Hi everyone,
What an interesting response to my blog post yesterday and comments on my Instagram today. It seems that we all have our moments and can find this all overwhelming at times. Having limited WiFi today meant that I wasn’t on the laptop as much and I really needed the break from it. I think I need to better manage my time during the day to allow for more Self Care time. (With the arrival of my new egg chair, it’s the perfect excuse)
My class were working on the novel Friend or Foe before school closed and we finished it on Monday. Friend or Foe is written by Brian Gallagher and is about the 1916 Rising in Dublin. I chose this novel to link in with the outreach programme we were working on with Glasnevin Cemetery which included a trip to Glasnevin to build on the work we had done in class. In the current situation the trip was postponed. But I was glad to have finished the school based work before schools closed so the children could work on projects at home based on 1916.
As we had finished the novel, I was in search of some material for the class to read. I like to set a written task every day and then try and prompt a discussion on Microsoft Teams where the class share their opinion, a prediction etc and others must respond to comments of their peers. It was working really well in Edmodo before the break but I need to develop it more with my class on Teams.
I was searching for some new books to share and was delighted to have access to the new Over the Moon Series from Gill Education. I was a huge fan of their Fireworks when it was introduced first, I loved the idea of ebooks rather than lots of little readers. It reduced the cost for parents. We have also adopted the Fireworks anthologies across the senior end of the school too so I was excited to see the new Over the Moon series for senior classes.
I shared the link for the ebook directly onto my Teams page for each class, so the ebook opens within Teams and their is no copying and pasting or opening new tabs for books (a feature of Teams I love). I also like how in Over the Moon they focus on a writing genre over a couple of units which is the format we have adopted in my own school. We were focusing on Narrative before the break so I wanted to continue it for the moment. I shared the story Out of My Mind from the 5th class anthology with my class this week.
I am going to try recreate my whole class guided reading (thanks Rebecca the Irish Teacher) within Teams this week. So today, they read the story and looked at new vocabulary and completed vocab labs on Seesaw. Tomorrow, they will re read the story, record their reading on Seesaw and then write up a mixture of questions. Some they will share on Teams for their peers. Thursday they will reread the story again and then look at the activities within the anthology and Friday they will look at grammar activities. I am going to give this format a go and see how it goes this week. Then try plan ahead for next week.
Gill Education have open access for their Over The Moon series so it is definitely worth checking out and sharing access with your class. As I mentioned I am a huge fan of Fireworks so I’m hoping Over the Moon will be a huge hit with my class too.
If you have any questions on today’s post, please send me a DM.
Stay Safe Everyone. Tomorrow is another day
Aistear Muinteoir.
Aistear Múinteoir 