Happy New Year

Another year has come and gone. I can distinctly remember all the work that went in to computer programs to ensure that Y2K (Year 2000) didn't create massive disruptions in the health system (and more particularly the BreastScreening program that I worked in at the time. At that time I had no idea what God had in store for me. In fact that was the year I embarked on a Graduate Certificate in Management (Queensland Health). I wasn't really sure where I was heading, but I guarantee that I wouldn't have even dreamed of being an elementary classroom teacher in an International School in Phnom Penh, let alone having been doing it for 9 years! Yes, I'm about to start my tenth year of teaching! Doing what I always wanted to do, back as far as primary school, and certainly for most of my high school year. God took me on a journey, eventually leading me to East-West International School, Phnom Penh. It's my sixth year at EWIS, and I still love it.

Tomorrow is the start of second semester for me. I've enjoyed the two week break from teaching (not completely from the classroom). Now I'm looking forward to seeing the children again tomorrow and getting them back into learning mode. Some of them have been busy over the break using RAZ-Kids and Xtra Math, which is good. Others have hopefully read the books they borrowed from the classroom library and school library. Some will have done both. My lessons for this week are planned and most of the preparation is complete.

Tomorrow we start work on daily number fact practice for multiplication. After we finish 40 days of multiplication we'll move on to division. Some of the students know their facts quite well so will be working on speed, others know them or can work them out very slowly, and they'll be working on speed as well, while others will be working on both speed and accuracy.

I'm not completely caught up on my marking, but there's not a huge amount to do. I'm hoping I can be completely up-to-date by the end of the week. I've still got after school program on Mondays for 3 more weeks, and then I'll do a term on Tuesdays, since uni has scheduled Collaborate lecture sessions on Monday afternoons.

My non-school goal for January is to read and take notes on my text book for the coming semester. The unit I'm about to embark on is called Inclusive Education: Theory, Policy and Practice. While the primary focus of the textbook is on the Australian and New Zealand context, I'm looking forward to exploring it in relation to the context of International Schools, especially in Asia, and particularly in Cambodia. Semester doesn't officially start until 22nd February, and actually teaching dates are 29th February to 3rd June, with a break from 26th March to 3rd April (I've got no doubt I'll be busy working on assignments during that break!). There will be plenty of extra reading to be done once the semester starts as well as lectures to listen to and assignments to write!

After a very early start this morning (4.30am wake-up to catch the flight back to Phnom Penh), I'm planning an early night tonight. I hope that plan works and I'm bright-eyed and well rested by 6am tomorrow for the coming school week. I hope that your 2016 has begun well, and is a good year. Soursedey Chnam Thmei. Happy New Year.

Reflecting on the first full week of school

Wow, I survived! I'm tired, and have been working 11-12 hour days, but I'm starting to feel like I might be able to get back into my study this weekend. After a short week last week, the five days this week felt a bit like a marathon, but it was pretty good. This morning, as I got a bit grumpy and short with my students first thing this morning, I knew I was tired. Thankfully I managed to get control of my mood and we ended up having a pretty good day, although those students who totally missed Fun Friday because they didn't do their homework probably didn't think so.

For the most part the week went well. Tuesday did not go at all to plan. When setting up my computer ready for the maths lesson I had planned, it kept telling me that my PowerPoint software was unlicensed, and throwing me out of the program. I tried doing a system restore, and that didn't work so I ended up having to refresh the system, which basically uninstalled everything back to a bare basic Windows set up. That meant I had to reinstall everything, including Microsoft Office and Adobe Reader. I got Adobe Reader installed, but couldn't get the computer to talk to the projector. One of the ICT teachers came down in the afternoon and tried to help, but he couldn't solve it either. Eventually I got onto the Acer website and downloaded the driver for the VGA card, and happily that solved the problem. I've still got some software that needs to be reinstalled, but at least the computer is functional again. It was a frustrating day, as I use the computer and projector for almost every Mathematics and English lesson, but I did  get through the day. I thank God that He has helped me to become more flexible, and that enabled me to adapt to the unforeseen challenges.

