Howdy, wanna waltz?

So here goes, my first blog entry.

I guess I should do a bit of an intro here so that you, my dear readers, have some understanding of who I am, what I do and what my hopes are for this little corner of cyberspace that I've staked as my own. My name is Rachael but I'm better known to my students as Ms A (mainly because my surname is tricky to spell and trickier to say!). For the past 4 years, I've taught grade 6 at a fantastic primary school in Melbourne's western suburbs. I am lucky enough to work with an awesome team and an even greater bunch of kids. This year there are 23 little chickens in my class (they get used to the names I use for them - spunky monkeys, chickadees, smelly people) and I love spending my days with them.

As it's currently Term 4, my main focus is winding up the year for myself and also getting my kids as ready as possible for high school. It's so scary to think that they've only got 9 weeks of primary school ahead of them. Scarier for me because I'm currently on sick leave with glandular fever. This is possibly the worst I've ever felt in my life. No, strike that, it's DEFINITELY the worst I've ever felt. Missing out on my kids' last term is just adding to how awful I feel.

Which I guess I gets me to the question of what I hope for this little blog. I haven't really blogged as such since I was a teenager hooked on livejournal (please tell me I wasn't alone in my addiction there!) and my main aim then was to dump as much of my emotion out on the screen as possible. Today I'm older (absolutely), wiser (hopefully) and much less angst-ridden (hmmm...) so I think my main aim for this here blog would be to collect my thoughts about teaching and post any ideas that others might find useful.

A word about my teaching style and philosophy. I believe that learning is a lifelong endeavour. I love reading, I spend hours perfecting tasks and units of work and I have never taught a lesson the same way twice. My classroom is colourful (hence the title!) and I'm constantly rearranging displays and furniture. I try to make learning as interactive and engaging as possible. I don't use worksheets unless I absolutely have to, and generally speaking, I only use them when handing out projects or information that the kids need to hold onto. I'm looking forward to meeting more teachers online and learning more, more, more!

*Ms A