Teaching - Chunking

Teaching Strategies for Mathematics.

Chunking

Depending on your age the teaching strategies used in math when you went to school would have varied from learning the written algorithm or doing mental math calculations.

Relief Teaching - My Bag of Tricks

My Relief Teaching Bag of Tricks

I arrive at a school fully prepared for anything and everything with my  Relief Teaching Bag of Tricks is essential.

Quotation Marks

Punctuation Marks - Quotation Marks

When I was a kid (oh good grief - did I just say that?), punctuation was a regular feature of my day.

Teaching Strategies using Cool Math Games

3 Key Relief Teaching Strategies

Teaching Strategies that Keep Kids Focused

When relief teaching it is very important, even essential to use teaching strategies that focus on

• Setting the Learning Agenda 

• Focus Kids on Outcomes 

• Promote Success

Relief Teaching and Word Games

Relief Teaching pay is good. But you can't go and purchase hundreds of resources for your job.

I am very selective about where I spend my money. Some would call my a tight-wad (or worse).

Fishing gear - YES.
Relief teaching resources - NO.

Relief Teaching & the Curriculum

Relief Teaching and the Curriculum

Honestly, how on earth can relief teachers know the curriculum for every year level?

Simple answer is you can't.

However it is vitally important that relief teachers have an GENERAL understanding of what each year should know. 

This way they can cover activities relevant to the skill level of each year level.

Relief Teaching and Managing Behaviour

Ten of the top articles dealing with Relief Teaching and Managing Behaviour.

Free to all Members. Check the Member's Only Resource Page link sent to all Members.

$0.99 for all visitors.

Why Construction suits Relief Teaching.

This is a great lesson to help kids master the intricacies of construction. It is manual rather than an academic activity so it caters for all learners.

This is great for relief teachers as quite often a relief teacher may not know kid’s abilities when they arrive.

Addition Left to Right

When I am relief teaching, I love mental math activities as an activity that engages the whole class.

I am amazed at how kids, even the turkeys, respond to mental math challenges and this one is up there with the best.

It is the skill of adding numbers from left to right and kids love to take on this challenge as the problems becoming more and more complex.

There is an excellent opportunity to scaffold the less capable learners. They can do a written form of the mental activity until they develop the mental skills themselves.

Check out Article No: 30 - Addition from Left to Right

Reading Comprehension.

There is nothing like a well designed reading comprehension passage to create active engagement. When I am relief teaching active engagement is my single most important goal.

PLUS putting together a good exercise take heaps of YOUR time - you want kids to spend 10x the effort you put into the activity.

Attention Disorders - A Case Study

This is a true story of success. In this six-week project middle school children diagnosed with ADD and ADHD and receiving special education services enjoyed the same success, if not more than, the other students.

Even the most absorbing tool, the TV, was not high on these students’ list of significant work. As a teacher, I felt I had been given a great gift of learning about how to support these special students. I encourage you to try it!

Check out Article 29.

Relief Teaching Resources

The Relief Teachers' Survival Handbook is a series of three titles.


The series is written for the teacher who needs an emergency lesson and for the relief teacher who has been asked to cover for an absent regular teacher. 


As a relief teacher, there may be occasions where work is not set for the entire day, and teachers may be expected to fill these times with their own lessons. 


This titles in this series cover every learning area, and though the lessons require minimal preparation, they are educationally meaningful, and can be adapted to suit particular lesson goals and abilities. 


See a sample page HERE


At ONLY $14.95 as an eBook instant download ($34.95 as a hard copy) it represents great value


Check Ready-Ed Publications for all your Relief Teaching resources. 

What dinosaurs?

Walking with Dinosaurs

I have to say I LOVE the teaching opportunities that this series offers.

Kids LOVE it and it makes for a productive relief teaching activity where effective learning occurs AND the kids are totally engaged.

Did you read the last section? KIDS ARE TOTALLY ENGAGED - even the turkeys! Hoo-rah!

Motivating Students who Don't Care?

It is crying shame that this is such a common problem, especially for relief teachers?

K - 3 website

I'm not good with little kids. They scare me!

Don't get me wrong, I taught all grades in my one teacher school for 6 years. I taught my own kids too. I just prefer older kids.

What to do when it goes PEAR SHAPED.

Relief Teaching isn't easy. In fact teaching isn't easy. I've been a teacher since 1972 and I've laughed off the jokes from my mates about holidays, pay, kids, working 9-3. I'm sure you have heard it all before.

But a teacher's day or a relief teacher's day is CONSTANT. You have no let up the minute you drive in the gate until the time you drive out - and not always THEN.

I get it. All teachers get it. That's probably why teachers are one of the few professions that talk work out side of work, because you never have the chance AT work.

And then you have THOSE days where it all goes pear shaped. So what do you do?

READ MORE

How many ways can you teach number facts?

Anyone who teaches will know how important number facts are to success in mathematics. Gosh, all I can remember about my own primary school years is reciting my "tables" - and you know what? I think I am a pretty good mathematician as a result.

Teaching Tips to Motivate Students

Motivating Students Who Don't Care is a comprehensive and practical guide for reconnecting with discouraged students and reawakening their excitement and enthusiasm for learning.

Don't Relief Teacher's know this problem? Solving it is a lot harder but this resource will help.

It's not really a game.

A thousand years ago (well it feels like that)  learning centres were all the rage in schools and then like all things education, the pendulum swung away from this classroom approach. We used various activities and kids rotated through them. They WEREN'T GAMES.

So I revisited this teaching approach the other day while relief teaching in a senior primary class and used just ONE activity to see how it would pan out.

WOW!

It was brilliant. Kids were focussed, engaged with each other AND the strategy of the activity. (I avoided calling it a game - because we don't play games in school) It actually blew me away how successful this activity was.

Like all things relief teaching - if you love it - they will

I was doing a relief teaching stint working with a year 7 class yesterday and my timing must have been a bit out because I had about 15 minutes left before the morning tea break.

DRATS!