TPT: Drama Circles

Fluency boot camp and developing confidence in P3 has begun!

P3 are using these amazing drama circles for oral language and active listening.

They are set out in the same format as the maths game loopy. 'I have...who has...?'

Student's need to actively listen for the action that comes before their card, however if they do get lost all the cards are numbered and I keep track of where we are up to and prompt when necessary.

 We begin each drama circle by reading our card to a buddy and discussing how we could act out our set card.

We then do a run through, some student's have more than one card and it is by their choice that they take another card.

We then do a second run through where the student's pick one thing they could improve on.

I encourage my students to commit to the acting with their actions and expression. 

Each set has roughly 40 cards in it and can be purchased from TPT for around $3.

So far they have been a huge success and I have purchased most of Runde's Room Drama Circles. My Class beg for drama and fluency boot camp now and I have noticed an improvement in their oral language. 

Try out this free one below.

Free Drama Circle - Fairy Tales

P3 Book Club

P3 are avid readers!
They love to read and are always on the lookout for new and exciting books.
Children's literature is one of my biggest passions. I love getting my students excited about reading.
That is exactly what book club has done for my class. I carefully selected 5 books at varied levels and on varied topics to get their interest. I made sure to choose mostly books that are in a series to encourage student's to continue to read after book club is complete. The bonus was also that two of the books are going to be coming out at theatres this year!

We do book club twice a week. Our reading programme consists of  2 sessions of our novel study, 2 sessions of book club and 2 sessions of guided reading based on their ability (grouped). This way I am covering independent, guided and intensive comprehension in my reading programme.

The books I chose were:

- Divergent
- The Maze Runner
- The Recruit
- Holes
- Gone

I also had audio books for Divergent, Maze Runner, The Recruit and Holes. This was a huge hook in for most students, who were begging to listen to their books while they completed other work.
To counter this I made sure that students were also reading along to the books on their computer at the same time. We use an app called 'Readium', student's are able to load the books into their readium library and read at their own pace.

I created a clear sleeve for students with set tasks in each sleeve.
Students worked through these tasks in order:

1. Create a title page for your book
2. Answer the 'At Beginning' reading questions for your novel
3. Visualizing concept poster
4. Asking questions concept poster
5. Predicting concept poster
6. Main character poster - specific physical and personality traits
7. Tagxedo on their blogs about the books
8. Participate in a literacy circle with your book club peers

* Divergent book club - google maps activity to map out locations from the book.

These are the activities we have done so far, I am constantly trying to spice things up and adding new activities to their folders.

Students have already started recommending books for next term. I am so pleased with the results of our book club. Please recommend any other amazing books in the comments below!

Recommended book club books for term 2:

-      Harry Potter

-      Tomorrow When the War Began

-      The Seekers

-      The Hunger Games

-      The Host

-      The Rangers Apprentice

-      Enders Game

-      Inheritance Cycle (Eragon)

-      Roald Dahl Month (All Books)

-      The Book Thief

-      The absolutely true diary of a part time Indian

-      It’s kind of a funny story

-      I am number four

-      The city of ember

Reaching the end of 'Wonder'

We are reaching the end of our novel study 'Wonder'. We have created character description posters, tagxedo's, had literacy circles and made predictions throughout the book. 

We are listening to the audio book and really enjoy that it is broken into different perspectives voiced by different people. 

We only have two parts of the book left - Miranda and August.

Some of our predictions and comments about 'Wonder':

Tanner - 'Wonder is a awesome book. I think that the school year will finish and the war will be over and it will be all ok. If you have not read this book I think you should because it is so cool'

Sacha - 'We have been reading the book ‘Wonder’ and it has been sad, awesome and funny. My prediction for the end of the book is everyone will treat August like a normal person and not look at him like he is an alien from space! I would recommend this book to the people who are willing to shed a tear and have a good laugh!'

Maya -'We have been reading Wonder for the last term and we are nearly at the end! Our teacher has assigned us to make a prediction. I think August will become very popular and not be the "weird, creepy dude" anymore and Julian will get caught and be in huge trouble!'

'

Minecraft PB4L City

Another year and another battle setting up and facilitating how I want/need Minecraft to run in our classroom. This year I am lucky enough that my team (myself + 3 other teachers) are on the MC bandwagon.


We began our Minecraft set up the same as we did last year.
I told all the students to go on and show me a creation. I asked them to build something to share with the class that showed their Minecraft skills. I do this for two reasons. Firstly I see the levels of skill and expertise in the room and secondly I am able to see the students' digital etiquette for one another. After this we used post it notes to reflect on our session. We reflected on what was good, what was bad, what our goals were for future projects and began creating our Minecraft treaty.

Student Positives:

- Teamwork
- Creativity
- Collaboration
- Communication
- Learning a new form of ICT
- Gaming in the classroom
- Maths (co-ordinates, volume, spatial awareness)
- Digital citizenship
- Our school values (respect, honesty, relationships and learning)

Student Negatives:

- Griefing
- People all trying to build on top of each other
- Some people not knowing how to play and needing constant help
- Issues for some getting on - having to go down to library and grab another laptop


Students used all of these to create a treaty that they all signed. They have agreed to abide by their treaty and have set consequences that they decided on for when they break it.

We then decided to build a PB4L (positive behaviour for learning) city.

We used another white sheet of paper to map out what our city required:
- Housing
- Roads
- Footpaths
- Workplaces - based on dream jobs
- Parks, forests, farms - nature related things


P3 began building all of the above. They were working very well with one another to achieve a successful result. We then bought in P2 and P3 became the tuakana teina to teach them how to use Minecraft. P2 then joined us in our area and began developing their own homes and workplaces alongside us. The students were commenting positively on newly formed relationships, successful teamwork and the ability to collaborate with a large group of students.

The main goal of this activity was to develop a digital etiquette and ensure our school values are also represented online.