September 25th, 2011 
rozz 
The Big Book of Energizers
September is always full of energy and optimism for teachers, parents and children! After a few weeks (even days, sometimes), it may feel like you never had the summer holidays – you are tired, the children are listless and unmotivated and they are finding it hard to keep the class on task. (more…)
September 10th, 2011 rozz 
We all have had those days when the kids are hyped up and it is very hard to get them back down again, step in Jenny Mosley!
I love Jenny Mosley and everything that she does. This “Big book of Calmers” does not disappoint. It contains over 120 individual activities for the teacher to use when seeking a calming classroom! I would recommend this book to any teacher( newly qualified or more experienced) as essential must have! Her other book “ The Big Book of Energisers” ties in perfectly with this one and I will be reviewing this too.
Relevance to the curriculum aims: 5/5
Absolutely, though not a stand alone lesson, this book can be used in many ways. As an SPHE starter, circle time or in general anytime during the day you feel stressed or you sense the class or a students are becoming overexcited. It would also be excellent for the other Arts subjects like Drama or Visual Arts.
You can use “Calmers” to start the day, end the day or to calm children down after a loud, wet play.
This toolkit of “Calmers” is suitable for young and old, special needs and for teaching the children the independent skills they need to help them calm down!
Calmers links in brilliantly with the whole Jenny Mosley package of circle time, golden rules and golden time. They help the class to turn negative thinking around and build up self esteem. Everyone( including the teacher!) can benefit from this! Many of the activities focus on anger management, emotional self awareness and teach the children how to interact positively with each other. What amazing life skills! If the children in our care could learn how to curb their anger, deal with negative thoughts and become more aware of their emotions, we as teachers would be doing a fantastic job!
Teacher usability:5/5
Really easy! The teacher can just pick up this book and begin the calming! The activities include stretches, relaxation techniques, controlled breathing, visualisation, stories, songs, role play and much much more!
The activities are marked with one of three symbols. the first one tells you that this activity can be played quickly and easily. The second one tells you that it will take a bit of organising from the teacher. The third symbol explains that you will need a large space. Great idea, this adds to the ease of use for the teacher.
Value for money 5/5
It works out at 18.95, converted using www.xe.com as €21.95. This represents excellent value for money as you will have this book for years to come. It would be a must for any SPHE/Drama/Visual Arts school resource as well.
Extras-0/5
No extras-it would be great to see how Jenny Mosley implements these herself, maybe she would consider showing some teachers in real classrooms how these activities can work and do work. These could be placed on her website or DVD.
Total score: 15/20
Well recommended-click on the link below to buy this from Amazon.
May 26th, 2011 rozz 
I really liked this book! It does what it says it should do!
It comes in a Big Book format with really child-friendly and colourful pictures, notation and words with teacher instructions on the same page. You have the option of teaching the song as a group, using the CD or if your children can read music, use the notation.
To bring it onto the next level, each song comes with a fun, interactive game for the whole class to play. these activities could be used for PE, Music, Drama and playground games with a buddy system. 5th and 6th Class children could be taught to teach these games to the younger children, creating a lovely sense of community while keeping them busy and out of telling tales!
I would highly recommend this book, the children singing on the CD are very convincing and they demonstrate that you don’t need backing track to enjoy music. Lots of better known songs are included with less known featuring as well. Every Infant teacher needs to get this! This gets Anseo.net’s Top of the Class award as you will get infinite use from this simple resource.
It retails at €22.75, included with CD and can be ordered through the Positive Press website at http://www.circle-time.co.uk/shop/show/113
April 30th, 2011 rozz 
Here we have some fun and stimulating clapping games for children from 1st Class upwards. The original “Clapping games” comes in Big book format, which is useful as your visual stimulus. The second in this series is in a smaller publication, called “More clapping games”
The books are laid out in a clear way for the teacher and child to access, with abbreviations for the actions underneath the words. These could be photocopies, viewed on the visualiser or scanned into your PC for projection.
The whole notion of clapping and playground games have been lost somewhat. Children find it hard to entertain themselves. This book will help the teacher or older child pass on games to younger children in the playground or when they have a free minute. The clapping games also come on accompanying CD, which involves a group or individual child chanting along as they clap. This audio is, of course, useful but I feel it could have been developed further through the use of a jingle or music.
