It is during the final weeks of January and the first weeks of February that most teachers and children in the Southern Hemisphere begin their school year. Parents breathe a sigh of relief as the long holidays come to an end and teachers and children look forward to the year ahead with mixed feelings ranging from the excitement of a new adventure to anxiety or even dread. Perhaps it is no coincidence that Children’s Mental Health Week falls in the first week of February.
Children’s Mental Health Week
Children’s Mental Health Week runs from 3 – 9 February this year. The purpose of the week is to encourage children to look after their bodies and their minds. A positive classroom environment that is both welcoming and supportive helps to ensure children stay happy with healthy mental attitudes. It supports the development of self-esteem, self-confidence and the development of social skills, including getting along with others.
Here at readilearn, we can help you establish a supportive classroom environment and provide you with teaching resources that focus on developing social-emotional skills. While these are appropriate for any time of the year, a special focus during mental health week provides opportunities for reading books and engaging children in activities that are conducive to positive attitudes.
Of special note this year is that many children in Australia may begin the school year distressed by what they have personally experienced or may have seen or heard about the bushfires that have caused so much damage to our country.
While I am unable to give specialised support for dealing with trauma, this article in the Conversation has suggestions to help teachers support students, and includes links to other information. It is pleasing to see that extra funds have been made available to assist teachers and students who have been affected by the fires. If you have been affected and I can support you with a free subscription to readilearn, just let me know.
Resources for a supportive classroom environment
You can find suggestions for establishing a supportive classroom in these previous posts:
I was recently approached by some parents who had been informed by teachers that their children were not achieving the expected level in reading for the class and that, although they were only in year one, were not on target for success in NAPLAN eighteen months later.
The parents were anxious and wanted to know how they could support their children at home. Tutoring was out of the question due to distance and, while it is always best to tailor strategies to a child’s individual needs, there are some basics which are applicable to most.
My first recommendation to the parents was to reduce the pressure — on all of them, parents and children, and to be as relaxed as possible about their learning. I explained that learning doesn’t occur in a stressful situation and that parents need to support their children by working with and not against them.
4 easy ways for parents to support children’s interest in reading
I consider these to be the main non-negotiables.
Unrelated to anything school, read stories to your children every day. Make it part of the routine. Bedtime is often recommended, but it can be anytime. Let them choose the book. Discuss it with them: What do you think is going to happen? Why did he do that? I think that’s (funny, clever, wise…) what do you think? I didn’t expect that to happen, did you? Did you like the ending? How else could it end? You need to remember that your role is not one of testing; you are sharing ideas. You don’t need to restrict the reading to picture books. Read chapter books too – a chapter or two a night. Same deal. Discuss the book with the children and encourage them to think about the characters and events.
Talk with your children — about your day, their day, their friends, things they like, what they want to do, their ideas. Discuss what you watch together on TV or the iPad, what they watch on her own. Documentaries are great to develop curiosity, knowledge and language. The larger the vocabulary, the easier reading becomes. Background knowledge is essential to reading.
I wish you all an enjoyable, rewarding and successful 2020.
For many of us in the Southern Hemisphere, the school year begins later this month or early next month. Most of us are already making preparations for the year ahead, thinking about how we will organise our classrooms and what we will teach. Preparation can take a lot of our ‘own’ time but being organised can reduce anxiety when the school year begins.
At readilearn, our aim is to lessen your workload by assisting with preparation, giving you more time for those things non-work-related things you enjoy.
Start out right from day one
Establish a supportive classroom
When you are confident and organised from day one, the children (and their parents) will feel welcome and have positive attitudes to you, your classroom and school. You will set the tone for a successful school year for both you and your students.
The free resource Getting ready for the first day with Busy Bee resources lists some first day resources with suggestions for using them; including a welcome letter, a welcome sign for the door, desk name templates, name badges and a birthday chart.
Throughout the year there are many special days and events that are worthy of celebration in the classroom. They may draw attention to issues affecting our world and its inhabitants or celebrate achievements and contributions to the arts or our collective knowledge.
