bit of year 4/5 information in which some kids are able to retain. This is directly followed by them practicing the skills either by a hands on task or worksheet.

Finally we play games covering either the concepts taught in that lesson or basic skills games. These may be whole class, group or individual. We recently did card games practicing rainbow facts (numbers that add to ten).

NAPLAN Revision: At the end of each week I get my students to do a quick 15 minute quiz. These quizzes not only allow students to display their understanding of the concepts taught that week but also familirise students with question types. Without these practise quizzes students would get answers wrong simply because they shaded two answers in or didn't understand what to do. I begin the lesson by introducing or revising that NAPLAN strategy for that week. These strategies are used by adults all the time during tests but need to be taught to students. I use characters to make these strategies stick in the students head and make learning them more interesting.

Careful Cara - Read the question carefully
Whinging Whinnie - Don't get upset about the test
Naughty Nick - Always one answer that is obviously wrong
Diligent Dolly - Working quickly and monitoring the time
Sneaky Sarah - Two answers are usually very similar
Guessing George - If in doubt guess, but use other tricks to eliminate answers

Click here to purchase these posters

I then give students time to complete the quiz. To help gradually build up their confidence with tests I go through the first one to two tests with the class and discuss or give hints to the answers. The next few tests I only read the questions. Then they begin doing the test independently.
As students believe they have finished the quiz I mark their answers and give them a second attempt at any they get wrong. If on the second attempt the answer is still wrong I briefly explain to them which is the correct answer. My students then go on to IPad free time. Once everyone is finished I go through all the questions with the students to make sure they understand the concepts the question was testing. Incorrect answers can be recorded for later small group activities or one-on-one help.

You can purchase the quizzes I use here:

NAPLAN Revision Quizzes

While I used them weekly they can easily be used daily in Term 2 until NAPLAN.

For NAPLAN writing I do two seperate whole class weekly lessons.

Persuasive Writing Unit.

This unit is 10 lessons long and explicitly teaches the concept of being persuasive and then how to structure this into a persuasive text. It goes through several key techniques for making their persuasive texts more interesting.

Persuasive Writing Complete Unit

Narrative Writing Unit 

 Narrative Writing Year 3 Complete Unit

This narrative unit mirrors the persuasive writing unit. It has fun and engaging lessons that teach students how to structure narratives, how to form ideas and key elements to include to improve their narrative texts. 

Practice Tests:

I do one full practice test (Numeracy) at the conclusion of term 1 that I then analysis for topics that I need to revise in term 2 with either the whole class or small groups.

The other part of preparing students is to make them understand that NAPLAN is 4 tests that you do your best in but they are not something to stress over. I explain the format of the NAPLAN, that no one is expected to get 100% on it. That is has questions from the Year 5 and 7 NAPLAN test. I also tell them that not even I usually get 100% on the test. I tell the students that doing their best will make me proud and that is something they should strive for.

Using these strategies above I avoid having any tears or comments of 'I can't do this' during NAPLAN week.

Good luck with NAPLAN 2015!