School Kit

If you haven't heard of it before go and check them out- now!

I heard of them last year when they gave classes the New World Little Gardens which at the time fitted perfectly into our 'Growing' unit. I signed up and low and behold 40 Little Gardens arrived at school. What's the catch you ask? Yes, they do ask for a favour in return. Ours was photos. Take pictures of the class growing their garden. 

This year every time their email appears I jump on it asap. This was the first one we did this year in Term 1.

As a class we were asked to read the book Diary of a Wimpy Kid and to take pictures of the class enjoying this book. They had partnered up with Kelloggs and participating schools would receive a new book in return for proof of purchase of two Kellogg's cereal or snack products from your nominated New World store.  

The class loved the book and we got all of these in return to share with the whole school!










Our second activity was also a great one! Getting to know us as a class and then sharing that with another school. We had so much fun doing this. We learnt about metaphors and created our own one about ourselves. It was a great way of teaching what can be a hard concept for children to understand. But they had so much fun and the fact they were sending their metaphor to another school meant they wanted to do exceptionally well!



What are we doing now? We are growing bacteria! It's so gross yet so cool!

    

 This has been a super cool activity to do. Children have been mesmerized at how bacteria grows and the different ones that are growing. We are now at the stage where we are trying to identify all the different types of bacteria growing!

                                                                                                                                                                       

Proud Achievers

This term our schools disposition is Proud Achievers.

After a chat with the class we decided that this term is WAY to busy to squeeze in our Stem Challenges. Therefore we talked about how to link our next disposition 'Proud Achievers' to this terms work.

We talked about setting goals and how we could set some for the term. However once we discussed it more, the majority of the class felt that as we set goals at the beginning of the year it seemed like we were repeating ourselves again. Plus a lot of them also felt this was too easy for them as year 5/6's. Obviously last terms Effective Communicators got them thinking!

They identified that this disposition links a lot to EVERYTHING they do and could easily be achieved. Therefore we began discussing how we could link more of our subjects together to achieve this. We looked at our topics and what we were learning in each area. From that the students began to see links. They saw that our Myth writing could easily be made into plays and performed. They saw that our 'textiles' then could be fabric and we could make puppets to perform our myths.

Therefore this term they are working in groups to re write a Maori myth, then making their own puppets to perform their myths.

It's been wonderful to have the students take ownership on their own learning and where they want to go with it.

Sign Language Week.

When you have a child in your class that's first language is Sign, you try as hard as you can to integrate as much sign as you can into everyday class life. This has been my goal this year along with more Te-Reo. Although my student is hearing, both parents are deaf. I have wanted to learn as much as I can so that when I meet them at parent interviews I can at least greet them and 'try' to communicate a few things about their son.

It's been interesting for me as Sign doesn't fall under ESOL (correct me if I am wrong) because he was born in NZ yet English is his second language. Which begs me to question what is there for children (who hear) of deaf parents? L is quite capable but there are noticeable differences in his phonics, blends and vocabulary. 

An example of this was when he sat the Star test at the beginning of the year. He was looking at the picture of the parachute and he was stuck. His comment to me was, I know what it is but I don't know the word. I asked him to sign what he thought it was and he did! 

Spelling is also the other noticeable difference!  

We started this year learning sign and following the lesson plans from Thumbs Up which is on the TKI site. Although designed to be used for years 7-8 I found it quite easy to use and so did the class. It may have been because we had an expert in the class therefore we could be easily corrected.

What was great, was that I stopped being the teacher and instead was the learner. The class saw that I was also learning and making mistakes. Boy did I make mistakes! L has been a great teacher and as a class we have embraced his knowledge. Sign Language Week was one of those times. 

I challenged the class to record (on Seesaw) a few phrases about themselves. As we had completed Unit 1 of Thumbs Up they were told they had to challenge themselves! They worked in pairs and also used the NZSL online dictionary.

The class had a blast! It was also lovely to embrace someone else language.


Millie and Mihana

Aidan 

The wonderful thing also was with the help of Seesaw I was able to share the students work with all their parents. I was able to also write a special 'Thank you' to L's mum and share with her how amazing L had been in teaching the whole class. 

