Week 3, Term 1 2015

Week 3 went by super fast. We spent most of the week focusing on Literacy and Numeracy - I have all programmes up and running now which is great, I can start to focus on my guided group work.

For Daily 5 I have got 5 guided groups that complete independent Daily 5 activities when not with me. I have been working to help students set their goals for the term and it has been a little difficult with the holiday break and students moving back a couple of reading sub levels. I can safely say that I have now identified their next steps and what I will be working on with each group.
Each week I am adding 2 new independent activities so they are not overwhelmed. My biggest challenge is having time to fit Shared Reading, Daily 5 and Oral Language in - but will be easier Week 5 when swimming is finished.
My week 4 goal in literacy is to implement an Oral Language programme that is student led and engaging.

Numeracy has been fairly easy to set up with my only new student starting with similar needs to a couple of the others. I am running this as rotation based learning and only pull children out when I need them (no set groups).
At the moment I have students working at Stage 0-1, 2/3 and 4. Some of last years learning has needed recapping so we are spending week 4 going over what we know.
My week 4 goal in numeracy is to have my maths calendar up and running.

As for the other curriculum areas they will be coming through next week.

On Friday we had some bananas ready to go off so I though as a 'fun Friday' language experience we would make smoothies in our class. It was really fun and we were able to incorporate maths, literacy and art into our learning. Below is a photo of the wall display.

Swimming Art

Today my class created an swimming image.

I found this terrific lesson on the blog 'Kids Artists''.

You need:

1. white drawing sheet A4 size
2. coloured paper for background 
3. crayons
4. liquid water colour, blue and green
5. brush
6. jar with water

Look at artwork of David Hockney, especially those with swimming pools. Discuss with the students how people look like under water -flowing hair, lighter skin. What causes the shimmering
surfaces on the water and what do they look like?

The students draw one or more people in swimsuits and colour themwith oil pastels. Use white oil pastel to draw a water pattern in the background, consisting of wavy horizontal, vertical and diagonal lines.
Paint the picture with blue and/or green diluted coloured ink. The swimmers and the white lines will not resist the ink.

2015 Term 1

It has been a great start for the year in Room 6. I have 8 students which is great - so much 1:1 learning.
We have started off the year setting up expectations and routines. This has got off to a good start but I can see students starting to test the boundaries - thats ok, I was prepared for it and as a class we are working through any interruptions we may have. I am not currently running my normal timetable as we are at the town pools for 1 hour of the day so I don't have much room for any learning other than reading, writing and maths. This however may work in my favour as children are very clear on my expectation for these three subjects.

In reading I am running the Daily 5 again so we have been spending time setting it up and learning how to do each activity.

In maths we began by doing statistics. We are now on to number. I am running this the same as last year and pulling students out based on their needs rather than having set groups.

In writing I am also continuing the same routine as last year where my students each have individual learning goals and I group students based on their needs (once again no set groups).

In reading, writing and maths I will be running mini teacher inquiries as to how I can improve my own teaching . I will share these as the term progresses. Below are 3 that I am addressing now.

Literacy

Increase oral language. - My students are entering school with very low oral language (I think this is becoming an issue across the country) so I am looking at how I can add activities into my already busy programme.

Numeracy

Have children explain what they are learning, why and how they will know they have learnt it. - I achieved this last year in writing and am hoping that I can find a similar concept that works for my students.

Other curriculum areas

This year we have got iPads in the classes and I am wanting to find how I can best use them in my class for all curriculum areas (I can download apps etc but I want to get the best learning for my students).

2015 reflections