A resource teacher would get excellent use out of these, they would benefit hand-eye coordination, memory and oral language skills as well as adding a break into the school day.
The games in these books are a whole lot of fun and research has shown that playing games can improve cognitive ability, thinking skills and increase brain speed! They could be used as mini warm ups for PE as ideas for developing into more physical workouts are listed on each page. These books are available from Positive Press and can be ordered at http://www.circle-time.co.uk/site/positive_press_limited
These books retail at €21.60-Clapping Games with CD and More Clapping Games-with CD-converted with xe.com
March 28th, 2011 rozz 
Golden Rules Animal Story books(Positive Press:Jenny Mosley GR series)
The Golden Rules have been part of many classrooms all over Ireland. Jenny Mosley has developed resource after resource to help promote positive behaviour and self esteem in primary level children. I’m going to be reviewing a number of Positive Press’s products on anseo.net. We have always been huge fans of Jenny and her work in circle and golden time and are delighted to be reviewing them. We will always give an honest opinion, if we love something, we really do! The best review gets the “Anseo Top of the Class” award, so keep watching for it!
The first one is a series of 6 A5 picture books. They are glossy and colourful and each one focusses on a different golden rule using talking animals. The stories are written at a level suitable for a really good Junior Infant level, Senior Infants, 1st and even 2nd Class. Because there is a lot of text and more challenging vocablualry, each page’s vocab could be pre taught to a younger class. I still think the Junior Infants would enjoy as the pictures and story line reel them right in. They would be a great addition to any class library and if your class are following the Golden Rules, these will be another positive reinforcer for them!
Relevance to curriculum aims 5/5: These books can help utilise that bridge between english and social, personal and health education. You can great mileage out of these books, using thematic planning and a language experience approach-shared reading and writing.
Teacher usability: 4/5 Extremely usable as in the teacher can instantly access them without any pre-teaching. The books also come in a Big Book size so these A5 could be used whole or individual class level. These smaller books could also be placed on a visualiser for whole class interaction with the pictures and language.
Value for money: 3/5 Coming in at €41 for 6 books, the price is okay but you would probably have to buy the Big Books too so it could cost you a bit of your precious teacher resource money, if you get any!
Extras:0/5 There are extras but you will have to purchase them, all sorts of resources like stickers, posters, games, puppets etc are available on Jenny’s shop at http://www.circle-time.co.uk/site/positive_press_limited However, Jenny does provide many free resources and lesson plans on the Circle time website.
This review was written by Rozz Lewis, you can contact her at rozz@anseo.net
September 25th, 2010 rozz 
I recently received an email from a teacher who wants to implement Golden Time in her class this September. I do love getting fan mail 
I am impressed that this teacher is organising herself during the summer! Read my reply below! If you haven’t got a system sorted, how about looking into the blogs I have written on Jenny Mosely, at anseo we heart Jenny Mosley!
Hi
Thanks for the email, love hearing from other teachers and their ideas and plans!
Yes, Golden Time is implemented on the first day! The class get “Golden Time” every single day for the first week, half an hour every day. Then on week 2, they get Golden Time once a week.
On the first day and indeed the first week and month, you will spend your time in the classroom introducing Golden Time, Golden Rules and Circle Time… On the first day have a Circle time session where you simply introduce the class to each other. You can also introduce the special Circle time rules- These can be found in the QCT book you speak of. Do a full lesson on the rules that a classroom needs to be happy, safe and learn. They will come up with brilliant rules, probably millions! Tie these into your 6 Golden Rules. These are:
Listen carefully
Be gentle
Concentrate on your work
Be kind and help each other
Be honest
Do look after property.
Any rule a child comes up with will fit into these 6 rules! Maybe, brainstorm on the board or a sheet of paper. Then, as the teacher, tell them you will condense them into 6 rules as we would find it hard to remember 100 rules!
I then ask groups to work on one rule in each group, each group design a poster illustrating the rule. These are put up for display. Everything that I speak about here will take probably half a day!
Choose a different rule every day to focus on, to talk about in the circle, write stories on it, etc…. You are basically wanting the children to know these rules off and to be motivated to keep them!
