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.

Ruru Art

Today in Room 6 we had a fun day doing art. I LOVE teaching my students art but I often don't do it enough. The following idea I borrowed from my Mum who teaches a class of similar age. I altered the idea to suit my resources and to fit with my topic and I am really pleased with the result.

The steps I took to complete the image were as follows:

1. We painted the background blue with a black tree and branch.

2. We bubble painted the bodies by bubbling up a mix of colouring, detergent and water. Then placed our owl body over top.

3. We cut out our wings, feet, beak and eyes and stuck these to the body. The body was then stuck to our background.

4. Our final outcome was these cool we Ruru (owl) pictures - they are going to look awesome on our wall.

Baby birds

Today we were looking at baby birds. We talked about where birds come from and how they get out of the shell. We didn't know for sure so we watched this great wee YouTube clip to see how they hatched.

We then discussed what baby birds eat. We decided that we eat different things to them. As a class we then sorted some items into foods that baby birds eat and don't eat. We also had to use our prior knowledge of different birds as some baby birds do eat meat!

We did this together and I then I displayed it on the visualiser so that my students could check where the words go. This was a challenge for some but most quickly got the hang of it.

Beans - Brain break

Stand up, sit down -brain break

Brain breaks

This term I have started introducing brain breaks into the class. When children start to go a bit 'off' we come to the mat and have a break. We usually have 2-3 a day and they last approximately 2-3 minutes (such a small amount of time out of the day that help bring their focus back in)!
Will post them in a separate post, check them out below (apologies about the quality).

Week 2 Term 3 2014

This week has been really busy with setting up new tools and activities in the classroom. Last week I started introducing high frequency words with my class. I had a discussion with one of my colleagues about this and he suggested a word ladder that had worked well in a previous class of his. So on Thursday I set out to build it and below is what I made. I have turned it into a competition and my students are trying to race to the end of the ladder.

For writing this week I though what better opportunity than to write about the ice we see when we get to school on cold mornings. We published this writing and added to the wall display. Some of my students are learning to publish their writing on the computer which is great.

On Wednesday I attended my last PRT course which you can view my reflection through this link.

On Thursday I met with my tutor teacher for our meeting. During this time we discussed RTC and a way in which it can be displayed. Also we came up with a plan of adding one a week and adding evidence on a regular basis.

We also discussed the reading with in my classroom and the activities I am putting in place to help build students high frequency word knowledge. 

She also gave me the Record of Oral Language book which I plan on using tomorrow to test some of my current students and any new students coming in.

This week we have been continuing our study of New Zealand birds and our focus has been on the raptors. Students love these types of birds with their vicious meat eating side. We started of the week by watching some videos from a Learnz trip to the New Zealand Birds of Prey Centre (Wingspan). Through our learning we learnt about where they live, how they catch their food and their looks.

Last term I took my class the Otorohanga Kiwi House as a pre-inquiry learning trip. Below are some photos of the interacting with the native birds and wild life.

Our starting display - loving having an extra bit of wall space.

Every friday our class has 50 minutes of discovery time (great NZ website for different ideas). During this time children interact with each other through building and play. Its really interesting seeing how they interact with each other and the ideas that they have. Every 2nd week we do a whole class discovery time.

 

Last term for matariki we made a cloak out of feathers. I though I would share it as it looks really awesome on the wall - nice and bright.