My trip to the Great Ocean Road was amazing! I saw so many beautiful places. This morning, Alan made a list of all of the places/sites that we saw and there are over 40! According to the statistics in the car, we spent 17.5 hours driving, used 100 litres of petrol, and traveled about 1,000km (620 miles) over 3 days!

greatoceanrd.org.au

Some highlights of the Great Ocean Road:
-The Twelve Apostles (eight are still standing today)
-London Bridge
-Visiting my second rainforest
-Seeing koalas in two different places in the wild
-Visiting a wind farm (heaps of wind turbins near the coast!)
-Seeing kangaroos up close and personal in the wild
-Visiting Bells Beach - a very famous surfing beach
-Climbing up and down more steps than I have ever done before! It was worth it though because I got to see so many sites that way.
-Walking through an "Enchanted Forest"
-Learning about the history of the Shipwreck Coast



This is a picture of Danielle and I standing in front of a view of the Great Ocean Road. We are doing the "tree pose" which is a yoga pose.


Overall, it was a great way to spend the long weekend (Labour Day was Monday). It was so kind of the Fairweathers to take Danielle and I on such a great trip! During my time in Australia, I have found that I am more willing to take risks and try new things that are out of my comfort zone. I am learning that I can do whatever I set my mind to doing and that it is okay to not be perfect.

Now to teaching!

Today (Tuesday) began my first week of full-time teaching!! Let's start with what I feel I need to work on.
The first thing is assertive discipline. According to our class rules, here are the levels of discipline:
1. Verbal Warning
2. Time-out
3. Yard Duty (5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes)
4. Sent to the principal's office
5. Contact parents

After talking to Tanya about it, she said that she really hasn't followed that procedure very much because a lot of kids should have gotten yard duty but only two kids have this whole year. Now that I am teaching full-time, I have realized how important it is for me to be firm, friendly, fair, and consistent with my students. I have to tell myself that it is for the good of the community of learners that all students are staying on task. Tomorrow morning, we will have a short class meeting where we will revisit the rules of our classroom and why they are important. I will outline the discipline procedures again (they have been posted in the room). Also, instead of doing a verbal warning only, I will write their name on the board under a sad face. This way, it will give them more of an idea that they are misbehaving and put more pressure on me to follow through with the next levels of discipline.

On a brighter side of assertive discipline, the front line of discipline is always positive discipline. Instead of focusing on people who are talking, I say something like, "Well done, Jeff for sitting quietly and listening" or "Oh, Kim is already working on the writing part because she hasn't been a chatterbox." I have found this really helpful because it takes the attention away from children who are off-task and recognizes the children who are doing their work. I think that all of this will improve over time as long I make a continuous effort to follow through and be consistent.

Let's move on to the things that went well today! I was very pleased with the reading and writing groups. I explained all of the rotations to the whole class so that even if they didn't do that activity today, they will have some idea of what to expect later in the week. All of the activities have been replenished and they are lined up on the floor in the front of the room - ready to go for tomorrow. I love the feeling of being organized the day before! (Now if only I could start making my school lunch the day before...) :)

In Maths this week, we are continuing skip counting, shapes, ordering the days of the week, and ordering the months. Today, we did three rotations for shape: freehand drawing, computer drawing, and cut/paste matching the shape and its name. These three activities are compiled in a Shape Book that the students will take home tomorrow. They turned out really well!

Last night, Alan was reading through some paperwork about government funding for new school buildings and one part of it said that the "school building must foster delight, inspiration, and belonging." Isn't that beautiful? That phrase has stuck with me and I will strive to have those three words describe my future classroom!

The school has a turning composting cylinder on the grounds that doesn't get much use. This week, I am going to collect all of the fruit scraps from our class fruit time and bring it to the compost bins. As a class, we will quickly talk about why we compost and what happens to our fruit over time when it is composted.

Finally, the Australian lingo for the day:

Cotton candy = fairy floss



Cheers!