Once again, I was reminded that I need to show as well as tell the children exactly what they have to do, especially with things that I want done in a particular way. The prime example was homework. A few students got it from my "telling" but quite a few didn't. When I used the work of one of the students who did get it to show those who didn't get it what was required I got much better results. Part of the problem was that the document camera which I usually use for "showing" has developed a crack in one of the joints, and won't stay in position. I'm hopeful I can get a replacement for it, but also will be looking to see how I can repair/modify it so it is usable.

One thing I did manage to achieve this week was take some photos of the classroom on Monday afternoon, so you can see it now it's getting closer to being completely set up. I'd still love at least one more power outlet, preferably behind my desk, but for the time being I'm managing.

Classroom library, CAFE menu board, posters starting to go up, and storage.

This could still be a bit tidier, but most of my good boxes are now hidden away.

I love having space to walk around the mats.
With only 20 students there's one mat each, and if I get more students then there's room to add more mats!
I project onto the whiteboard, lowering the blind over the window darkens the room just enough.

I made a couple of adjustments to this area, moving my desk and turning the small shelf around,
and now it's working really well.

This is the other end of the classroom. My special needs student likes using the table in the corner, which I was going to use for the student computer, so I may need to come up with another plan for that, but at the moment it's working well. The noodles are for swimming lessons, and live in my room or they would quickly become damaged and unusable.

Weekly homework, daily timetable, and a small area for teaching above student storage.
We use the folders when I'm testing students to discourage copying.
The last five years has seen slow growth in my collection of games and puzzles to the good collection you see here.

The rest of the student storage areas, trays for books and work to be handed in,
classroom rules and management system, and the classroom jobs display.

This was one of my treats to myself this summer. These are fairly cheap in the USA but in Australia they are pretty expensive, so I make selections carefully. This year I bought this set for class jobs, and a matching set for birthdays, which I'll put up in the next week or two, once I get the information from the office (they've been crazy busy down there).

Well, that's it for this post. I hope you enjoyed this glimpse of the bright, spacious, new Grade 4K classroom. I'm loving it, and I think the children are too.

Reflecting on the first week

Amazingly the first day of school went fairly smoothly. We divided the fourth grade students into the two classes and headed into the building to get the day underway. I ended up with 18 students the first day, 19 on the second, and my full complement of 20 on the third day. I deliberately didn't plan to start core teaching on the first few days, but rather did some assessments (Mathematics number facts), getting to know you activities, and a couple of foundation lessons for beginning the Daily 5. There was plenty of read-a-loud time, and a good review of basic grammar, ready to start Write Rights next week (tomorrow).

My classroom wasn't completely set up on the first day, and I still haven't taken any photos of the classroom since 8th August, but here are a few that I took on the 8th, so you can see I was almost ready to get going on planning.

This wall is on the left as you walk into the room.

Starting to look more organized.

Yes, all the table tops were clear except for stuff to go to other places, and my backpack and lunchbox. Yay!

One of the two shelves behind my desk loaded with teacher resources.

This is the other shelf behind my desk. I love this one.
Those divided shelves make it much easier to keep folders upright.

I'll take some more photos in the next day or two showing what it looks like now the boards are up, and we've started using the room.

I have had one major challenge. A couple of days before school started, my new assistant decided that she didn't think she could work with me. I'm not going into reasons here, but it is partly my own fault for showing frustration when she didn't get something. A new assistant has been found, but is not going to be starting straight away, so for the next 3-4 weeks, I'm going to be managing on my own. I'm fortunate that my special needs student has her own assistant, and that young lady has been very helpful with a few things like escorting the students to and from lunch and recess. Others have also helped out in various ways, but there are limits. The other fourth grade assistant is going to be having very big Khmer classes until the new assistant comes, so I need to be very appreciative of her as well. I know that in Australia, having a full-time teaching assistant is probably unheard of, so I'm not complaining too much, but it is going to stretch me. At this point in time I've very glad I only have 20 students this year.

Now I've still got a few jobs to do before I can go to bed in order to be really ready for the coming week. so I'd better post this and get on with those jobs.

Making Progress

Hello again. After my stressed out post last week I thought I'd share just how much progress has actually been made in my classroom. Yes, progress has definitely been made.