On the last Friday of each month, I will provide you with a list of days and events worthy of celebration in the following month. This is the list for January. The list is not exhaustive and is simply some ideas to spark your imagination.
International Year of Plant Health
As 2020 is the International Year of Plant Health, January is the ideal time to start thinking about how you can use the theme Protecting Plants, Protecting Life to foster learning throughout the year. It fits perfectly into Science Biology units that focus on living things, habitats and the environment; or perhaps you might consider using it as an overarching theme in your classroom for the year.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, the year “is a once in a lifetime opportunity to raise global awareness on how protecting plant health can help end hunger, reduce poverty, protect the environment, and boost economic development.”
Some ideas:
Establish a vegetable or native garden
Adopt an area of bushland
Decorate your classroom with a plant theme
Have potted plants in your classroom
Schedule time in your program for exploring outdoors
Conduct experiments about the needs and features of living things — plants
Teachers are forward thinkers and future planners. Even though 2019 is not yet done, many will already be thinking ahead and planning for the 2020 teaching year.
To assist in that planning, I have compiled a list of special days and events you may wish to celebrate in your classroom throughout the year. While the information provided in this list is brief, on the last Friday of each month, I will publish a more detailed list of the special days for the following month with accompanying teaching suggestions. By the end of 2020 we should have a substantial list of days to celebrate and suggestions for doing so. Please let me know of any days I have omitted that you would like to see included.
Of course, it is not intended that you would celebrate all the days. Rather, that you would choose those of interest to you and your children and those that fit with your program.
A printable copy of this list is available to download freehere.
Leap into 2020 the International Year of Plant Health
2020 is a leap year so get ready to celebrate. It is also the International Year of Plant Health with the theme Protecting Plants, Protecting Life.
“a once in a lifetime opportunity to raise global awareness on how protecting plant health can help end hunger, reduce poverty, protect the environment, and boost economic development.”
Now would be a good time to begin thinking about what you can do throughout the year to celebrate and protect plants, perhaps using the topic as an overarching theme for the year.
Ideas for teaching and learning about plant health:
Most of us have fears that can become monsters if we allow them to get out of control. Learning how to manage them and put them in perspective is essential for mental health.
In this post, I introduce you to Megan Higginson, author of the newly released picture book Raymund and the Fear Monster.
About Megan Higginson
Megan Higginson loves to write and illustrate stories of monsters, aliens, and mind-blowing places and asking questions like, ‘What if?’. Megan Higginson is also an artist, speaker, street library ambassador, a Books in Homes Role Model, dyslexic book worm, a mother, a qualified youth worker and education support worker, and a retired horse whisper. Megan believes in living an amazing life even with a chronic illness and encouraging kids and adults not to give up. She hopes her stories and illustrations will help readers to look at their life and the world around them with new eyes.
Megan is the author of, The Sock Thief which was included in The Creative Kids Tales Story Collection Vol. 1 in 2017, and An Angel to Watch Over Them (shortlisted) in the anthology Three Dummies in a Dinghy and Other Stories of Life in 2018. Her stories, Freya and the Fear Monster and Super Moon and Fairy Dust in The Creative Kids Tales Story Collection Vol. 2 in 2019. Three Seconds, Truck Stops and Log Trucks (shortlisted) in Papa’s Shoes and Other Stories of Life 2019. She loves to write stories of monsters, aliens, and mind-blowing places.
About Raymund and the Fear Monster
A tale of courage and overcoming fears when the odds seem to be stacked against you.
At the top of an enormous mountain is a dark and gloomy forest. In the dark and gloomy forest lives a monster who roars and growls and makes terrible noises. Raymund lives in a small village at the bottom of the enormous mountain. Raymund is scared of many things. But, most of all he is afraid of the night, and the monster that sends him running to hide under his bed. How will Raymund face his fear, discover what it means to have courage, and defeat the huge and hideous monster that smells like fish guts, rotten eggs and smelly feet?