Golden time every day can provoke unsure reactions from parents and indeed teachers. They might feel it is a waste of time or that children should not be allowed to play with a computer or DS lite in school. I answer that there is 2 plus hours discretionary curriculum time and that Golden Time is an integrated subject of SPHE. Some teachers have told me that at Golden time, the children should be reading a book or something the teacher wants them to do!! The whole idea is that the child keeps the rules to gain ALL of Golden time, this is a massive achievement and leads to independence and ownership of the behaviour system… IT WORKS!
Circle time is about 20-30 minutes every week and it must be done as this is an important part of the 3 cycle process. Circle Time builds confidence and helps all the children to feel part of the class, develop numerous problem solving skills and they absolutely love it! It helps the teacher too, I have often confided in circle time that I found the class too noisy and the class would come up with solutions to the problems!
You only really need the QTC book by Jenny Mosley, your school should have it, the “More Quality Circle Time” is excellent too as it gives you many, many more ideas and lessons.
Resources:
A typed poster with the Golden Rules covered in Gold paint or foil! Be creative!
The red/yellow cards which I know you are not keen on using, I will come to this later in my email.
Games/activities for Golden Time- I bought Guess Who?, Connect Four, bead sets and spent about 100 euro on activities like this for Golden Time, this pays off! Many of the children brought their own DS lites but after Week 4 they preferred to have a quick game of Guess Who with the teacher! I laminated cards with the activities typed on them to put on my “Golden” display.
I also did Golden Child of the week, a child who was making a great effort to keep a golden rule!
Think pads- I bought mini notepads and the children decorated them and placed them in a basket for me to read and communicate with them! They enjoyed it! Jenny Mosley spoke about these too so read some more if you want to do it!
The biggest and best resource( as corny as it sounds!) is you, the teacher! Be consistent, creative and believe in the positive behavioural system that you are using and it will pay dividends!
I would always send a letter home on the first day explaining the behavioural system- Golden Time, Golden Rules and Circle Time to the parents. Invite them in to chat to you about it, direct them to the QTS book and even lend them your copy! Every single parent I have met has seen the benefits of the system so I can assure you it will be positive if you keep the lines of communication open!
You don’t have to use the red card system if parents find it difficult or if you do, just use the oral warning of “first warning”, “second warning” and then ” third warning”. When the child gets the third warning, their name can be noted in your private book and the child will miss 5 minutes of Golden Time. Remember, if a child misses Golden Time, they can always earn it back by agreeing to make up for their bad behaviour, your aim is that everyone enjoys Golden Time! The first week or two, many children will ” chance their arm” and sit out of Golden Time but when they realise what they are missing, they will learn very quickly!
Best of luck with it and feel free to ask anything more! Anseo is running a special “Jenny Mosley” month.
I am going to be reviewing some brand new books from Jenny so keep your eyes peeled for that!
You can buy all Jenny Mosely’s Quality Circle Time at Amazon by clicking directly on this link.
Rozz
September 18th, 2010 rozz 
Hello all!
I get very excited when I check my mail and see that someone has written to me! I was even happier when I saw that a teacher had written asking about the Jenny Mosely system. This teacher is delighted as she has a well behaved class this year but was wondering how to fit the system into an already jam-packed curriculum classroom. (more…)
September 11th, 2010 rozz 
Pièce de résistance- Golden Time!
Can you believe that 4 weeks have already flown by? 4 weeks till Mid-Term already! I present to you this week a review of the behavioural system composed by Jenny Mosely, guru of all good and nice children and sane teachers! (more…)
September 2nd, 2010 rozz 
Hi and hello, hope your classroom are getting more settled and some of you are giving the Golden Time system a chance to work!I started my first Circle Time lesson this week. It went really well and I was pleased that the majority of the children spoke and took part.
Circle Time is a listening system, Jenny Mosley will tell you more about it in her Quality Circle Time book. There are some rules to the circle time lesson that must be established and agreed upon with the children before hand. Examples include ” Listen to all” and ” Pass if you need time to think” (more…)
August 28th, 2010 rozz 
Hello and hi to all after week 2 back in the classroom!
The summer holidays are but a blip in my imagination! My class are settled in and so am I. Have been doing lots of work on my termly plans with my partner teacher. She is doing her “dip.” this year so it is great to have someone with lots of motivation and ideas to work alongside! (more…)
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