IMMERSION - TEACH LIKE A PIRATE!

Are you a lifeguard (more focus) or a swimmer (total immersion)?

I think I mainly sway towards being a swimmer. Yes I may have the odd lesson where I stand back but most of the time I'm immersed in the learning with the children.

Interesting in this section...."Student's can feel it when you are truely present".

I wonder if the kids have noticed I haven't been truely present this week....having nits, I have to say my paranoid mind has been in action and it's constantly been on my mind. I'm pleased to say I had my hair checked today and she confirmed that they were all gone :)

This also made me think of the Bin it, Bag it, and Bring it approach that Donna and Glenys introduced us too. 

What are 2 things you can do in your classroom to make the swap from focus to immersion?

Testing - this is a time where I'm not immersed in the tasks set for the children. Where possible I try to complete my testing in my extra value added time / CRT etc.

Independent group tasks i.e maths / reading - Join in on an activity after taking a group / have a slot where I join in with the children on their independent activities.

"Total immersion. Your ability to completely give yourself up to the moment and fully "be" with your students is an awesome and unmistakably powerful technique".

PASSION - TEACH LIKE A PIRATE!

In your classroom what curriculum area are you passionate about teaching?

I am most passionate about teaching WRITING! 

 

I love providing opportunities for children to use their imagination, engage in new experiences, be creative and share their stories with others. I love listening to my student's stories. Seeing them smile, laugh and be so proud of their work. Every student has a different story to tell and each piece of writing is unique and tells a different story. 

Within your profession but not specific to curriculum area, what are you passionate about?

I'm passionate about being the best teacher I can be, building some of the best relationships with my student's and being their for those kids who need that someone special in their lives. I want to be a breath of fresh air for my students and make their learning environment a positive and safe environment. 

https://www.ted.com/talks/rita_pierson_every_kid_needs_a_champion#t-67213

Completely outside your profession, what are you passionate about?

I'm passionate about my family. I love having family time with my partner and my wee boy. I enjoy renovating our house and moving forward together.

Art, craft, craft markets...

Cooking, baking....etc

Oh and gardening :)

I LOVED....

"It's about helping the next generation fulfill their potential and become successful human beings. It's no longer about memorising facts; it's about inspiring greatness." P.g 10

"no matter where they start in life, or how low they fall, they can still, through the power of self-education and their own efforts, rise to greatness." P.g 10.

"Passion is all about being on fire in front of your class." P.g 12

Hui Term 2

First Hui yesterday afternoon for Term 2. We have moved onto focusing on actions for the next four weeks, then body parts between weeks 5-8 and then finishing the term with Matariki in weeks 9 and 10. I took our first session yesterday and for it being the first day back after a two week holiday and an afternoon session I thought the children did well. Two children from each class get an opportunity to come up to the front to complete their mihi and we have now extended the mihi for our Yr 3 students. This seems to take a very long time as most students need help to complete their mihi. For example they don't no what their parents first names are, they don't know their iwi etc. I believe it would be beneficial for each child to have their own copy of their personal mihi. These could then be laminated and practised over the week and brought to the hui session to make this part of the hui more beneficial. 

I loved the lyrics and music to Ka taea e au and thought this was a great song to include for our action hui lessons.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ehsUjQhMUM

Moving forward I would space some of the songs out better between activities as I had put a lot of the songs near the end of the lesson. 

Writing! Writing! Writing!

Well we all know Writing is a huuuuuugggggeeee passion of mine and if I could I would teach Writing all day long! We end Term 1 and I can happily say I'm amazed with how my Writing programme is ticking along and the high standard of writing being produced by my wonderful students. They know I have very high expectations of them but they always rise to the challenge and by the end of their writing session they are super proud of themselves. Every child is able to write the short date and underline it using a ruler, the children are writing on every second line (some still needing stars in their margin) and they are all writing amazing sentences about the experience we have completed on the Monday. We write a class brainstorm on the Monday together, sometimes we do a map plan on this day also. I take loads of pictures during our experience, whether that is making popcorn, planting our flowers in pots, making fruit kebabs etc. I then make a sheet up which has pictures of them doing their experience and all the words we used in our brainstorm. This is ready to go and stuck in on the left hand side of their page so that they have a reference to turn to before their writing session. I have a lot of ESOL students in my class this year and I really find the visuals and the class brainstorm already stuck into their books helps these students a lot. Whilst I'm working with a mixed ability group the other students are either making a plan for their writing for the week, completing a fine motor activity, completing a jolly phonics sheet, creative writing or doing cut up sentences.

Next term our focus for Writing is:

Like this term we will still complete an experience on the Monday, whether that is brushing our teeth, making something healthy etc. We will do a classroom brainstorm about what we did and the steps. We also have some amazing opportunities to complete personal recounts about our visits when a guest speaker comes to visit us and also about themselves and their family. I'm really excited for another wonderful term of writing :)

Delving Deeper - Collaboration and Innovation in Schools.

