Week 6, Term 2 2013

Week 6 has been a really great week.

This week I incorporated a new system into my Daily 5 and this was to allow students the opportunity to take more ownership for their learning. The way my rotations work now is I have a whole class timer set up into three different rotations of 28 minutes with a 7 minute fruit break (students work independently not with reading group). The student then choose a Daily 5 activity (Read to Someone, Read to Self, Work on Writing, Word Work or Listen to Reading) and complete the task for the whole 28 minutes and then they swap to the next activity when the bells chime. I choose the chimes as it has a similar sound to the bell and as quoted in the Daily 5 doesn't interrupt any auditory learners. “The balanced melody is different enough to grab the attention of our highly kinaesthetic children, but not obtrusive enough to upset our auditory children” (Boushey & Moser, 2006). The children run on this rotation with the guidelines that they follow the correct procedures, complete the task for the whole 28 minutes and Read to Self every day.  During this time I run my guided reading sessions on a separate timer and pull children out as I need them.

This new rotation system has actually worked really well and I am pleased with how the students responded to it. Our next step is to work on smooth transitions into the next activity without have a chat or fight over the iPods.

I had a release day on Wednesday where I did running record testing on my 4 lowest groups. I had all students pass the reading however they all scored a low percentage on the comprehension questions. I planned for this and will continue to focus on comprehension.

Two students demonstrating Read to Self.

Maths has been very similar to last week however I have started to have children explaining their thinking process so that it becomes second nature to them.

An example of a students showing the strategy used to work out a problem.

I will link some recordings next week of the kids explaining what strategy they are using for division, it’s a good first time but I need to feed more vocab into them to help them explain.

One of my next steps last week was to use my modelling book more and I am using it for all activities instead of writing on the white board. I have also started writing my WALT out on the computer to save time and I am unpacking this and referring back to it continually with students.

This week I will also be focusing on transition learners from using material to imagery as I know they are all efficient at working out an answer through using material.

After having read Chapter 3 of Guided Maths I am also starting a new maths display (photos and a explanation next week).

My tutor also suggested a good idea for increasing the students writing fluency. So I have incorporated this into my morning routine. The children are given two random words from which they pick one. They then write continuously for two minutes, stop and count their words and we keep these on a table so that we can compare the progress they are making.

The behaviours in my class are becoming much better as they know the boundaries now; I still found they were a little bit testing after having a reliever for a day.

My week 7 next steps for my class are:

•          Develop smooth transitions in the Daily 5.
•          Read a book and retell it (one of the strategies used in read to self, see post: Daily 5 by Gail Boushey and Joan Moser Chapter 4).
•          Have children explaining the strategy’s they are using in maths.
•          Progress from using material to imagery – maths.
•          I also want to do more modelling in the class so that children can use it as a guideline and build on it.

Boushey, G., & Moser, J. (2006). The Daily 5. Portland, Maine: Stenhouse Publishers.