New Literature Units on TPT

These three unit plans have just been put on Teachers Pay Teachers.(Just click on the title of each below and it will take you to the product) Ash Road was a novel we studied last summer (2012) and is a free download. The Silver Brumby was developed this year for a 'horse happy' student in my class but will hopefully be enjoyed by others.
I hope to add five or six more classic Australian children's novel units before the end of the year. The Children of Green Knowe is an old favourite. I'll read that as a serial later this year possibly with Tom's Midnight Garden. Don't forget that there are also unit plans on my old Tumblr blog (Check that out on the sidebar)


The Children of Green Knowe
A Blooms Literature unit plan for the first book in Lucy Boston's Children of Green Knowe series.

The Silver Brumby
This Blooms Taxonomy literature plan for the Silver Brumby is the second in a series of classic Australian children's book unit plans on Teachers Pay Teachers.Others in this series will include-Storm Boy, Playing Beattie Bow, The Riddle of the Trumpalar, The Nargun and the Stars and others. Some will be free and others will cost a modest $3.00. The aim is to re-kindle interest in fantastic internationally award winning and popular Australian literature from authors such as Joan Phippson, Colin Thiele, Ivan Southall, Ruth Park and more.

Ash Road
Ash Road by Ivan Southall is the first in a series of Blooms Taxonomy literature units based on classic Australian children's literature from the 60s to 80s.

<< Click here to go straight to my Teachers Pay Teachers shop

Valentine's Day Art

Cool hands - warm heart picture for Valentine's Day. Some got the idea of warm and cool colors a bit mixed up but they still did a good job. Their mums should be pleased when they get these on Thursday.

Regional Directors Meeting

NSouth Western Victorian Region
Today we received information about the new Regional structure which now stretches from Footscray to the SA border including Geelong.
The new region is huge. you don't appreciate how big it is until you see it outlined on a map of Victoria. There are over 1500 principal class staff in our new region.The meeting was full and it was good to catch up with a few people I haven't seen for a while.
Malcolm talked about flexibility being increased and the fact that we are now a rural-metro region.Malcolm believes that 4 regions will enable greater synergy.We still have to address the same level of accountability as before but with alot more autonomy. The new role of the region is a partnership role with schools to help plan to meet the needs of our communities.Malcolm believes the context of our new leadership has changed but has not been completely determined yet.
Malcolm says that the new paradigm is Autonomous rule based on professional trust. (They still want to encourage collaboration

'Trust the people doing the job because hey know how to do it best.'

The structure is still being put in place.The role of regions is now to support schools to self-manage. New networks will not be determined by region and need to be driven by network principals. Although self-driven they will be supported.There is still more work to be done regarding the 'compact' and principal performance and selection.
The Secretary wants to see sharing of best practice and the effective 'marketing' of our schools.Interestingly there was an emphasis on principals to see ourselves as 'public servants'; and that 'ownliness' is essential-How do we manage things that go wrong and how do we learn from it.
Malcolm intends to create a principal reference group so hopefully principals can provide direct feedback to him and central office about how the new reforms are being rolled out and how effective they are.The new SARPP role will be a guide and advisory role.
Malcolm suggests that we develop our own 'story' -our theory of action , values,beliefs and vision. He challenged us to develop the story of our own community. (We have only recently developed new, simplified school values at Glen Park. ) Malcolm emphasised that as good leaders we need to practice integrity, communicate and provide feedback.

Just a note about this blog.As with the blog, I started on tumblr, this blog is not an official school blog ( We have a school website. A link is on this site) It is my blog about my experiences as a teaching principal in a one-teacher rural school and about state education issues. it is also a site where I can post unit plans for TPT ( Teachers Pay Teachers) and teaching ideas that can be found on my education related Pinterest boards.

Sunglasses reflection portraits

Children drew their portraits( I provided them with an outline, a handout with some tips on how to draw faces and a little mirror) and a set of 'sunglasses' frame. They looked on the Internet for 'holiday' images to cut out and put on the sunglass lenses ( as if they were reflections) The children did a great job. ( Some went a bit ' Dame Edna' by putting glitter on the frames. needles to say I'll be vacuuming up glitter from the carpet for months to come!)

3D hand

3D hands. I got this idea off Pinterest. ( If you haven't been on there before, have a look there are some great education ideas on there) All you do is draw around your hand and then draw across it sing straight lines until you get to the hand itself and then you do a curved line. We used black texts and then followed the lines with crayons ( 3 contrasting colors) It worked quite well.

ZIG ZAG PICTURES

Zig Zag picture.
Simply cut up a calendar. Give a child a picture each ( I chose Australian native animals) and have the children rule up zig zag lines on the back and cut out the strips reassembling it with a gap between the zig zags onto colored card. I worked wel.

Silhouette Pictures

Learning intentions for silhouette pictures. Children used paint, crayons and pastels to create a sunset on white A3 cover paper. The children then ruled up a frame on black cover paper including a tree, hills, boats, lighthouse etc. and glued it over the top of heir sunset. It was then laminated. Children from foundation to 6 (some needed help with cutting out) enjoyed the lesson and completed it in 90 minutes.