Vehicles - Inquiry

For the start of our transport inquiry I went in to the $2 shop and got heaps of toy cars, trains, planes etc. I started by allowing students time to play and talk with each other about how they move etc. I removed myself from this time and just took notes about paths I want to pursue (vocab I want fed in and anything else I think would be beneficial). After students had time to explore we sat back and thought about something we may want to find out - so pleased with my kids they all came up with a question (some more complex than others but its a start).
I was away on Thursday so my principal was in the class and they went through and classified and justified about different vehicles.

Week 2 Monday:
We began a discussion around new and old cars. I found a great resource on sparkle box that has a new and old version of transport. I set children up into groups and they had to go away and decide if the transport was new or old and why.

Then as a class we discussed them. Students then had to come up with some features that were the same and some that were different.

Last term we had some vintage cars drive by our school so it was really awesome that students were using their prior knowledge from this event to help inform some of their decisions.

To end our inquiry we wrote a short story about our favourite vehicle that had to include a fact we had learnt. Children then made a picture to match their story.

Week 7, Term 3 2014

In maths this week I thought I would delve into some fractions with my class after my course a couple of weeks ago. We started off simple by doing half and quarter of a square, circle etc. My more capable students started to explore thirds and fifths. On Monday we talked about the times that we had heard 1/2 or 1/4 being used. See below for the things we came up with.

On Wednesday I started exploring a fraction of a set with most of my class. We started off by doing really simple problems. We were using counters and pretending they were lollies - this worked ok. However I knew to really cement it in their brain we had to use real lollies. So on Thursday I brought in some MnMs. Students were buddied up and had to work to solve the problems. They were so much more accurate when they thought they might be missing out or not getting a fair share.

In reading I have been playing around with my programme and trying to figure out how I can incorporate more student agency. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesdays trials were all a night mare. However I believe that on Thursday I came up with an effective one for my learners. I will let you know next week if its a winner and what I have done.

For writing we have been looking at poems. I have never taught poems before so in the weekend leading up I spent heaps of time researching and finding examples that would work for my class. We have been doing senses poems this week.
On Monday we started off by describing a t-shirt (this was a idea suggested by Lisa for Te Toi Tupu). I put children into groups of 3 and they had to come up with some words about the parts of a t-shirt. We then came back as a class and wrote these down - I added in some they didn't know - such a easy way to increase their vocab.

Next we talked about the colour and how we could describe it to someone. We came up with a brainstorm about all the things we know are yellow.

Finally in groups children had to come up with a sentence to describe their t-shirt. I gave some example first and then sent them away. The had two choices:

• Yellow like
• As yellow as

We got some great ideas. We built on this lesson by moving into poetry. I will post some example next week of their work.

Goal for week 8:

Have a Daily 5 programme in place that works for my learners and my self.

Reading Rockets

A few weeks ago the RLit who works out of school was photo copying some great wee reading rockets at each stage up to gold. So today I have spent some time creating these to suit my own and my classes needs. Each colour has what children need to be doing independently at that level - this is glued into their Learning Journals so that students and their parents can see what needs to be achieved.

Daffodil day

Today was Daffodil Day (one of the most important fundraising days to help raise money for cancer sufferers). Being Friday my class alway does an art project so today I decided to make Daffodils. Below is the step by step instructions to make them:

  

We started by painting the dirt

We then cut out our stem and leaves (we painted these earlier) and glued them on.

Students then cut the petals out and glued them on.

Finally students glued on a patty pan to make the flower corona.

To end the day we made acrostic poems:

Rainbow facts to 10

Today I thought I would try something different with my kids to see if they could begin to make connections with their basic facts to 10. This was actually an idea from one of my courses and found a cool sheet that students could use in their own books. Check out this blog that I got the resource from.

I am also using the Numicon blocks to help some students with other connections - I tied this into the rainbow facts to help them and make things more obvious.

Astronaut applications

We finished our applications during writing time. Here are some of the final products. If you want a copy of the document you can get it from my google docs.

Handwriting practice

At the moment my kids love using chalk so I thought why not use this in my Daily 5 time. Students have been practicing their high frequency words and writing them out on the court. I also though that it would be a good idea to use as part of handwriting. I used it today as a warm up and to teach children the correct letter formation.