Hello everyone!
I am finally back writing a blog post! Tom is putting Lara to bed so I have a night downstairs for the first time in months. I am beside myself with excitement and have tea and a variety of treats beside me, ah the excitement! I have had so many ideas and topics I have wanted to share but I just haven’t had the time. Lara is nearly ten months now so sitting down on my laptop just isn’t an option. Then I always tell myself I will do blog work when she is asleep but I am always so tired by then that I just fall asleep myself too!
Anyway, I absolutely love being back at school. My third and fourth class were my first and second class two years ago and it is so great to have them again two years later to see how they have come on. I also love teaching the third class curriculum. In my opinion it is one of the easiest class groupings I have had. First and second is full on because first is a huge leap from senior infants, then second has a few hard topics in maths communion of course. Then fifth and sixth has the confirmation and preparing for secondary and social media on phones and all that goes with that. Third and fourth are at such a lovely age and I am loving the change in curriculum because it changes things up for me too! Maybe I am just lucky with my class but I really do have a great laugh with them most days, and they are enthusiastic and respectful and just lovely.
I want to say sorry to all the student teachers I haven’t had a chance to help out with resources etc, as I said above the days just fly by and between school, Lara , Sonny , assessments and corrections, the days are just pretty manic.
I want to go through my routine with third and fourth for anyone who has this class level as I am pretty happy with the structure I have at the moment. Structure is everything with a split class.
9-9:30- correct homework/handwriting/listen to reading (once a week as we do a novel on the board and read it daily)
9:30-10:15- Maths- whole class tables / interactive whiteboard games and challenges. After this I start third class off with revision or a page they can do independently while I introduce a new topic on the board to fourth. Then I set fourth a task and bring third up for their new topic. While third then do their task I check in on fourth and go back over the topic with children who need extra help.
10:20-10:50- Irish – as above. Whole class games then split for class activities. If I am doing grammar like the aimsir chaite I will teach it to the whole class together.
11:15- 12:15- English- I use novels for all our English work. We do have Wordwise which I try use once a week but it isn’t great in my opinion. We did Kensuke’s Kingdom by Michael Morpurgo and now we are reading ‘The Butterfly Lion’ . I try do one fourth class level novel followed by a third class level novel to match both but my third is almost like a fourth class ability wise so that helps. We love Michael Morpurgo in our class since Kensuke’s Kingdom! A few children in the class brought in their own Morpurgo books and have suggested ones for our next novel, and others have borrowed mine to bring home and read. It is great to see and if my teaching of a novel inspired even one unwilling reader to pick up a book at home then that is my job done! I can’t recommend novel work enough, for TP too.
12:15- 12:30- Religion
1:10-1:45- SESE- In science today we learned about the science behind popcorn and made popcorn with our popcorn maker. In history we learned about schools in the past. It varies week to week based on our theme in the class novel.
1:45- 2:30- Music/drama/PE/ART- We used directed drawing today in art to create lions to tie in with our novel. In music yesterday we learned the song Blackbird. It didn’t tie with our theme but I love the song and wanted to teach it. We had one listen and respond lesson and one two song singing lessons.