She is the creator of many of the colourful and engaging visual messages around the school that support the school’s philosophy and teachers’ belief in the importance of positive mesages and recognition of children’s achievements across a range of areas.

The ‘You Can Do It’ program is a professional development package that teachers completed and is used across the school. It focuses on boosting students’ self-esteem through recognition of their achievements and understanding how to achieve their potential. A wonderful paint and foam creation dominates the school’s foyer reminding teachers and students of the importnace of confidence, organisation and so on.

When teachers at the school wanted to recognise children for their achievements, they took the idea to the Grade 5 and 6 children to ask them what they wanted. Would they wear a button if it was presented to them? The children asked for small buttons that could be given to them privately, not at school assembly.

So Ursula went to work and created a wonderful range of buttons that recognise students’ achievements across all areas of the curriculum, in leadership, behaviour and attitude, and so on. They are kept in plastic jars in the print room where teachers can easily access them to pass onto a child.

One of the fun things about the buttons is the acronym for the achievement is given prominence in the middle of the design, with the full wording in small text around the outside of the button.

There’s G.A.E….. and P.A.A……. and T.C.K……. and R.R.W……. and M.A.M……

Now if you just HAVE to know what these acronyms stand for, you’ll have to ask a child at Selby Primary School or contact Ursula via the school’s website

Alice Dekkers (pictured here) graduated from the Bachelor of Teaching (primary/secondary) at Deakin University in 2005. In the unit ‘Language Education’, she created a wonderful handmade book based on the award winning Australian picture story book ‘Diary of a Wombat’ written by Jackie French and illustrated by Bruce Whatley (published in 2003 by Clarion Books).

Alice’s book is illustrated in collage, using pieces of bear-making fur, wood, aluminium foil and other materials. She also made a ‘wombat on a plate’ using a paper plate on which she sat a piece of bear-making fur that was made into a ball with stuffing (representing the back of the wombat disappearing down a burrow), with moulded feet out of plastic clay visible under the back of the wombat; small moulded carrots sat beside the wombat’s burrow.

For a review of ‘Diary of a Wombat’ by Jackie French (2003), author and illustrator profiles, and related teaching ideas and resources, go to http://publib.slq.qld.gov.au/cbw/2003/wombat.htm

Teaching resources:
Digital camera (optional)

Equipment:

• smoothie maker or blender
• extension power cord (if needed)
• spoon
• spatula
• cleaning cloth and spray
• cups (5 or more)
• electric scales (optional)
• measuring cup (optional)

Ingredients:

• milk (eg a litre)
• vanilla ice-cream (eg a litre)
• fruit – such as 3 ripe bananas, lge can of apricots or peaches, etc

Method:
I like the freedom of students making these ‘by sight’ (good for risk taking – theirs and yours!). A couple of large scoops of ice-cream, some fruit, some milk. Some more milk, more fruit etc until it looks and tastes right. The main thing is getting them to start by adding small amounts, bit by bit.
You can get the kids to measure and weigh the ingredients as they make it (so they’ll have their own recipe at the end!), estimating how much they think they’ll need and adding more of one or another ingredient if needed.

Follow-on activities: 

1. children write up their recipes and publish in class or school newsletter (language: writing procedural texts)
2. children calculate ingredients and cost for larger batch size to sell as a fund raiser (maths: estimation, measurement, money, multiplication)
3. children use digital photographs for a class recipe book (printed or electronic using Powerpoint) (IT: digital images, powerpoint, word processing).

After surfing the web and finding that ‘cooking’ and ‘kids’ tended to bring up sites that were designed for parents cooking with their children at home (rather than simple recipes you can do with groups of children in classrooms) and when I added ’school’ to the search, got a list of cooking schools!

A point raised in class this week was what we, as teachers, do with kids who have allergies? Well, if you check out Kids Health and scroll down, you’ll find recipes for children with a variety of conditions or allergies eg CF, diabetes, lactose intolerance and Celiac.

Many of the recipes are still more suitable for cooking at home, so, if you can’t find it easily … write it yourself! I’ll post recipes and the equipment needed for simple recipes that I’ve used in schools (or with my classes of teacher education students) and put up some associated teaching activities.

Your feedback, ideas, and your own recipes will be appreciated!

A: For a history of the Dolch word lists, go to this US site. And then read about the different uses (misuses?) the term has been used for at this site.

You can leave your comments or questions here if you want to ask about blogging, suggest resources, tell me about great things you have seen going on in schools, or request copies of material I have used in lectures or tutorials.

If you want to sign up for a blog, go to ‘blogroll’ (a category on right hand side of this site) and click on the link to ‘edublogs’.

Linda

Presenter: Dr Linda Komesaroff, Senior Lecturer – Faculty of Education, Deakin University, MelbourneFor more than a decade, complaints have been lodged against schools and education authorities by parents of deaf students claiming discrimination. Since 2003, two such cases have been determined by the Federal Court of Australia, in the ACT and Queensland, and a third was determined by the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal. Dr Komesaroff appeared as an expert witness in these cases and has published analyses of the legal action taken by parents over language use in deaf education, her most recent article appearing in the international journal Education and the Law.

Details
Thursday 25^th May
5 pm to 6 pm
Lecture Theatre 9
Building N, Level 1, room 1.04
Deakin University, Melbourne campus
221 Burwood Highway, Burwood

Further information

Registration and enquiries to Pauline Prins
5227 1465 or email pauline.prins@deakin.edu.au

If you’re a Deakin student and happy for me to add a link to your site, let me know.