Successful Learners

Nathan Mikaere-Wallis' RNZ interview has got me thinking! It was very timely that I stumbled across this as I have spent a year teaching children who fall into this age bracket. It opened a lot of questions for me and left me pondering about how WE as a school can foster this social and emotional learning more.

Below are the notes I made while listening to his interview.

When a child reaches 7 years this is when their frontal cortex is finally developed. In theory they are 'mini' adults.

Before 7 this has not developed therefore they learn differently.

From 3-7 it should be all about the social and emotional skills. 

Parents have this perception that their child is intelligent if they can read and write at an early age.

 Research has shown this is not the case.

• A study of adults aged 32-37 who had degrees showed no correlation to what they knew at 3-7 (whether they could read or write early). 

• 90% of hot housed children have plateaued by 8 years of age. The only thing that marks them as different is that they have stunted social skills. (Nathan Mikaere-Wallis)

• Those who started reading at 3 had the same reading age as those who learn t to read a 6.5 years of age (when they were aged between 8-9).

We need to build the perception of  'What am I like as a learner?' 

We need to build up students experiences to be successful in learning.

Are they gifted or are the gifted at 'parroting' back?

What is important is how the child feels about themselves as a learner. 

If you build the confidence there is a desire to learn. 

If you 'push' them it inhibits the risk taking.

Model in a way that doesn't point out the mistakes- research showed that if we point out the mistakes in the next 30 minutes children will use less language. 

(As Nathan pointed out in the interview about the 'sheeps').

Wording is important.

Tell them specifically what they have done rather than 'good boy/girl' be more specific and acknowledge what they did well. 

From 3-7 children are 'divergent' thinkers. They are creative and we need to foster this. 

Avoid right and wrong questions. 

Develop more open ended questions for them to work through - Problem solving enhanced by creativity. 

Create the thinker before you bring the facts in - Power of Play!

Good outcomes= less structure.

Stop asking test questions

Open ended questions so that children can have an opinion

Listen to the child's concept of the world.

Do things of interest and don't push the need that they need to be at a certain level by a certain time.

Intelligence as a parrot vs Intelligence as a human

Key Competencies are important. If a child has anxiety/sensitive go back to being a child- social skills are important- stop the learning

90% of people in reading recovery are boys who are not the first born. Piaget says we will learn to read at about 7 when we're ready for cognition. Schools has pressured students into learning to read at 6, then 5, then below 5

How does this affect their self confidence? For nearly 2 years they are not feeling successful.

We need to remember not to give 3-7 year old to much cognitive skills. Develop the social and emotional skills.

Rubrics

Be careful how they are used. Are they developed so every child can be successful? Will children move or for ever be on that bottom rubric?

Same as grouping children 

That one child.

Every Kids needs a Champion   by Rita Pierson says it all.

Every year we are given students we struggle to connect with. This year for me it happened. It seems like a terrible thing to say but it can happen. I saw it straight away and reflected on how was I ever going to find a connection with this one child. They were so disengaged, uninterested and had no empathy for their peers. Yet I also knew they didn’t have the greatest home life and therefore lacked a lot of confidence and self-esteem. 

As Rita say in her Ted Talk, 'until the relationships are built the ‘real’ learning will not happen'. There is a value and importance of human connections. It took me nearly two terms to find a connection with this child and it developed over reading. One-one reading with them every day and I saw a side to this child I had never seen before. They would smile, feel proud of their efforts and enjoy themselves. Better yet, their reading improved dramatically.

I realised in a group situation that this would have never happened and if it meant that I started my reading programme at 8:30 in the morning to cater for this need, then so be it.

As Rita says ‘Kids don’t learn from people they don’t like’

Te Reo

Over the year I have been re thinking the way I have been teaching Te Reo in my classroom. Usually it is a 30 -minute lesson once a week. I began to find this wasn't working for my class in the the fact it was only a one off lesson and by the time we re-visited the following week a lot of the students had forgotten their Reo.

