Classroom resources to make at home

[MissPrimaryCrafts]

Hello!

I'm doing my primary PGCE this year and had an amazing time on my first placement, but my second one has been delayed and after today's announcement looks like it won't be going ahead at all. The uni have given us very little info and it looks like there may not be much to do over the next few months.

So I thought while I'm stuck at home I'll use the time and make stuff for my future classroom. I made a world map display for my Year 2 placement class to help with continents and oceans and loved it, I have a cricut and lots of paints and it was so fun

However - I don't know what year group my future class will be (let's be optimistic and imagine I'll have a class teacher job in September) so I'm trying to think of materials I'd probably use in a classroom of any year group....any suggestions?

Number fans
Place value grids ranging from two digit to 100,000
Gattegno place value charts
Large coins
Number card set
Phonemes cards
Phonemes mats
Line guides
Word banks eg Common Exception words
Phonemes frames (3 sounds to 5)
Spinners for Maths as an alternative for dice
Times tables pairs games
Times tables triangles (product at top, factors at bottom)

The list is never ending!

What about using the time to read more deeply, developing your subject and pedagogical knowledge so you can build up for knowledge of progression through the curriculum?

You could start with year 2 as that’s where you were placed. Look at what the national curriculum says they should cover in year 1 and think about pupils who couldn’t do that and how that impacted their year 2 learning. Then look at year 3 and see how the year 2 learning progresses. For maths, the ready to progress criteria in the DfE guidance, along with the 79 ppts NCETM have produced, is a really good starting point

I agree that your time would be better spent reading and learning. Books about pedagogy, books about different types of SEN, blogs, twitter- anything you can get your hands on. I would really recommend looking at the materials on the Autism Education Trust website as you will certainly teach autistic children. There are currently lots on online learning opportunities/ webinars that are cheaper or free during lock-down.

Spend some time thinking about how you want to plan and set yourself up some systems. OneNote is amazing as you can access it on all your devices and it's really flexible. There are loads of tutorials on youtube about using OneNote for education.

Apply for jobs! The sooner you know where you will be, the sooner you can focus the time you have now.

Thanks for all the ideas, I am also doing a lot of reading but want some crafts too to mix it up so I'm not just reading and taking notes all day!