Poppies

I made these poppy wreaths back around ANZAC Day with a class of Year 2 and 3 children at Lincoln Heights School.  As an introduction to the activity I read the class The Eels of ANZAC Bridge and brought in a photo of the real ANZAC Bridge in Kaiparoro.  I also read them Lest we Forget by Feana Tu'akoi.  Both of these stories deal with war from a child's perspective, making the topic relatable to children's own lives.  The eels migrating to Tonga in The Eels of ANZAC Bridge really sparked the children's attention, and the eels in this book mirrored the soldiers going off to war.  I found this a very effective way to give context to the art activity.

Maths lesson observation - 8/9/15

Differentiated learning - writing lesson

This is a template I made for writing narratives, an adaptation of the hamburger model in Sheena Cameron and Louise Dempsey's The Writing Book.  I had been using this with all my writing groups but it became evident that one group found it too challenging.  The syndicate leader had popped in and observed some of my writing lesson and I mentioned this to her - she suggested simplifying the template for the group that found it too challenging.  I did this and found that they were able to cope much better with the task with a simplified model, and they were much more engaged with the task, proudly showing me their completed work.  This demonstrated to me the importance of differentiated learning.

GTS 5: Graduating teachers use evidence to promote learning.
5A: Graduating teachers systematically and critically engage with evidence to reflect on and refine their practice.

Stop your full stops crying - writing lesson observation

My AT observed me for this writing lesson - I took a small writing group (including the four students for my inquiry group) while the rest of the class worked on their narrative writing.  I noticed that many students were talking and not getting much writing done so I projected a 15 minute countdown timer on the whiteboard to give them a sense of urgency.  As noted in my AT's observation here and my reflection, the timer did help to get the children focused, however they got a bit silly at the end, counting down as it reached zero. Overall however I think using the countdown timer was an effective strategy, in conjunction with marking the starting point of 15 minutes in the students' books.  It was helpful for enabling me to see their progress and to get a greater volume of writing done. 

Kevin

Kevin is a fluffy soft toy kea that my AT uses in her classroom as a way of motivating students and building relationships. Students get to take Kevin home for a variety of reasons, sometimes if they've been shown working particularly well on something, or they have the most dojo points that day, or it's their birthday.  Seeing who will get Kevin is a nice end of day ritual, and builds a connection with home too - one boy while I was there left Kevin in his mum's car, which she left at the airport when she went to Sydney.  His dad wrote an email 'from Kevin' to my AT, saying he was trapped in the car at the airport, and the class were delighted to have this email from Kevin and a link to home.  For a simple soft toy he is a very effective tool for building positive relationships!

GTS 6 Graduating teachers develop positive relationships with learners and the members of learning communities.
6C Graduating teachers build effective relationships with their learners.

Diagnostic snapshot

One of the first activities I did with a maths group on my practicum was a diagnostic snapshot to check students' strategies for adding in parts.  I used these tens frames to see how the children added beyond ten and noticed that many were counting on their fingers, as my AT had predicted they would.  This informal assessment was valuable for checking where this group were at, and gaps in their knowledge, so we were able to practise with the tens frames for several days afterwards.  A strategy for tracking the effectiveness I picked up on my practicum was to make a table with the learning intentions for the unit on one side and the students' names on the other, and note who had 'got' the concept that related to a particular learning intention in a workshop and who needed further practice.  This is something I would like to implement in my own classroom, to make sure I keep track of learners who might need more practice in a particular area.

GTS 5 Graduating Teachers use evidence to promote learning
5b. Graduating teachers gather, analyse and use assessment information to improve learning and inform planning.

Zentangle

We have been doing zentangle as a fun way to explore patterns and a calming activity to do after a rainy lunchtime - I think this would be a fantastic activity to pull out at short notice as a reliever and could work well with a wide range of age groups...

KCs/Learning Areas/Values

This was a poster our group made at the first part of the TER course, representing a vision for a school that linked parts of the curriculum document - the key competencies, the learning areas and the values.  

GTS 1 - Graduating teachers know what to teach.  1C - Graduating teachers have knowledge of the relevant curriculum documents of Aotearoa New Zealand.  

Writing lesson observation

The success criteria we co-constructed in this observed lesson and the sentences in which children corrected my punctuation with a different coloured pen to emphasise correct use of full stops and capital letters.  

GTS 1 A Standard One: Graduating Teachers know what to teach a. have content knowledge appropriate to the learners and learning areas of their programme

Observation and reflection on maths lesson 1 September

Standard Five: Graduating Teachers use evidence to promote learning a. systematically and critically engage with evidence to reflect on and refine their practice