Blog Reflections

Last week 1/2 my class went to Devon (Sports Exchange) and the other half stayed behind at school and organised/ran a tabloid sports day for the remaining students at school.

Once my students came back I had them reflect on their week. I was impressed with the length and content of their reflections.

I am aiming to have them put more work and effort into their blogs. Last year I pushed the use of their individual blogs and whanau engagement/interaction. The class I have this year are very sporty and take on a lot of extra curricular activities, it is very rare that I have a full class because of this. It has been hard to manage their blogs because of this. Some students have lots while others seem to have very little.

Alexa's Reflection:

Rawinia's Reflection:

Estelle's Reflection:

Casey's Reflection:

Tegan's Reflection:

Hoot Novel Study

In the term 2 holidays I drew up my long term plan for term 3. I had decided that I wouldn't do a novel study because I felt like I needed to put more focus on a solid guided reading programme., however my lower readers are out most days receiving additional help during our reading time. This leaves me with 1/3 of my class who are all reading above their level. They love novel study and begged and begged to begin another one. 

Our last novel was so successful/popular that I ended up buying my class the set of books, which are always out of the library because they are all trying to finish the series. 

Before we began the book we analysed the cover.
We look at the text and what that suggested about the book and then we looked at the pictures and made predictions on what we thought the book would be about. 
This started a lot of great literary discussion of all the elements of the cover. 

- Title
- Image of the three children
- What the relationship between the children was
- Why the owl was at the front of the children, suggest the owl was leading the children somewhere

We read the first chapter together and made notes on all the characters and information about them in their reading books.

We then had a discussion lesson. I presented them with 10 statements that relate to the book. This was extremely successful and the students had so much fun debating and arguing their positions.
Statements:

1.  All animals should be protected.

2.  All children should have a voice in a move to another state.

3.  Parents should allow young people to make their own decisions without asking too many questions.

4.  Land animals should have more rights than fish.

5.  All children should have a safe place to live with parents.

6.  All young people of school age should have an education and be in school.

7.  Students in school are smarter than students not in school.

8.  Police do everything right.

9.  Administrators / Principals are always fair.

10. The good guy always wins in the end.

I then had students choose one of the ten statements they felt most passionate about and write it in their book. They then wrote their argument for or against that statement.

We read a few more chapters and had a lot of discussion and comprehension activities. 

Sometimes when I want to ensure my students are listening I will have them go on Tagxedo and make a key word chart from the chapter we read.

My students are loving this book and I am having to growl them for attempting to read ahead when I am not looking! 

Marnie's Tagxedo:

Estelle's Tagxedo:

ICT Discovery Day

Today I had a whole days release. Normally I would use this time for testing, however last week half my class were out at a sports exchange in Taranaki and are still very tired. I realised that today would be a pointless day to test because I wouldn't be getting true results of where they are at.

I decided that I was going to have my own professional development day!
This was very exciting, I got the ULearn breakouts out and began looking and highlighting what interests me, as I was doing this I found a few programmes, apps and tools that I hadn't heard of. I then began to explore all of these.

I looked at the following tools:

- Booktrack Classroom
- Nearpod
- Adobe Voice (App)
- Google sites
- Pond



Booktrack - This website is a great concept.
I wanted to be able to use it with my current novel study, I didn't realize you have to have all the text typed out. I think it would be best used with a story they kids have written themselves. They can then use booktrack to set the mood for their story and include sound effects.

Nearpod - I need more time with this site.
I want to have a play when my class is in the room because it looks as though there is a lot of interaction. I like the concept of it. I would like to observe someone using it effectively.

Adobe Voice - A definite winner!!
Loved this. I played on it for 15 minutes, it was simple and effective. I made a quick PSA on social media and the current trend of having 1000+ friends.
I love this because I know all students in my class would have success with this app and its free!

Google Sites -  I have heard of and I know a lot of people that use them.
I decided to have play and create my own. I want to create one that is for my class to log on to and get extra support through a range of rich tasks.

Pond - I had been meaning to log on to this when I received the 'Pioneer Educator' package a few months back, today I had the time to look at the content on the site and add my own.

Geometry Towns Assessment

I am always looking for new and fun ways to assess my students understanding.
They hate tests and I don't enjoy marking them, however they love using ICT and art.
This was a brilliant way to assess their understanding of geometry at the end of our unit.

I stumbled across the resource on TPT (My holy bible of resources)

Students had spent the term learning geometry vocabulary and concepts.
They were given the initial planning sheet and used their books/knowledge/computers to compile a glossary of terms with examples.

Students then completed a draft copy of their final map, the used this copy to communicate with me each feature of the map and how they had meet the criteria for the task.

Student's then began a final copy. Once completed the students glued the criteria and the first draft onto the back of their posters before laminating.

Student's then each took turns at presenting back to the class one aspect from their poster.

I would recommend this resource to all teachers who want to spice up their assessment process!


Pros:

- The vocabulary language used in discussion during the task was outstanding
- The student's didn't realize they were doing an assessment
- They had fun, it was hands on and suited to all learning styles
- They look fantastic on the wall and the back of each poster has all the learning
- Student's were all proud of their final product

Cons:

- This took way longer than I had originally planned, I had to hold a few catch up sessions
- Some students hadn't realized that you could integrate various features and their maps become quite hard to decipher