Week 1 - Writing Programme

Week one, I really focused on getting my writing programme up and running. I have introduced writing group's to the class with different learning objectives for each. Each child has a independent writing journal as well as a group activity box to work from when they are not writing with me. We started off getting to know what was in our group's activity box on Monday. I used the fishbowl approach to do this and the children were really excited to use the activities. The activities I have used in each box are activities that suit the needs of the children in that particular group. They are creative and engaging and allow children to practice and apply their knowledge in different contexts. Problems that occurred over the week, was the time it took to pack up some activities and some children not using the activities correctly. We have since talked about our golden rules and how we treat other people's property and the importance of making sure everything is put back as they found it. This week they have been great and have demonstrated packing up quick and making sure everything is put away in the correct bags etc. Groups using play dough start to pack up slightly earlier. Group work really encourages akonga to take responsibility of their learning and behaviour and I feel most children are doing a fantastic job at working independently. I have definitely seen a huge improvement in just a few days. Narrative writing is going well, using character and setting cards has really helped children make a start quickly. Children are excited to tell me about their stories and I feel the amount of writing the children are producing has increased hugely.

Splat - Compound words

I have been doing a lot of thinking around my writing programme the last few weeks in preparation for term 4. Having new, creative and enjoyable activities I feel will get the children excited for their writing lessons. The hot spot game "Splat" was a favourite of mine that Katy (associate teacher) used when I was on placement at Addington School. She used this activity at the start of some of her math's lessons. I introduced this activity last week to practice our doubles at the start or end of a maths lesson, but I thought why not try it in my writing planning. I had printed out cupcakes which were cut down the middle, for example, one half being tooth and the other half being paste. I had put all of one side of the cupcakes on the board and would read out the other half. Children then had to place the fly swat over the first part of the compound word. What a hit! The children loved it! We had a big talk about not being the winner and that it's a fun game and it's o.k not to win. We also talked about nice comments we can say to one another. This definitely made the activity run smoothly. I feel this was a great way to introduce the compound cupcakes. I will be putting them in one of my writing group's activity baskets next term. They will be expected to match all the different cupcakes. We only used a few for our game but I'm sure children will like matching them up. I also thought another way the children could use them when having their group activity rotation would be to play the game memory with them. They turn them all over and have to get matching pairs. The child with the most matching pairs at the end is the winner.

Reflection: Talking, Reading, and Writing by Marie M. Clay

Last week Katy handed out a reading (Talking, Reading, and Writing) during our meeting to have a read over. What was a great read. It has also given me many ideas going forward. I strongly believe it is essential for teachers to connect reading, writing and oral language together.

I thought it was interesting when Clay talked about choosing texts for children. "Teachers should not avoid authors whose texts are hard to read. Rather, they should find ways to prepare their pupils ahead of time to work with new, unexpected, and unusual structures." (Clay, p.g 5). As teachers we should always be finding ways for children to progress in these very important curriculum areas. Different texts provides more variation between day to day reading and promotes new experiences. 

As a beginning teacher and having taken a few reading groups this week, I found getting through all of Virginia's reading groups a struggle. After reading I reflected on the lessons and felt I could have discussed parts of the text further to make the learning even more beneficial. "Conversations create opportunities for language to be expanded." (Clay, p.g 3). I ask myself, is it more important to see 3-4 groups to enable me to discuss the text in depth instead of all 5? Should we be spending a couple of days on the same book for those harder texts? If we are to not avoid more tricky texts do we need to allow more time for groups to get through those texts in depth? 

"Young children talk a lot, read aloud, mumble as they write, and reread their work aloud so teachers have opportunities to engage with language progress." (Clay, p.g 11). I love getting a few students to share at the end of a writing lesson. It enables students to read aloud to their peers. I feel I can then promote opportunities for greater thinking by asking questions to expand their learning and give them opportunities to want to write more about their story. We can be quiet a noisy classroom. I'm not really one to be able to handle a lot of noise in a classroom  as I feel when working in a group it's important for those children to be working in a quieter environment to enhance their learning. I had an aha moment when reading this as maybe I need to rethink how I feel about noise levels in a class. Obviously we are only talking minimal loudness anyway but when I do whole class writing my expectation has always been without any noise. 

Lastly we have been focusing a lot around the planning of our writing. Who, what, where, why, how and why? Clay mentiones why and how to be the most difficult question words in English. More focus around these two question words when modelling may allow children to find the task easier due to a few in the class finding this task challenging.

The bandage approach to fixing our sentences!

Last week our food of the week was cauliflower. We generated ideas for writing by learning how to plant cauliflower seeds. The children were really excited to write about their experiences from participating in this activity. I believe a lot of children loose interest in their writing after they have written all their points down. I wanted to create an engaging hot spot activity to get the children excited about editing their work. I had created four sentences about planting cauliflower seeds with many errors in each sentence. I asked children to put up their hands if they could see an error. They then came up and "fixed" apart of the sentence by placing a bandage over the error. I had prepared all the bandages to keep the hot spot activity short. I feel this was an appropriate learning activity to excite the children about editing their work. Children felt positive about going away to fix their own writing. This activity was really engaging and all children were excited to put their hands up to tell me an error. Children were able to take responsibility for their work as this activity set them up to succeed in editing their writing. A lot of children still found it difficult when correcting spelling errors. Overall I feel it was a great activity and will use it again during my planning for writing.