By Monday morning they had almost finished the wall, except for a couple of strips that needed painting and grouting between the tiles. That was huge. By lunchtime Monday, when I had completely finished sorting out all the school supplies, the painting was done. My assistant and I then started work on cleaning the room. Yes, the cleaning staff have been working hard, so I felt that it wouldn't hurt to give them a hand, so I spent much of Monday afternoon on my hands and knees scrubbing an incredible grotty floor. My assistant very cheerfully did the same. We finished the afternoon by mopping it, and by the time I left I was happy for things to be moved in.

After a few hiccups on Tuesday, eventually the move happened, and it was almost complete by the time I went home to have lunch and work on university stuff for the rest of the afternoon. I sent my assistant home at the same time and told her to take one last day off before our official start day tomorrow. Sometimes it's actually easier to work on stuff alone while you are trying to work out what is where. All that stuff, plus trying to help my assistant be helpful would have been too much.

Wednesday morning, with the help of one of the other teaching assistants who had come in to work on her own room I brought across the last few boxes (they were pretty light). Then it was time to start unpacking and sorting stuff out. Thankfully I had labelled the boxes fairly well, so I wasn't completely digging into the unknown. By the end of the day I'd unpacked all the boxes, plus my old suitcase (taken in when I'd run out of boxes), sorted quite a bit of stuff, some stuff is even in the correct places, and I'm hopeful that by the end of tomorrow (if we don't have too long in meetings) I'll be mostly set up. Here are some photos of what my room looked like at the end of the day.

The main area of the room from the door.

The other side of the room from the door.

These are most of the boxes I unpacked. There were a few more photocopy paper boxes and some that were just not worth saving, but these ones are going to be hidden. They are behind my locked teacher storage cupboard but I'm thinking I might just find an old vinyl tablecloth to put over them to help keep the dust out and to make them more invisible.

The blue table in this picture will eventually go out into the hallway
where the girls will put their bags on top, and the boys will put theirs underneath.

These two photos show the teachers work area. Buried under all that stuff are two desks and two bookshelves.
Another of tomorrow's jobs is getting that space sorted out and everything put away tidily.

These are the top two drawers of my filing cabinet. Since I packed carefully, it was a fairly quick job to file everything.
Some of the files in the top drawer are not in the correct order  yet, because I haven't created the labels for the new students, but it's all in there and secure, so I'm happy about that.

Looking across the room from near the blue table.

These two bookshelves will house the classroom library. The books are sorted into levels or "unlevelled"
 so it should be a fairly easy process tomorrow to put them on the shelves.

Some more boxes I emptied, and some things that are waiting for homes.

Jigsaws in boxes on the top shelf, along with some games. This shelf still needs some work, but there are a few more things to be added which are currently at home, so I didn't spend too much time on it today. All those books in stacks are for the classroom library, sorted out ready to go.

 Yes, there's still quite a long way to go. Whiteboards and bulletin boards need to be installed, as do window blinds, and I need to work out how to get electricity from the door to my desk (I'll be going in search of a very long extension lead tomorrow afternoon I think.), but it is definitely taking shape. I'm looking forward to working in this room, with space to move between the children when they are working at the tables, and a bigger floor seating space. Exciting!

Feeling stressed

August is here, and school starts on Wednesday 12th August. My classroom is still packed up in the old building, and my new classroom is not finished. It was almost finished when I had a look on Friday lunchtime, but absolutely nothing has happened since then. I was hoping to get stuff moved across tomorrow afternoon so I could start getting things set up on Tuesday, but that's not going to happen.

There is one wall that it not yet finished. It looks a bit like the one above, with a little big more patching over joins in the sheeting. It needs two coats of paint (primer & top coat) to finish it. I suspect it's only going to get one, but hopefully I'm wrong.

There's also a window grill (like the one in the photo above) that needs to be put back in, blinds need to be installed, and all the stuff that it is in it (construction workers living there) has to be moved out.

Once all that is done, the room has to be cleaned (it's disgusting at the moment).

After that's done all my stuff will need to be moved from the 4th floor in the old building, down to the first floor of the old building, out a window, across the first floor of the connecting building, and up to the fourth floor of the new building. This photo from two years ago will give you a bit of an idea of just how much stuff that is!

I've also got to work out how I'm going to deal with the fact that there is only one powerpoint in the whole room, and that is beside the door in the light switch! All the furniture has to be put into position, and all the boxes unpacked and everything set up ready for school to start. Please pray for me. Pray for patience. Pray for endurance. Pray for serenity. I think I need to print a big copy of the serenity prayer and post it where I can see it often:

God grant me 

the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

the Courage to change the things I can,

and the Wisdom to know the difference.

