Zentangles

Today I had a 4/5/6 class and luckily for me the teacher had prepared all of the work for the students...she did however leave the afternoon free for something to teach of my choice. 

So, I chose one of my favourite activities which is drawing a Zentangle.

What is a Zentangle?

Well basically a Zentangle is an artwork through which only a black marker is used to draw repetitious patterns in small spaces. It's like doodling but more artistic.

Why use Zentangles in the classroom?

Zentangles are great because it allows students to create an artwork that is abstract. It requires concentration  which encourages students to stay on task and focused.

I find that they are great because you can talk about lines, tones and repetition. Students are able to explore this through copying patterns from youtube.com or design their own. 

Zentangles are awesome for casual teachers because all that's required is a piece of paper and felt tip pen or permanent marker. All the examples and support resources can be found on youtube.com or in google images. 

The kids today loved it. They loved watching the youtube clips on how to do create certain patterns. What they enjoyed even more was desigining their own and sharing and copying their peers patterns.

Some of them looked like a mess at first, but slowly the students got the hang on it and filled in white areas with patterns and blocking.

I said to the students to take them home but they were so upset because they wanted to hang them in the classroom.

BE WARNED.... proper Zentangles take hours to complete. The students who took their time didn't finish but the sections they had completed looked fantastic. 

Utterly Exhausted

SO yesterday was another day of casual teaching for me......Wasn't one of my best and I walked out of the school completely exhausted.

It was supposed to be a half day of teaching in the afternoon (12-3), however in the morning I received frantic phone-calls from the office ladies informing me that I was misinformed and in fact it was supposed to be (9-12). From what I could gather from the lady on the phone, this confusion occurs frequently.

I knew that I was on Kindergarten so i prepared some activities and headed on in. However, when I arrived, I was informed that I was in fact on a 4/5 class. 'Not to worry' I thought, "I have my nifty usb with me surely there will be something on that'.

Luckily however, this particular afternoon, another teacher taught the students music and drama. Problem being, this did not give me an opportunity to introduce myself to the students and get to know them (or their names).

I generally find that when you know a students name, behaviour management is easier because you are able to quickly get their attention. 

It is for this reason that I struggled during the 20 mins in the afternoon that I had alone with them. The students were supposed to be silent reading but completely disregarded me. I tried using presence, raising my voice, eye contact, praising other students and all the other stuff you learn at uni, but none of it worked. As a last resort, I had one student tell me the names of all the students in the class (discreetly). 

Once she had sat down, I announced to the class that I had a list of people who were being disrespectful and had been off task for the majority of the afternoon. I explained that I would be handing this list to their classroom teacher at the end of the day for him to deal with tomorrow. I furthered this by saying that students who from this point onwards demonstrated respect to both myself and their peers and displayed on task behaviours would be able to have their name crossed off.

Surprisingly, this seemed to work for several of the troublesome students. I therefore tried to be extra positive with these students as I had been so negative towards them prior. 

I really dislike being so negative towards students and at uni they tell you for everyone negative comment, give three positive...... yesterday this was extremely difficult. I suppose the next step for me is to develop some stronger behaviour management techniques.

Fingers crossed.... because I now have a 4/5/6 class today (at a different school).

The ball is rolling...

It's finally happening!!!!

In the last two days I have received three phone calls to offer me work!! Turns out that a little sucking up is a great way to get work. I went around to all the schools that I initially handed my resumes into and just refreshed their memories of me. Turns out it was a great idea as two of the schools mentioned to me that was the reason I got the work.

I hate being a suck up though....so cheesy and brown nosey.

The next step is to develop resources that are easy to pull out and use.

Watch this space....I'm planning on sharing.

My First Month of Casual Teaching EVER!!!

Well, I guess I'll start by introducing myself. My name is Jaime and I finished my university degree last year. This means that 2013 is my first year out casual teaching...eeep!

I am the type of person who likes a challenge and often find myself biting off more then I can chew. Well, once again I challenged myself by moving out of home for the first time into a completely new area. Whilst this may not seem like a challenge for some, coping with a major life change such as moving out can be quite a struggle. Fortunately for me however, moving out was fun and exciting and I'm loving my independence. 

The challenge however, was realising that through moving to an area 2hrs away, I would have to start over with making connections and networking with the schools. In Sydney, I had strong connections and good relationships with all of the teachers I had collaborated with during my professional experiences. 

It's now the end of Feb meaning that school has been back for a month or so and I'm not going to lie, I have had very little work. By this I mean I have had one day of teaching. Spending most of my time at home bored out of my mind can cause some people to go mad (I nearly did). However, I was determined however not to let this get me down. I have many friends who were casual teachers a few years back and they kept saying to me 'Term 1 is always hard for casual teachers'. 

However, over the last two weeks, things have started to turn around for me. My boyfriend mentioned that I was a primary school teacher to the receptionist at his work. This is all it took for my networking to begin.

I began tutoring for this lady who then gave my number to a friend who also required a tutor. This little bit of tutoring enabled me to gain a small income each week. 
Not knowing the area also made it hard to find schools. I attempted googling schools in the area but as many of the schools in rural areas are so small (3 classes), many of them were not listed on google maps.

This very kind lady therefore wrote out a list of schools in the area for me and suggested a specific school that her sister in-law was the current assistant principal at. 
I handed my resume in at this school yesterday and received a call from the office lady of this school this morning offering me two days work next week.

I suppose the moral of this story is support and networking comes from the weirdest of places sometimes. In this case my boyfriends receptionist. Don't give up and keep building those networks. It takes time but I know that I'll get there soon.