I have been putting together this times tables word problem resource recently. I grabbed word problems from all over the internet, for each times table (2-12). This is in an attempt to grow my student’s confidence when they cross numbers with words in assessments and to consolidate their tables. • My class are often more than able for the questions they are posed with but as soon as they see words they freak out. This is super common! • These word problems are all multiplication, so although they don’t need to consider the operation to choose they do have to filter through the words to gain an understanding of what figures to manage and manipulate. I colour coordinated each set for so I know exactly what’s what.

Diary Entry- Year 4- Journey through the digestive system.

15 Days of Christmas Kindness

Vocab Builders & Big Q cards

“Coronavirus” is a book for children about Covid-19. For me, it is important that all children have an understanding of the pandemic they are living through. To combat worries and stress I have begun to do some planning on explanations of “Coronavirus” to my class. I bought the brilliant book “Coronavirus” by the consultant: Graham Medley in Easons (bookmark) for only €2.99 and I have begun to base all my information and work around this book. It is brilliant because although it is very detailed it is very easy to read and to be honest I learnt a lot from reading it! Here’s a wee work task I put together to lead the children’s learning on the content I will be presenting to them on the virus! with illustrations by Axel Scheffler and a £1 donation of the book going towards charity you can’t go wrong if you need something easy and cheap to educate yourself and your little class!

CIRCLE TIME STARTER QUESTIONS!!! • During my placements, I found myself absolutely obsessed with having lessons on the carpet area. I found the engagement was much higher and it was less formal for the kids. • From that I also LOVED a bit of circle time as daily check-ins with the kids, I made these handy circle time starter questions which allow the children to make decisions and give the reasoning for their answers. These questions (although some are a bit crazy) I found the children really began to develop their talking skills when asked to give reasoning of their choices. These cards also will really let me get to know my class and will be a handy day fillers too! • I got the idea from my Key Stage 1 placement teacher and a document she had printed from Twinkl!!

Explore the Stone Age with this unit of work and lesson plans. Plans made when I was doing my PGCE in Primary Education.

In my opinion SPELLING TESTS are NOT an accurate measurement tool of every child’s progress. Although most schools have them as a policy I think it’s important to try and teach children that struggle with spellings (especially children with specific learning difficulties) that 10/10 in a spelling test does not make a student more worthy. • Often the traditional way of making children- rewrite spellings they got wrong underneath the test 5 times, is thought to be the correct way to ensure a child learns those spelling and although this might be true for some children, it is not helpful for children who present dyslexic traits. For these children, visual tasks and creativity work much better to highlight spelling patterns. • With these children in mind I created a “super spelling task resource” it has 12 unique ways to encourage children to pick one spelling they got wrong and do a very short task on it to allow them to master one of their words, instead of rewriting 5 words and not really learning any of them. Majority of the tasks I have made up myself but I found some online too!!

A handy English resource inspired by @studyingwithmissh who got the idea from the amazing @miss.wiltshir3 and @missv_nqt accoutns so go check them out!!! Not my idea at all I just used the ladies work and changed the font and photos to fit my theme!! Loads of love xxx

I found wee tasks like these handy during placement as extensions when I was working with a target focus group. They also revealed a child’s understanding of the content of the book further. I thought by having a pack ready to go it would help me during my NQT year with timing and organisation. • I made this 4 category reading bundle pack for library book and guided reading tasks. I split the pack into 4 category’s which are: Charter work Setting work Word work Author work

I have been thinking the past few days of strategies which I could put into place during my NQT year to ensure I do not get overwhelmed with the constant ‘Miss how do you spell?” questions. Although I have never let my dyslexia hold me back I handle it in the classroom by purposely thinking ahead and planning greatly in advance. I can execute a lesson to the standard which children deserve when I do this, however, the older I went in my school placement year groups the more I was faced with moments of panic wondering if I am spelling words correctly for the children which they have required for a piece of writing work. (These words you can not truly plan for as every child brings a unique version of the work to the classroom and for that requires a different set of tools and in this case spellings. To combat these moments I had of panic during my teacher training, for my NQT year I have designed these handy “Speedy Spelling Tickets”. My plan for these is to have a bunch cut-out, in my desk ready to give out to a child if I do not have the time to check the spelling myself (if I am working with a target focus group). These tickets promote child lead learning as they first have to sound the word out, they must write what they hear. They then use peer scaffolding to aid the spelling (ask a student at their table how they think the word might be spelt). They can then research the work using a classroom iPad, computer or dictionary and write the correct spelling down. They will then confirm what source they used to find the spelling. I would hope by children carrying out this short task it will not only widen their own spelling bank and vocabulary but will further take pressures of spelling off me. I will then, of course, take the ticket and check it for the child, I was thinking of putting the tickets into a scrapbook for the children to go to if they need to be reminded for the spellings. Voila! creating a classroom spelling manual!