A looks at some changes in Grade 4K for the 2014-15 school year.

It’s hard to believe that we’ve been back at school for eight weeks already, but it’s true. Admittedly one of those weeks was only two days long, but the first six weeks were full weeks. This summer I made some changes in my classroom as I prepared to implement “The Daily Five”. Rather than tell you about it, I thought I’d show you.

The door hasn’t changed, but when I was "home" in Australia last Christmas I found these great foam hands. They were blank, so one of our projects the first week of school was to get out the markers and glitter glue and decorate them. Each person put their own “stamp” on their hand and then I put them all up. Some of them slipped a bit before the glue dried, but it does make a fun door. 

The first thing on the right as you walk in the door is my new bookshelf! A big thank you to my colleague in the fifth grade who helped me buy the wood, and did the actual construction.  I’ve got room to buy a few more books now! The top shelf is a perfect fit for 22 book boxes. These were one of my special holiday purchases in Bangkok. They're narrower than normal magazine storage boxes, but just right for the books the students need to keep in them. They alternate high and low due to slightly different widths front and back, so by alternating they fit perfectly on the shelf! I love my “Star Helpers”. This was a purchase a few years back. Laminated it will last a few more years yet.

To make room for the new bookshelf, I stack the student “cubbies” on top of each other. I also did some trading. Previously I had twelve cubbies in each unit (3 rows of 4). Knowing I had 23 students this year, I traded one unit with one of the fifth grade teachers and the other with one of the third grade teachers so now I’ve got sixteen cubbies in each unit (4 rows of 4). That gave me a cubby for each table for the folders we use for testing, and a few spare for spare copies of workbooks, Go Check, Handwriting, and scrap paper. It also got the paper cutter and cleaning supplies out of reach of little fingers!

That did mean I lost the space on top of the shelves for day-to-day use, but it’s worked out quite well, and I found a small table which has worked well for water bottles and a working alone desk. This is not about isolating students, but about giving them a choice to work in a space where they won’t be distracted by their classmates. The supply baskets for each table are only put on this table at the end of the day so the main work tables can be cleaned.

The next photos allows you to see how they table fits in the room, and also the homework board, games shelf, and Parts of Speech Posters. There are still a couple of these to be added, but we haven’t covered them yet, so they’ll go up later in the year.

Each year I’ve found I have a number of students who are a bit shorter than the others, and so I found a slightly shorter table and some shorter chairs that work with the table. One of the reasons for this is that part of The Daily Five is about allowing students choices about where they sit. I don’t have a lot of room, but I now have a number of different options for them. You can see the other small table in the background of this picture.

An important part of The Daily Five is the CAFE board, with its menu of strategies for reading. We’re just getting started with it, but eventually it will have a smorgasbord of strategies and students will put their names under the strategy they are working. It’s a great visual reminder of things students are working on as they read. 

Well, I hope you’ve enjoyed a quick look around my classroom. I’ll try and get back here more often in the weeks ahead, but my University studies are taking a big chunk of my time at the moment. I’m learning heaps, and as I put what I learn into practice, my students are benefiting. 

Back to School Tomorrow

I'm finding it hard to believe the eight weeks of "Summer Break" are over, and I'm wishing I had another week or two. Life's like that.

Tomorrow morning I'll welcome my new 4th grade class at East-West International School. It's a full class, and I'm looking forward to getting to know them. Some I already know a little bit, and others I don't. Either way, I've got name tags ready for them all so I can quickly put the correct names to the faces (hopefully). Their books are all sorted and labelled, bookmarks are ready for home and in-class reading. Book boxes for "The Daily 5" are ready to go. My CAFE board is also ready to go. Lessons are planned for tomorrow, including a fun craft activity to finish the day.

So did I achieve everything on my summer "To Do" list? Not really, but I'm not stressing over it. One of the things I did finish was a Book Club for a book called "Awakened".

