Summer Time! - End of Year for our Northern Teaching Friends

As I write this post, I am looking out at the overcast sky, heavy with rainclouds and the windswept beach yielding to the cold Southerly winds of Tawhirimatea (Māori deity who controls the weather) reaching across Auckland. We are rapidly accelerating into our winter months.

Not so for our Northern hemisphere friends in education. Schools are beginning to wrap up their quilted together programmes for the year that was, and looking forward to a well deserved rest over the Summer weeks. Hope springs eternal that schools will return to a new, but more familiar normal in September.

As we reflect back and recognise the hurdles we have climbed, the new learning we have added to our skill set and the personal growth we have all acquired, we are proud of our journey,  respectful of the challenges that stretched us and  grateful for the friends that have supported us along the way.

Time to refresh, rejuvenate  and  replenish before we once again resume our respective roles in education. 

But before wrapping up the year, I want to share a fabulous little poetry lesson secret with you all. I am a keen wordsmith and love piecing together words to create images in the mind of the reader or listener. And thus, teaching my students the joys of poetry writing is one of my favourite things to do.

This  Reflective Poetry lesson plan came out of wanting to spend our final few days of the year together meaningfully engaged in learning, while still having fun.
Assessments were over, reports written, classroom walls were stripped bare and school schedules were filling up with end of year fun stuff. As any seasoned teacher will attest, students can get a little loose when routines are continually disrupted so keeping up purposeful engaging lessons is beneficial for everyone. 
One year, I set my students the task of reflecting back on their year of learning to see how far they had come, especially when compared to their very first writing task 10 months prior, where they set out some hopes and aspirations for the year. ​

​I also wanted something to leave up on my classroom wall for the start of the new year, to welcome my new class.
​So I set  the challenge to my current class - write a reflective poem about the year that was and I will print a poster sized copy (A3) of each persons poem for the wall, ready to welcome the students that will be following in their footsteps.

And from that beautifully collaborative learning moment, this lesson plan was born.  The students were so proud to know that an authentic audience were going to be enjoying their writing from day 1 of the new year.
And in the new year, my sweet new class were fizzing with excitement as they read the work left for them by the class that went before. 
Such a beautiful connection across generations.

I have written up all the steps for you to teach this wonderful  lesson in your programme too. You will use it time and again.. Click the button below  to view this resource in the store.

Click2View This Lesson Plan in the Store