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.

PRT course - Responsive Pedagogies 30/07/14

Yesterday I attended my last PRT course. YAY!! The course was based mainly on ako (being a teacher and a learner) and reducing the gap in success between Maori and Pakeha students.

We began the day by discussing what we believe is important in a lesson (5 things) - most of us had very similar ideas. My five were:

1. Fun (engaging)
2. Collaborative
3. Hands on
4. Prepared (resources and teacher research)
5. Catering to ALL student abilities

This then led in to teaching as inquiry (something I felt I had a good grasp on as we have been doing a lot of teaching as inquiry professional development within our school). It was interesting to see others view points on their inquiry process with in their school and also the views of the speaker. It seems as though the process is very different across schools.

The last part of the day was sharing our stories about how we came to be teachers and what has happened on our journey so far.

We then had circle sharing time on what our next step to take back to the class would be. Mine was: to use student voice as part of data collection in the inquiry process. "What data evidence from my students suggests that this is what my students need to close the gap between where they are and where I want them to be?" - David Bradford 2014

There were 5 questions that David suggested using and these are some of what Lisa our literacy advisor has been using on my students.

1. What are you learning?
2. Why are you learning it?
3. How will you know when you have learnt it?
4. What will be your next step?
5. ???? I cant remember - will look at my notes tomorrow!

Overall the day was ok and I did come away with one or two things to think about. However I believe it would have been more valuable at the beginning of our careers as I feel I have learnt a huge portion of what was discussed in my school and the community who I work with.