Week 3, Term 3 2014

On Monday for our inquiry we were looking at the life cycle of a bird - we focused on the pūkeko. I had seen this great wee activity on Pintrest where children create their pūkeko out of paper. I did lots of modelling around this before I let them go off to create on their own. 

They are still cute, but not what I had in mind.

Once they had finished their life cycle it was very hard to follow... so on Monday night I went away and changed my plan - we redid them on Tuesday with a template and the children used crayons and paper to match - was a much better lesson! 

My inquiry seems to be drawing out a lot of questions that caught me off guard especially when we spoke about baby birds and humans - I really had to think about what path to take it down when answering these sorts of questions. "Where do baby humans come from?" "Why do only eggs that live with a boy bird have babies inside?" 

For writing I am continuing needs based group work where I pull children out where necessary. This is working really well and my students are getting taught exactly what they need. On Thursdays we have a free choice writing day. I decided to change things up a bit after reading an article on a classroom who had removed all desks and had little nocks for kids to work in. I did this a lot with my class last year as I thought they were better prepared. However my class really surprised me and the quality of writing didn't slip at all. For the whole time they were completely silent (usually there is a small amount of chit-chat going on). During this time I also wrote my own story to help with modelling the importance of it.
Below are some of the opinions from my students.
"I liked it because I got to lie on the cushion and write my story. It was comfy." - Travis (Year 2)
"I didn't like it because the sun was in my face. Next time I will pull the curtain." - Glaceous (Year 1)
"It was nice and cosy." - Logan (Year 1)
"Because it was nice and quite" - Cayden (New Entrant)
"I like sitting where I wanted to because it was quieter than when we sit at our desks because their wasn't people close to me." Kalyx (Year 2)

On Wednesday I met with my mentor teacher and we discussed the Record of Oral Language after I had tested a couple of kids. We spoke of some ways to help develop their Oral Language in different ways.

My reading is going good and I have my Principal in taking 3-4 groups per day. I tested 6 children and am so happy that 4 of them are ready to move up a reading level. I can definitely see the buddy reading that they have been doing has helped their fluency. Now just to continue a big push on high frequency words and comprehension strategies.

My goal for week 4:

• Record a lesson in each of reading, writing and maths to reflect on and help inform my teaching.