Round the World with the Gingerbread Man!

Last term we had a themed unit based around the idea that a Gingerbread Man had escaped from our classroom after we did some baking! This idea came from my co-teacher who found it online.

From this we did lots of activities around the story; making a wanted poster, sequencing the story, different narrative, writing our own narrative, writing from point of view of the Gingerbread man in form of a postcard back to the teacher. While we did all this, the Gingerbread Man (aka relatives of the kids) sent us postcards from around the world which we pinned onto a map for the kids to see.














We had so much engagement and excitement from this! The kids imaginations ran wild and they would come to the school in the morning telling me that they think that they had seen the Gingerbread Man in all sorts of places.

My Teaching Philosophy

Reflective Teaching 30 Day Blog Challenge 

DAY 18: Create a metaphor/simile/analogy that describes your teaching philosophy.

Here is my teaching philosophy as best as I could make it. A bit cliche really!

Growing a forest of unique, creative, independent, caring, resilient and community minded individuals.

I've added a picture I've been developing too that shows my teaching philosophy. It is still a work in progress as I have had several attempts at how to do the leaves. I have done words that would stem from each root (though some overlap) but I am still trying to get it looking right. I need to experiment with colours and organisation a bit more before I attempt to do it on the real thing. Has anyone else drawn their teaching philosophy rather than just written it? I love to see what other have come up with.

Most Challenging Issue in Education Today

Reflective Teaching 30 Day Blog ChallengeDAY 17: What do you think is the most challenging issue in education today?

For me, the most challenging current issue in education is getting some people to see that education is not all about making children fit into the cookie cutter of expectations (i.e. National Standards)! Parents, (perhaps spurred on by the media hype) seem to be anxious that their children are meeting the standards as set out by the government. I understand their worry as every parent wants their child to do well but the problem is how do we define what is normal progression and what isn't? It seems that such thinking could lead us back to the bygone days of rote learning i.e. your must know this, this and this to pass school. It takes away all the little skills that people use in everyday life to get to the answers. I am equally interested that children know how to take the journey to find the answers than have all the answers.