2008 May | Ben Miatke

Recent update

Operation: KERMIT Winners

May 19th, 2008 by bmiatke

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Operation: KERMIT

May 15th, 2008 by bmiatke

Our student teacher Mr Miatke set up a mission:

FIND KERMIT THE FROG!!!

We find out that Kermit had been “puppet-napped”.

Mr Miatke has been teaching us about fractions. He put us into pairs and we went outside. When outside each pair was given one clue to start with. My partner was Lucy. Our first clue led us to the goal post on the oval. When there we had to work out a question to do with fractions. Each time we got a clue we did the same thing. After we got all the clues, we got a sheet and we had to work out where Kermit was from the answers. Kermit was in the Office. Lucy and I were first to finish. We had a lot of fun!

By Emma

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Week 2 begins

May 13th, 2008 by bmiatke

Week 2 began bright and early monday morning. This week is quite a normal week with no days off for the students and classes are back to normal. I am teaching maths everyday plus PE lessons on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. This should be a good week!!

Cheers

Ben

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The 16 Habits

May 8th, 2008 by bmiatke

1. Persisting - Sticking to the Job – seeing it through to the completion of the task. Looking for ways to solve the problems when you come up against them.

2. Managing Implusivity – Take your time and think before you act. Remain calm, thoughtful and deliberative.

3. Listening with Understanding and Empathy – Understanding others. Thinking about others thoughts and ideas.

4. Thinking Flexibly – Look at things in another way. Change your Perspective, change things around and think of other options.

5. Thinking about Thinking (Metacognition) – Know about your Knowing. Being aware of your thoughts, strategies, feelings and actions and their effects on others.

6. Striving for Accuracy – Check it aAgain. Always do your best and setting high standards. Always looking at how you can improve.

7. Questioning and Problem Posing – How do you know? Having a questioning attitude; knowing what data are needed and developing questioning strategies to produce those data. Finding problems to solve.

8. Applying Past Knowledge to New Situations – Use what you have already learnt and transferring that knowledge to the new situation.

9. Communicating with Precision and Clarity – Be clear. Strive for accuracy in communication in both written and oral forms. Avoid over generalisations, distortions, deletions and exaggerations.

10. Gather data through all senses – Use the natural pathways. Pay attention to the world around you. Gather data through all the senses – touch, taste, smell, hearing and sight.

11. Creating, Imaging and Innovating – Try things in a different way. Generating new and novel ideas, fluency and originality.

12. Responding with Wonderment and Awe - Having fun figuring it out. Finding the world wonderful and awesome.

13. Taking Responsible Risks – Venture Out. Be adventuresome; living on the edge of one’s competence. Try new things constantly.

14. Finding Humour – Laugh a little. Finding the whimsical, incongrous and unexpected. Being able to laugh at yourself.

15. Thinking Interdependently – Work Together! Being able to work and learn from others in reciprocal situations. Team Work!

16. Remaining Open to Continuous Learning – I have so much to learn! Being able to say to say that you dont know somethng

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Day Four

May 8th, 2008 by bmiatke

Day four of teaching rounds was again enjoyable and full of action. The day started off with Literacy, where the students went through handwriting, spelling and a bit of grammar. Maths was after recess and I again took this session. We continued on with fraction equivalency and we tried something different – we expanded to improper fraction equivalency and mixed numbers. We had a rotation system, where there was five stations and they completed each station for 10 minutes. These stations included: Interactive Computer Work, Practical Water Cup activities, problem solving activities, equations work and a card game worksheet. Judging from the responses of the students during the session they enjoyed it. It was hectic to start with, but as they got the hang of the transition between groups, these eased up slightly. After lunch was Year 6 rotations and our class went to Science with Mr Hill. We went through circuits with batteries and globes. We had to see what were conductors and what were resistors.

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May 7th, 2008 by bmiatke

Today was Day Three of my placement at Horsham West P.S in the Year 6 classroom.

I ventured into fractions for my first whole class maths lesson of the week – explaining fractions and their equivalency with decimals and percentages. I tried to fill the lesson with games and as little sitting down and doing worksheets as possible, and I think the students like it this way. The day was also filled with Rotations in which my class ventured further into maths but moved onto a bit of area and measuring houses for carpet etc.

After lunch we hit the papers, the newspapers that is. We analysed the advertising inside devoted to mother’s day. We picked out the key features and applied these to our own personal Mother’s Day advertising piece. The student’s worked well and seemed to enjoy this activity.

The highlight of the day for me was when I gave them a conundrum just before lunch. It was a reasonably hard one and it was good to see the kids using their imaginations and coming up with some good questions. And after a few small hints from me, they actually got the correct answer. They enjoyed it so much we did some more after lunch as well!!!

Over all a great day! Looking forward to tomorrow.

Ben

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