I decided to do a 15 minutes lesson every day and started incorporating activities into their language programme to help consolidate previous and new learning. So after our Karakia each day we started to do mini lessons based on the topic we were looking at that term.

My emphasis was to make sure that my class were pronouncing the words correctly and had time to consolidate this. This is where I felt a one off lesson a week wasn't helping with this. My students needed time each day to work on their pronunciation and to listen to themselves and others speaking.

When we learnt about Te Tinana (the body),  I had already establish that the majority of my class knew their basic body parts thanks to 'Head, shoulders, knees and toes' song in Te Reo therefore I decided to extend them by teaching them the rest of their body parts. Once we had spent time learning how to pronounce each body part correctly, we moved on to asking simple commands to help identify them.

Kei hea? (Where is your)       Anei taku (here is)

We also played a matching game in groups/pairs (as shown in the picture below)

Twinkl

During their language time, students were able to work in pairs/small groups to either play the matching game or ask Kei hea? 

We also did this when we learnt about about Akomanga (my classroom). I used a lot of the ideas from this site. Parts of our classroom were already labelled in Te Reo so my class were able to identify a few items already. We used the command 

'He aha tēnei? - What is this?'

Children used the cards to help consolidate their learning.

There were a number of ways they used these from 'matching game' 'memory' 'snap' etc. 

After each term, students still continued to use these cards and pictures during their language and free time.

I saw a vast improvement in their learning and saw the benefits of doing mini lessons each day rather than a one off lesson each week. 

Putting the zing into maths

I was lucky enough to attend a maths course that was focussing on the approaches to teaching mathematics.

I have always had a nagging feeling in the back of my head that at times I don't teach maths to the best of my ability. The reason behind this is because I was dropped into a classroom with no training in this math curriculum.  I have basically read the books, asked the questions and tried to get my head around what I am supposed to do. But I always wondered if I was doing it the right way.

Thankfully this course gave me that sense of relief that I have been doing the majority correct - ( haven't yet got my head around modelling books!).

This course focussed on the teaching of maintenances in maths which I still can't get out of the habit of calling starters.

What I found interesting was that a lot of teachers don't teach this or find it hard to set differentiated activities for the students. This is something that was expected from my previous school so is something I have never found difficult to do.

Courses like these are always great to go on as they remind you of old activities you have forgotten about and new ones to learn. This course also focussed on developing students mathematical discussion and encouraged the use of literacy in the lesson. Which I loved!

Takeaways for me were:

• Making sure that there were 'I can" statements for each stages and examples of this so students can see the progression, where they are at and what they need to do to get to the next stage.

One great idea was to use these statements as a maintenance activity. Either discussing what it meant or getting students to show you what they understand the statements to mean.

• Are we pulling out our information from our data?

What does your data say about your students? Do you re visit what they still don't understand? Does your teaching reflect your data? Use maintenance to re visit this and always differentiate to meet the needs of your students even those at the same stages.

• Don't teach Monday to Friday instead it should be Day 1 to Day 5 with the fifth day having a literacy focus.

Use picture books to communicate mathematical knowledge and learning, word problems or even get students to create their own maths story. As long as it is filled with language.

This is something I have tried hard to do each week. I noticed a lot of the teaching of mathematical was number based and when we were assessing the students we asked children questions based on a word problem/story which totally threw them.  One thing I have been trialling this week is the microphone on the active board. Each day I have put up a new picture up that they need to turn into a multiplication story.

• The Knowledge is important.

You don't always have to teach the strategies. If the strategy is not there then in most cases it is because the knowledge is not secure. Place value, place value, place value- students need a good understanding of this. Having moved to a lower stage in maths this is something I have learn this year. A lot of the time I am teaching the knowledge as my students don't have this understanding yet.

• Hands on

Show it , draw it, model it using as many different resources so students understand what the numbers means.
345
Use dienes blocks, money, write it, how many groups of?

What do I want to work on myself?
Get into the habit of using modelling books. I use a working wall and differentiate the activities by placing (big) sheets of paper around the room. I am (slowly) beginning to see the benefits of these books now.

