Day 126: 6/5/13
I got up today as if I was going to the school I was in last week and getting an early train. I was expecting them to call really early as they have rang around half six before to change/book other days. But I didn't get the call until ten to 7. I was starting to think that I wasn't going to get one but thankfully I did! The school is on the same train line as last week but even further out, so I had to run out the door to get the 7:09 train again. Luckily I had been up in time for that one anyway!!
It was a grade 4 class today. All the grade 4's ran around the oval today for about 15 minutes. I don't know are there many kids at home that would run as much as they did!! The other teachers were taking about new kids coming to the school and apparently there's always people trying to get into the school as they have excellent Naplan results (literary and numeracy tests) and its predominantly Asian with very high achievers.
When we got to class we had 'squircle time'! They can never make a proper circle so they call it a squircle!! I asked them to tell me where they or their parents were from and there were kids from Malaysia, China, Hong Kong, India, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Greece and probably more! There were two whose parents were born in Australia! Lots of them were born overseas too and not just their parents.
The teacher had left some work- reading a text and answering questions. They had that done in no time so they did some handwriting aswell. There was also a BFG sitting there so I got them to read a bit and find various words beginning with different letters of the alphabet. I dragged that out a bit!!
Later we did Maths. Some were catching up on multiplication work and others were doing fractions. They were daily good and worked on quickly. I played a knocked out tables game aswell to kill some time!
The staff room was pretty big so again all the teachers were spread out. Noone ever asks who you are or who you're in for, they just continue talking to who they're with so I've to keep introducing myself!! Given that they can't figure out what I'm saying when I say my name it can be quite a problem!!
After lunch the timetable was Thinking Skills and YCDI. For thinking skills he wanted them to try origami. There was a poster there with instructions so I tried some early in the day and managed to make a windmill thing and a boat. So we did one together and then I have them a few minutes to try the others themselves. Some of them were amazing- they were able to make birds and everything!! There's a lot of skill involved in origami and a lot of thinking- it's definitely something worth doing a lesson on!!
The kids told me YCDI stood for You Can Do It and the teacher next door told me they were focusing on organisation and how they will organise themselves for swimming lessons. (By the way they don't seem to have outdoor pools and swimming lessons the way they do in Queensland). I spoke about Ireland instead and answered their questions on it. I got them to organise the information they learned on some paper to bring in some organisation!!
The class were lovely all day- a little chatty but noone chancing their arm at all, all willing to work! I had given them puzzles and they were all interested in them and had lots for me to answer too! So I wouldn't mind going back to that school except its a long train journey. This school and the one I was in last week is in zone two which makes the train cost almost $12 a day!! I hope they start finding closer ones for me! I'm in the school from last week tomorrow and then I don't know after that.
When I got back I cooked some food and then Skyped the Cooley mountains to see how the bank holiday weekend was going! They'd a busy weekend of golf, football matches, pubs, breakfasts, lunches, Sharon Shannon..... A good weekend had by all I'd say!
I just went back to the room and read for a while then. I had woken up at 4 this morning and couldn't get back to sleep so I'll be having an early night!!