Jane Gilbert presented at the Delving Deeper conference at the beginning of our day. She talked about Collaboration and Innovation in schools. Many points she made about collaboration raised questions, ideas, thoughts in my head about how collaboration is working in our junior team and how I could better myself as a teacher in the junior team and/or how our team could collaborate better also.

Strong collaboration is "not just sharing, pooling or exchanging existing ideas - this just reproduces existing ideas". I love this!! We as teachers are creative and forward thinkers but yet so many of us get trapped and collect and use ideas developed by others. I feel it's important that I remember to process the ideas raised, change ideas and make that idea better if possible. It's important as we travel along the collaboration journey that we create not best practice but next practice. This world is forever changing around us and it's so easy to hear or see an idea that is being used collaboratively and use it but how can we make that idea better.

Jane mentioned that productive collaboration requires deep engagement with ideas, with colleagues, with difference. It's important that if I don't understand the context about something that is being said, instead of going along with the flow, I need to think how can i get something from this person? ask questions. I need to always pay attention to my own learning and development needs and to my own on-going cognitive growth and ask myself....what am I getting out of this? How can I get more out of this to make me a better teacher.

Delving Deeper 2 - Rich Mathematical Classrooms PD

Nicky from Papanui Primary School shared with us some useful links, websites and books to explore and try out in our classroom. Since exploring some of these tonight I believe I can use some of her links etc with my children.

To use picture books with mathematical content can be an effective way to engage students and explore problems within entertaining contexts. Below is a link to each strand in Maths as well as the levels with different picture books to suit.

https://nzmaths.co.nz/picture-books-mathematical-content

Nicky mentioned Jo Boaler and her website www.youcubed.org and that we must sign up as it's a brilliant website for current research, tasks, resources and videos. Since having signed up tonight I have explored the website a little and already I have found rich mathematical tasks to try out with my groups. I will most likely try some of these rich mathematical tasks firstly with my most capable math's group.

Nicky also mentioned using Talk Moves in the classroom. This sparked a reminder to give these ago again with my YR1 class like I did with my YR3 students last year after Sophia's presentation about these. I used the posters to remind me of using these each math's lesson last year (Sophia made for all staff). I need to hunt these out!

http://www.mathsolutions.com/documents/9780941355537_ch2.pdf

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LzPnq3l_6evuOYsDiRDjABTjH4uyYxUWswsT8BiW5aI/edit

Leaving this session with Nicky today, what I took away from this which has stuck with me is providing challenging tasks is great and that it is important not to rescue the students when they are struggling as the challenge is what our students need. 

To always be creative - to use lots of materials, use equipment, whiteboards, get the students drawing and to use lots of visuals. The use of using all these things often gives opportunities for children to show their ideas and communicate these back to the group. 

Professional Development - Improving Boys' Literacy Skills

Staff Meeting - 29/03/17

Virginia shared her experience and knowledge on a workshop she attended about Improving Boys' Literacy Skills at our staff meeting last night.

Writing, Writing, Writing!! I love teaching it and I believe I give many opportunities for not only boys but the whole class to take pride in their work. Sharing their Writing to the class, sharing their Writing with their buddy class, the office, uploading their Writing to Seesaw, sharing their Writing at assembly.....the list goes on. I praise students often and I have noticed the difference in boys when I praise the positive work they do during a Writing session and how that helps them to want to keep Writing and produce Writing that is quality. Finding out what the boys want to be when they get older and using pictures of this and explaining how those people take pride in their work may work as a good reminder and visual for the boys in the class. I thought it was interesting when Virginia mentioned using stickers to motivate boys as I could relate. Some people would think stickers would never motivate a boy or excite a boy about their work. The boys love stickers in my class and I even use them when children are on-task at the jelly bean table etc and it works a treat.

Having attended the Sharp Reading workshop, I feel my Reading lessons are now tightly structured and well focused.

Buddy Reading - happens on a Wednesday afternoon and it is fabulous to see the older boys reading to the younger boys in my class.

Ideas for teaching boys Writing/Reading in my class.

Choosing topics that interests them.

Having a boys Writing session on Friday. Boys can bring something from home to write about in their session. Discussion about what their toy is and what it does at the beginning of the lesson.

Experience on a Monday - having a few that are crazy, boy related activities that the girls will still enjoy.

Use more graphics, pictures and storyboards.

Link I loved and would use that Virginia mentioned at the meeting.

pobble365.com – photo of the day

This is an amazing resource that I will keep in the back of my head for a time where I could use it. Maybe not with my Yr1 class but def a fantastic resource to use with a senior class.

Last year I did a lot of work around my Yr3 children having a growth mindset and I used class Dojo as a resource to help children understand the brain and the neural pathways etc. I believe my Yr1 class would benefit from this again this year and I see the importance of squeezing it into my timetable. Virginia sparked my memory to pencil this into my planning and teach my children about having a growth mindset.