• Rotations.

I haven't really been doing different rotation groups this term. This is because at times I can have three teachers in the room and with a class of 18 we tend to have our little groups set already.

• What I want to try is the idea of

Concept- small group teaching with the teacher
Practise- using the modelling book with set questions (six at the most) and a maths buddy to work with
Application- independently solve problems that also incorporate word based problems.

This is something I have done in the past but again let slip this term mainly because most of my students struggled to do any work independently and it has taken me a long time to set up/make resources that cater for this level.

Logical Thinkers

I will admit I am no maths buff and maybe there is an answer out there already for what I am trying to find out.

Thursday for me, means rotation day (here) where I teach a 30 minute maths lesson to all five classes in our team. As it is mixed ability and quite short, I have decided to do hands on maths that can be differentiated for all. Also I like that I can incorporate our Value this term which is Relationships and our Disposition which is Team Player into the mix with a lot of buddy and team work.

Today we looked at a problem on Nrich called Nim- 7.

While the children were playing and trying to work out strategies I sat back and listened to their conversations about the game. What surprised me the most were the children who solved it and their logical reasoning behind their answer. During our set maths lessons, I take the more able group of year 3/4’s for maths so I naturally assumed they would be the first to come up with  an answer  and be able to articulate their reasoning’s by modelling their outcomes. However, in nearly all the five classes this didn’t happen.

It was actually other children who found a solution faster. When asked a ‘What if’ question they were also able to explain the answer using what they already knew. This got me thinking about the way we teach maths. I’m not a big fan of grouping and while teaching these maths groups it reminds me why I love the diversity of different learners in a class room.

I think sometimes we miss opportunities other students can give us when we ‘box’ all the same types of learners into one class. We are inclined to think because someone knows their ‘numbers’ (and in our case it is mainly just about addition and subtraction) they are the better mathematicians.

But I also wondered if students who are more critical or logical thinkers can be disadvantaged here.  When students think critically in mathematics, they make reasoned decisions or judgments about what to do and think. In other words, students consider the criteria or grounds for a thoughtful decision and do not simply guess or apply a rule without assessing its relevance.

I began to wonder if my more able students maybe have a tendency to just apply the rule.

I don’t really know if all my muddle thinking makes sense or has any validity but today did make me think. Why was it that a lot of my students who would be in the lower groupings of our maths could see the answer to a problem a lot faster than my more able? Maybe because it was more hands on and they could visualise the answer?

Male, Female or just an effective teacher?

Like some other teachers last night I watched the Sunday programme and the discussion about ‘Boys only classes’. To be honest none of it convinced me at all. What frustrated me straight away is that the class had a male teacher. Why did the school feel that a male teacher compared to a female teacher would be more affective? Are we then saying that all female schools should only have female teachers as they will perform better?

While the environment in which children are nurtured clearly affects the way they turn out, research into gender shows that there are significant physiological and behavioural difference between boys and girls from birth. (Anne Moir & David Jessel: Brainsex). Brains play a lot in this but it is the makeup of it. They have the same functions like vocabulary, mechanics of language, Visio-spatial perception and emotion (bearing on performance at school) but research has shown that the male brain is more specialised, with each of these four crucial functions being located in just one hemisphere, whilst in female’s three of the functions take place in both hemispheres (Anne Moir & David Jessel: Brainsex).

At five a boy is typically less able to sit, to concentrate, to listen or to communicate than a girl and has a greater need for variety, stimulation and physical activity. Therefore, the early years of schooling girls do perform better than boys.  And I am in no doubt that schools acknowledge this and play to both sets of strengths so that all pupils are able to achieve well. The problem is by the end of year 1 some boys have already switched off education. Girls typically do this by the end of year 4. (This is UK research I am not sure if it would be the same in NZ).

