Understanding place value- 27 August

Last week our staff attending a workshop on understanding place value. This session was aimed specifically for the junior levels which I found extremely beneficial. 

Key message of the day for me was- Teach knowledge through problems instead of focusing on knowledge, so that it makes sense for our learners.

For my students we need to be focussing on groupings to 5 and 10 including finger patterns and using materials such as; Abacus, dice, 5 or 10s frames. 

  

Here are some activities that I will use in my class- Ladybug and flowers independent activity (Children have 2 different coloured ladybugs to put on the flowers)- Key idea being number bonds to 5.

Flowers (Like fly flips) Number 9 on flowers with bugs (How many bugs hidden inside? Key idea being number bonds to 10.

Turn around- Have 5 objects in a line. How many can you see? How many can I see? Key idea groupings to 5

This session has given me lots of relevant and useful activities and ideas to use in my classroom! 

Personal teaching philosophy

I have been looking at my CV recently as I have been forwarding it to a recent graduate for some ideas. I enjoyed looking at my personal teaching philosophy.
It has always been my view that building relationships with students and their families is the key to helping children reach their full potential. At our school this is a school wide view and the relationships we have with whanau and students is great. I spend time developing relationships with children in different situations so the students see me as a person instead of just a teacher. Here is a list of different strategies I use to develop these relationships with my students;  I talk to the children about things that happen in my life, I have 1 on 1 conversations with students whenever possible, I sit with the children during lunch, I let children stay inside at lunch to help me.
I have found that having this kind of relationship with my students is very beneficial because I am often able to preempt any issues before they occur.
I have always valued relationships with the students and seeing this in practise in my own class has only strengthen my view on it becuase I have seen the many more positive effects it has had on my students.

Week 5 toolkit

This afternoon I attended a toolkit which is an amazing initiative that our cluster does. It is when an "expert" in an area offers support to all the staff in the cluster. I was lucky enough to have a 1 on 1 session around using iMovie on the iPads. I am fairly new to the iPads and have been on a steep learning curve. This is also the case with using iMovie. This year I am attempting to make my very first movie for the Manaiakalani Film Festival. It was a great time to sit down, share my ideas and practise/learn the ins and outs of using iMovie and more specifically on the iPad.
The most exciting thing I learnt today was that I can record my children singing the song by splitting the sound file from the movie. I am very excited to begin recording this week!

Manaiakalani annual hui 2015

Today all the staff from our school attended the Annual Manaiakalani Hui. We started the day with a student from every school sharing some of their learning. I really enjoyed seeing the various ways students choose to present their work. It was great for me to see and hear from the students how using technology deepened their understanding and ability to display their learning. As a junior teacher I have seen and am aware of what goes on in the senior classes, but I have only heard about this from a teachers point of view. The children are empowered and have all the tools they need to display their learning.

Next we had presentations from the innovative teachers group. They are teachers who are studying and focusing on a inquiry focus.
Inquiry topics included- 
How using digital devices impact on progress in reading.
iPad- Plan their own reading tumble. Daily five and they find this on the site. Student choice, digital engagement,
Benefits of bilingual activities in the classroom. Using first language in the classroom to support learning.
ipads 1:1 in years 1-3- iPads allow for greater opportunities to extend reading activities. Guided reading sessions relevant follow up activities. Rewindability for learners to keep going back to i.e instructions.  
Pe and the benefits of video/technology- Videolyse biomechanics. iPad- Video delay (to replay work back to students). Video tagger (video editing on the iPads)
Effects of peer led feedback- Unpacking and developing their own class writing rubric. Using our leaners language instead of teachers putting things into "child speak."

Take aways
-Visual reminder- What do great readers look like?
-Daily five choices for children (range of specific apps)

I found this day very beneficial for sharing with and collaborating with teachers and learners in our clusters.

Testing week !

This week I am in the process of completing running records on all my students. Reading is an area of my teaching I have been trying to focus on because it the area my students need most progress in. I am particularly pleased with the progress of one boy who has moved from level 6 to level 12 in 6 weeks. This means he is now at standard for after 1 year at school.  I know that he does a lot of reading at home with his Mum and he has recently started brining his book bag every day which has helped him greatly. I need to continue to develop my basic sight word programme in my class to boost my students progression in reading.

Whanau conferences

Tonight we had Whanau conferences. I loved meeting some new parents and having time to catch up with other parents. I had an 85% turn out tonight. I loved seeing all the families that came through toady to show their support for their children's learning. I really enjoy having the time to sit down and talk to the parents because although I see a few of them after school, the 3pm rush is always a busy time for me (to keep track of twenty 5 year olds) so I rarely have time to have a good conversations with parents. I left tonight feeling very positive about all the work that these parents put into their children's learning and very pleased that I had taken the time to make them resources to assist them at home.

Developing in Digital Worlds

Yesterday for staff meeting we had someone come to talk to us about a study that he is working on. One of the questions that he is going answer was "How does participation in the digital world influence children's cognitive and social development?"
I think this is a wonderful thing for teachers to be aware of, especially at a school like ours becuase of all the technology we use. In the classroom I see that cognitively it helps the children by increasing motivation, engagement and giving them extra tools to develop/extend and show their learning. The effects on social development is not that obvious for me to see in the classroom but I can see that social skills may be hindered through the use of devices becuase many apps do not involve any human interaction. I can this being a problem if children are not receiving enough to practise and develop their social skills. In our team we use Developmental play as a time to develop these vital social skills.

Maths on the iPads

Today I had 10 students so we had the opportunity to complete all our work today on the iPads. The children absolutely love it and the work/learning that happens on them is amazing!
Today my students were making sets. They had to read a number, count that many counters, take a photo and then insert on their slide. ALL of my students completed this activity, which is amazing considering many of them are unable to read numbers to 20. The children had so much fun, they were helping each other and they were so proud of what they had created.
Here are some pictures of them during our maths session today.

I loved seeing how excited and focused the children were.

Multiplicative thinking

This afternoon for our maths PD the focus was on multiplicative thinking. I found this session very useful because it made it very clear the types of things I should be doing for the children in my class. I generally focus mainly on Number knowledge and specific teaching in addition. A few ideas that I am in the process of making on the iPads are skip counting in 2s activities such as- Counting pairs of socks or gumboots. The children will move the objects and put the number sequence underneath. 

The biggest take away for me tonight was that children need to not only know the counting sequence but understand through exploration in many different ways that counting in 2s means two objects.