The biggest thing I've taken away from reading this book and the daily reflections is a reminder to think about how I'm talking to myself, making sure that talk is positive, and to avoid negativity as far as possible. An example is how I approached my schedule for the year. There was something in it that I wasn't real sure about, and which I actually knew wouldn't work because of classroom allocations. Instead of getting upset about it, I thought about it for a while and came up with a solution that would work for everyone. I got my early morning 20 minutes with my students back, my students still get recess and their music lessons, we get 50 minute language arts lessons that day, and my Khmer assistant gets two 30 minute lessons with the whole class later in the week instead of one 40 minute lesson. I'm hoping I can keep a positive mindset as the week continues and that this year will be even better than all those that have gone before.

Some of the things I did achieve include:

• taking photos for the math manipulatives catalogue,
• getting set up for The Daily 5 and CAFE,
• getting those workbooks checked and copied,
• catching up with a friend and her daughter in Bangkok,
• seeing a movie,
• doing some swimming and helping keep the pool clean,
• losing some weight (I've still got a way to go, but I'm heading in the right direction),
• some piano practice (not as much as I'd like but some is better than none),
• getting started on my studies,
• reading some novels,

Well, I've still got a few things I want to do before I go to bed, so I'm signing off for now. My cold has almost gone, with just a residual cough, so I'm hoping to get back into the pool very soon.

Looking forward to a great first day of school tomorrow! :)

First Day Fun

Just a quick post to let everyone know I survived the first day of school today. I have 22 students on my roll, of whom 20 were in attendance today. It's going to be a great year, and I'm looking forward to seeing this group of students show just how great they can be. They just loved the fact that I gave them a test on the first day of school (kidding), and also handed out homework on the first day. I'm such a mean teacher, but with only 7 full weeks in the first 16 weeks of the school year I have to make every day count. Looking forward to a good night's sleep (I've earned it), and another day of fun and learning tomorrow.

Post 300 - Farewell Summer Break

This post marks a landmark on my blog. It is post number 300. I hope all those who read it enjoy the glimpses they get of my life, mostly here in Cambodia but occasionally in other places. I look forward to writing more once school resumes for the students in one week!

Meanwhile, teacher orientation and preparation week starts tomorrow.

This last week has just flown by, with most of my time focused on two tasks.

Most teachers would be familiar with taking "running records" to assess student reading. This summer one of my projects has been updating our resources for this. There's been a lot of downloading, printing, and photocopying done, and there's still some laminating and then a lot of filing to be done before that job is complete, but it is well and truly on the way. My goal is to have that job finished by the end of the week, but I am somewhat dependent on other people to get that done.

The second task was one that has saved our principal a heap of work, and hopefully will make staff quite a bit happier. The principal, one of the Khmer teachers and I made some decisions about a baseline supply list, and the Khmer teacher and I went to the markets and got some prices. Later that day I went back to the markets on my own and placed the initial order. It was a big order, and was delivered the next day. With over 2000 books to be sorted and allocated, as well as other materials, I spent most of Saturday working on it. However I'm hoping the result will be a happy principal and happy staff. It won't be everything they want or need, but it will be a starting point. We'll see what sort of reactions we get tomorrow.

So now, I've got a few jobs to do and then I'm off to bed. Need to get a good night's sleep so I can be up bright and early tomorrow. Getting excited!

First day back ... for teachers

I've been back in Cambodia for just over a week, and today was the first official day back at school for teachers. It was great to be back. There were lots of new faces, especially among the secondary staff, and it's looking like being a great year.

We all met in the hall, and it was time for the round of introductions, then a break to meet individual, then time for some sharing by the principal about the history and establishment of the school.

After that it was off to the classrooms! I did get most of my furniture moved one day last week, and had started unpacking stuff, but then managed to get sick, so it had pretty much stalled at the stage of the photos below.

 

Today, with the capable help of my trusty assistant Choundy (Mr Dy), much more progress was made. All the boxes are emptied, and quite a bit of stuff got put away. In between there was much sharing of information with new colleagues and a little planning going on. I'll take some before and after shots tomorrow, and let's hope it looks a lot more like a classroom by the end of the day tomorrow.

 

Now it's almost time for bed, since I havea meeting with my fellow 4th grade teacher tomorrow morning to finalise our lists of school supplies to be ordered before the whole of school meeting in the hall at 9am. Looking forward to another fun day of getting ready, and to meeting all my new students next week!