Even before my own son I have always been interested in Boys Education. I taught in East London and usually was given the more ‘disruptive’ boys in my class and (when we used to set) taught most of them for Literacy and Maths. If result were anything to go by, I as a female teacher did extremely well educating these boys. But it wasn’t just their results, they also socialised better and were in less trouble then they have ever been before. I not talking about silly antics on the playground I am talking about full on fights, chairs flying, knife welding 10-11 year olds that on many occasions I had to restrain.  As my head teacher said, they left our school as a completely different child to the ones that entered.

Typically girls will be keen to learn; boys need a little bit more convincing.  I spent years planning the majority of my lessons especially writing around the boys in my class and what they enjoyed. Due to the makeup of one year group, I changed a whole scheme of work and re wrote the entire Year 5 units for every subject so that it focussed more around the boy’s interests.

I’m not doing this to ‘brag’ but to highlight a point Does the gender of a teacher really matter? These research findings revealed that the gender of teachers had little apparent effect on the academic motivation and engagement of either boys or girls. For the majority of the children, the gender of the teacher was largely immaterial. They valued teachers, whether men or women, who were consistent and even-handed and supportive of them as learners.

As I only have 28 minutes I am stopping. In the end as many mentioned on Twitter what it comes down to an effective teacher regardless if it is male or female.

Steve Biddulph, Bill Rogers, Lucinda Neall, Ian Grant, Celia Lashlie are all great authors who have written about boys education. Well worth a read.

If you've been teaching for around 14-and-a-half years, you could be about to ask your one millionth question.

Having spent the weekend couch surfing on Twitter (literally) following #edchatnz I began to question myself and my teaching. Not in a negative way but in a positive way. I began to realise that a lot that was being tweeted, I was doing or knew about.
It made me realise that maybe I need to be more open and share my teaching journey. So the idea is to write a few blogs about what I have done in the past and doing now.
This one came about while reading all the tweets during Steve Mouldey presentation at the Edchat.
Having spent the last 10+ years with Ofsted breathing down my throat you do develop some nifty skills and questioning was one of them. When observed, inspectors needed to consider whether: “teachers use questioning and discussion to assess the effectiveness of their teaching and promote pupils’ learning”
Therefore headteachers in our very regular observation used to follow a lot that was outlined here so that we all could ' be 'outstanding' teachers. Yes, many did turn up with the class list to make sure you asked every child!
Teachers are great at asking questions!
• Teachers ask up to two questions every minute, up to 400 in a day, around 70,000 a year, or two to three million in the course of a career
• Questioning accounts for up to a third of all teaching time, second only to the time devoted to explanation
• Most questions are answered in less than a second. That's the average time teachers allow between posing a question and accepting an answer, throwing it to someone else, or answering it themselves.


In a traditional teaching classroom, the questions are very teacher centred. Hands go up, teacher picks a frantically waving hand (which is usually accompanied by noise??), question is answer, response is usually a' no' (if they got it wrong) moves on to next waving noisy child who answers it correctly to which the teachers responds with either a ‘yes’ or ‘ well done' and then quickly moves on as they are aware they need to get this lesson done.
But has any real learning taken place? Has any of the class had the opportunity to reflect on their own thinking and learning? Have the children had the chance to ask questions as well? How do we then go about appropriately checking for understanding?
We end up ‘pinging’ all these questions out into the room but all that is coming back are ‘general’ answers. We also don’t allow children to ask questions. Majority of the questions asked in a classroom are from the teacher!
Effective questioning can be used to:
• Identify where pupils are currently in their learning
• Expand and deepen their learning
•Develop critical thinking skills.
•Increase motivation or interest
•Nurture insights
•Stimulate independent learning
"Good learning starts with questions, not answers," says Guy Claxton. The consensus is that questioning leads to more effective learning - and more enjoyable teaching - than explanation alone.
So how can we improve our questioning techniques?