This pack contains “21 diversity discussion prompts”. These are how I plan to introduce areas of race, ethnicity and equality into my classroom. • From reading up on the BLM campaign I have learnt that schooling has the privilege to educate, cause compassion and strengthen support towards the black community. • For classes in PDMU on placement, I found circle time styled lessons where always the most enjoyable for the children. For little bodies, they have big opinions and love to share so I thought this would be the most fitting away to open conversations about oppression in the black community. I got this idea from the brilliant @theyoungeducator • Race and equality must be a conversation we present and cover in great detail in our schools, children should be exposed to a range of resources which include discussions of ethnic inequalities. • Children come from a range of backgrounds and families but we must present them with these important conversations in order to unite and support every single human being on the planet.

• During my PGCE it was drilled into us- the importance of a strong start to a lesson. I found the majority of the starters I used had been student lead and in turn made for extremely high levels of engagement, as the children often had more subject knowledge than I would have known had I opened with teacher lead starters. • I typed out 12 of my favourite starter strategies and have to credit my lectures for some of the ideas but likewise, I got a few of them online too! • Children LOVE to learn through their peers and these starters really encourage this child lead approach which I value so highly!! • This pack comes with 12 cards prompts in PDF format! •

During my first term of teacher training, I struggled with the concept of the importance of a lesson plenary. With research, I discovered that a good plenary has the ability to highlight not only the good parts of my lessons but the common misconceptions within the class surrounding the topic. In short, I found it is the student’s way of assessing my teaching informally! • I made these clipboard plenary’s with placement Nóra in mind, if I had these during my teacher training it would have been very easy for me to quickly grab one and ask the children contribute. • Credit to my lecture for the majority of these ideas! I just took ideas I had been shown or heard classmates talk about and designed them on mini clipboards and added clipart so they could be accessible to the children too. • This pack comes with 23 cards in PDF format! •

By @miss_docc Information gathered from many online readings drawing practically on the reporting of Kate Phelan & Liz Loftus (Involve [formerly NATC]) and Marie Fitzpatrick (Pavee Point) for ‘Access All Areas –a Diversity Toolkit for the Youth Work Sector’ published by NYCI and Youthnet 2012

Where will a child’s book take them??

“OUR WONDER WALL” I had this idea out running one day, I wanted a way to positively reinforce kindness, sharing and caring traits in my students and by allowing them to fill this wall up by writing on the limited brick outlines with whiteboard markers I hope to highlight the importance of being a good person. At the start of the year, the wall will be clean and empty, as the children show can kindness, caring and sharing traits I will allow them to write on one of the bricks for the class to see. One the class have filled up the wall I can only imagine that a reward would be well deserved. I made my wall quite big on purpose to let the children chip away at it each term. This wall will allow all students to strive in the project of showing kindness regardless of their academic, sporting or musical ability which in my opinion I find the three most commonly awarded traits in children in schools.

“Nevertheless We Persisted”- This is my take on a “Wow work wall” I love this saying and can’t wait to teach persistence to my class! My idea is that under this heading I will display a range of the children’s work of utter effort & determination not just work that is commonly seen as “the best”. Each child has their own definition of “the best” that they can produce and I can’t wait to honour all of those abilities groupings.

Imagination Blooms Here Lettering

The ”what will I do now teacher?” extension pack! This resource is one I made with a range of learners in mind! • This pack includes seven task areas which children can work on after the main lesson task work has been complete and they wait for the other students to finish up! Total of 28 task cards. • During my placement, I found that children liked a more creative extension challenge rather than a worksheet! (I bought a pack of 300 envelopes in euro giant on placement and honestly, they absolutely loved the idea of sending letters to their friends in the class as extensions, very cheap and easy!) So these cards are to combat that worksheet kind of boredom I found! • I focused on; writing, reading, number, wellbeing, drawing, designing and list-making tasks!