Nursery rhymes are often a child’s first introduction to our literary heritage. Parents sing nursery rhyme lullabies to soothe their babies to sleep and play nursery rhyme games to entertain them in their waking hours. All the while, children are learning the rhythms and tones of our language, developing vocabulary, ideas and imagination. When children learn the repetitive patterns of nursery rhymes, they are also developing their memories.
Australian author Mem Fox is often quoted as saying that
“Experts in literacy and child development have discovered that if children know eight nursery rhymes by heart by the time they’re four years old, they’re usually among the best readers by the time they’re eight.”
While I am aware that others question the existence of research to back up that statement, I think most teachers would agree that children who have been spoken to, sung to (including nursery rhymes) and read to before school will find literacy learning much easier in our classrooms. Success with literacy learning often correlates with success later in life.
Already on the readilearn website, there are resources to support your literacy teaching using the nursery rhymes Humpty Dumpty and Little Miss Muffet. More are in development. While some nursery rhymes may be considered to have questionable origins, those origins have no place when teaching them to children. The benefits flow from having fun with the rhythms and rhymes of language.
Teaching literacy skills & developing creative thinking with Humpty Dumpty
Poetry is a wonderful tool for learning language. When children listen to or recite poetry, they are learning the rhythms and sounds of language, exploring ideas and how to express them, expanding vocabularies, deepening understanding in nuances of meaning, and having fun with thoughts and their expression.
Children are exposed to rhythm and rhyme from their earliest days through nursery rhymes, chants and songs as well as the text of picture books. It is important for children to have opportunities for appreciating and exploring poetry into and throughout their school years. The Australian Curriculum places poetry firmly into the literature strand of English teaching each year. But it is not necessary to relegate poetry just to a poetry unit of work when stipulated by the curriculum. Poetry, rhymes, chants and songs can be easily incorporated into the daily class program.
Michael Rosen, who you may know as the author of Going on a Bear Hunt and who I previously introduced to you in this post, shares some recommendations for teaching poetry on his blog. Although the suggestions were written for a year one teacher, I think the suggestions could be extended out to other years. Following his recommendations would more than cover the expectations of the Australian Curriculum, and what a wonderful way to turn children (and yourself) onto poetry.
I’m only sharing a few of his recommendations here. Please visit his website to read the others.
Michael Rosen’s suggestions for teaching poetry
Get as many poetry books into your classroom as possible. Encourage the children in pairs to browse, choose and read.
Read poems to them every day, use vids of poets (check out Michael Rosen’s YouTube channel) , use national poetry archive. Writing poems with no poems in your head is too big an ask. Fill their heads with ‘What poetry can do’ ie loads of poems.
I would have to say that, here in Australia, we have been rather insulated from the Halloween phenomena until recent years and it was only very recently that I became aware of the Mexican holiday Dia De Los Muertos, which celebrates the dead, remembering them and celebrating with them as if they were alive. What a wonderful way of keeping the memory of loved ones who have passed, alive.
We are not very good about discussing death in our culture, especially with children. Rather than accepted as a normal stage of life, it is kept secret as if to be feared. Yes, none of us want to go before we’re ready, but there isn’t one of us, as far as I know, who has found the secret of living (in this Earthly lifetime) forever.
The Tiny Star
Last week I had the absolute joy of attending the launch of a lovely new picture book The Tiny Star, written by Mem Fox and beautifully illustrated by Freya Blackwood. The book is a joyous celebration of life’s journey from the beginning when ‘a tiny star fell to earth and turned into a baby’ until its return to the night sky where it would be ‘loving them from afar and watching over them … forever.’ The book provides a beautiful opportunity for discussing, even with very young children, the passage of time and the passing of loved ones in a way that is sensitive, respectful and meaningful. It is a book, just like each ‘star’, to be treasured. You can hear Mem read the book by following the link in the book’s title above and listen to her discussing the book with illustrator Freya Blackwood in this video.