Questioning is an integral part of a teachers everyday life. But if you're going to be asking millions of questions, it's probably worth making sure you ask the right ones in the right way.
I love asking questions! A colleague of mine will tell you I tend to great him most days with a question.
These are just a few things I do in the classroom. I am no expert and all these ideas have come from readings, professional developments other teacher etc.
• Ask fewer questions- As they always say 'less is more'.
• Prepare key questions
• Involve the whole class (multi choice, on line, moving to a place etc)
• Think, pair, share
• Provide think time- 5- 10 seconds. If you’re asking deeper questions you need to allow the class to have time to think and ponder their answer.
• Try no hands up
Stop now and think of your class and I bet you can name those same 3 who always put their hands up? How often do you go straight to them for the answer? The 'no hands up' is great. I was one of those students who hated putting my hand up to ask a question- the fear of being made to look silly not wrong. Research shows that student's main fear is not of being wrong, but of looking silly. Such "peer fear" is the main obstacle to students answering and asking questions Lots of children are like this. It also means that you are more likely not to always choose the same students as well, meaning you are engaging everyone. Try using lollipop sticks (where you have the entire classes name on sticks and randomly pick one out) or the IWB that randomly picks children names or like me, I just pick. Even if they are not comfortable at answering the question, offer two or more options and let the student choose one e.g. 'phone a friend' where they get to ask someone else to answer the question.
• Avoid NO!
We can't always be right but what we need to do is foster an environment where children feel safe to answer questions. Reward every answer regardless by the way you respond.
“What do you mean by…?”
“Can you give me an example?”
"What are your reasons for saying this?”
“Can you be more specific?”
“Let me see if I understand you. Do you mean…?”
“Could you explain your answer further?”
“Can you rephrase your answer?”
• Ask more ‘open’ questions, question the answer, develop deep thinking questions, Ask why?
Blooms Taxonomy provides a structure for developing questions that encourage students to think on different levels. In order, the levels are:
Knowledge (facts, recall, recognition)
Comprehension (translation, interpretation, extrapolation)
Application (to new or unfamiliar situations)
Analysis (break into parts)
Synthesis (combine elements into a new pattern)
Evaluation (apply criteria to defend the conclusion)

Throw the ideas around the room. Pose, Pause, Pounce, Bounce is a great technique.
"Asking good questions is the basis for becoming a successful learner," says Guy Claxton. "If children aren't asking questions, they're being spoon-fed. That might be effective in terms of getting results, but it won't turn out curious, flexible learners suited to the 21st century."
It is about getting students to think more critically enabling them to have a better understanding of what they are learning. Effective questioning isn't a one-way process. If we asks the kind of questions that stimulate thought and debate, there's a strong chance our students will also start to ask more.

What's been going on?

Here are a few things we have been doing in the room since we took on the whole MLE/ #hackyrclass


I am lucky that I have quite a large room to start off with. Downside is it is dark and you sometimes feel like you are in one of those buildings where you are never to sure of what the weather is like outside. Reason being, one side there are trees and bushes and the others is all boarded up so we can actually see the IWB.


My class have played a lot in the decisions that have been made. It is their classroom as well and it shouldn't always be me making all the decisions. We have talked a lot about MLE! I have shown them schools, photos, blogs and even website that sell the furniture!
Part of their home work task was to think about how they could create a MLE with the room we already have.
There ideas can been seen here.


The next part of the process was to #hack the room.
We talked a lot about what we liked/ didn't like about the room. As a teacher, it is always interesting to hear what children think. Most were very insightful and showed me that the class have really taken on board the MLE concept.


Our room before we started can be seen here and here as you can tell it was the standard tables in groups, children had their seat and tray.
After some chatter amongst the class we decided to have about 4 tables up the front for our 'collaborative area' when I need to talk to them as a whole class or group and needed the IWB


As you can see trays were taken away and chairs are placed around the tables. Children also use big cushions to sit on the floor. Behind you can see pink boxes that stored all their books. The red 'bubble' table became a place for them to sit when collaborating in groups and for me to do guided reading as well- although I do still enjoy taking this on the carpet now and then.


As you can see the children then decided to go from groups of 6 to groups of 4. They choose where they placed the tables. I have some to the side by the window as well. We have a red table right at the back beside our quiet area. Although they have already decided they don't like the board there and want to change it for a long hanging piece of material.
I also have two old wooden desks that the children love and use as the 'duo' area.