The Fix-It Man
Another lovely picture book that deals well with the topic of death for young children is The Fix-It Man, written by Dimity Powell and illustrated by Nicky Johnston. The book deals, sensitively and honestly, with a child’s grief at the loss of a parent. The child discovers that her father, who is usually able to fix any broken thing, is unable to fix her sick mother. Together the child and father find a way to support and strengthen each other through their grief and come to terms with their loss.
The Forever Kid
The Forever Kid, written by Elizabeth Cummings and illustrated by Cheri Hughes, is another lovely picture book that sensitively tackles the topic of death, this time with the loss of a sibling. Each day, on the ‘forever’ child’s birthday, the family keeps his memory alive by celebrating with his favourite activity—lying on their backs on the grass telling cloud stories. Families who have experienced the loss of a child may be moved to find their own ways of remembering and celebrating the life that was. (I interviewed Elizabeth about The Forever Kid for readilearnhere.)
Flash fiction challenge
So, back to Charli’s challenge to write about the Day of the Dead. While Halloween and the Day of the Dead have similarities (perhaps more to the uninitiated than to those in the know), they are not the same thing. However, my story is probably more like Halloween than the Day of the Dead. Oh well, that’s where the prompt took me, maybe because of the discussion about Halloween not being an Australian tradition that arises at this time every year, and perhaps because, in the 80s (anyone else remember that far back?) we teachers were instructed to not do anything involving Halloween or witches in our classrooms. That has now been revoked and many teachers work a little fun into their program with Halloween-themed activities. (As I suggested on readilearn recently.)
Anyway, here goes.
Full Bags, Dying Heart
From his room, Johnny watched the parade of monsters and ghouls wending from door to door. They laughed and giggled, whooped and cheered, clutching bags bulging with candy.
“Get inside,” she’d admonished.
“Why?”
“It’s the devil’s work. Dressing up like dead people. It’s not our way.”
She’d dragged him inside, shut the door and turned off the lights.
“We don’t want those nasty children knocking on our door.”
“But, Mum. It’s Graham and Gerard and even sweet Sue …”
“Enough! Get to your room!”
He watched, puzzled—How could it be devil’s work? They were his friends having fun.
Thank you for reading.
Note: I would have liked to write a sequel to this where Johnny sneaks out and joins his friends, but I ran out of time. Maybe another time.
I appreciate your comments. Please share your thoughts.
The importance of reading to children every day is never far from my mind. It comes from a passion for all things literacy as well as the knowledge that reading means empowerment. Reading is the key that unlocks so much that is meaningful in today’s world.
Whether at home or in the classroom, children need to listen to stories read aloud to them every day. It should be non-negotiable and prioritised. I would also add time for independent reading of self-selected material to that non-negotiable list and, in the classroom, time for independent writing on self-chosen topics.
Listening to stories benefits children in many ways; including, but not limited to:
Sheer enjoyment
Connection with others and other ideas which leads to understanding, respect and empathy
Exposure to language and vocabulary which in turns develops language and vocabulary
Positive feelings for books as a source of pleasure and information and a stimulus for imagination and creativity
A model of fluent and expressive reading behaviour that can be aspired to and emulate
A desire to read for oneself.
Keeping in mind that reading aloud to children and making time for their independent reading are non-negotiable and occur in the classroom every day, children also require purposeful instruction in the process of reading.
While some children appear to learn easily and without effort before starting school, as my own two children did, others struggle to understand the marks on the page. Most children fall somewhere on a continuum between, benefitting from instruction along the way.
The readilearn collection of teaching resources for teachers of the first three years of school includes many to support your teaching of reading. Many resources are free, others are available for no more than a few dollars, or you can access all the resources for one low annual subscription of just A$25. (That’s about £13, €15, US$17 or CAN$22) I’m sure you’ll agree that’s great value.
As part of our support for reading aloud, on the readilearn blog we regularly conduct interviews with authors and illustrators about their new books. Many of these interviews are available to download free from the Author and Illustrator Spotlight resources. We also publish free lists of books on different topics for you to download; for example,
Norah Colvin 