Storytelling Schools N.Z.E.I Professional Development

I really enjoyed going to this professional development talk. I liked their ideas on what great stories needs: mood that moves us, openings that hook, settings that convince, characters we care about, problems that matter, middles that build drama, endings that satisfy, action that is clear and description that is vivid. They see storytelling as a way of teaching many skills like: speaking, listening, confidence, empathy, ideas, facts, sequences, plots and writing. "Children who fill up with stories by listening and retelling create an inner store of language, ideas and imagination. They can draw upon this store in their work and life." They suggest this is a method that is proven to raise standards in writing quickly. I think it is a good idea that needs to be investigated further.

Bridging the gap workshop-play based learning

I thought it was very interesting how we think about children not being ready for school and at this workshop it has been turned around into how can we get schools ready for children? They talked about Early Childhood centres and how they use Te Whariki and it's play based philosophy.This curriculum focuses on specific learning outcomes for children. Play based experiences are offered strategically and tailored to meet a number of academic, social and behavioural learning goals according to children's needs and developmental levels. A couple of teachers talked to us about their play base learning activities in the classroom and how beneficial it was for everyone (children, parents, teachers). I really like the idea of having play based learning in the morning from 8:30 to 9:30am. It is a great way to start the school day and connect with the parents and children (all about relationships!). I came away from the course wanting to start play base learning as soon as possible. I am happy to say we are trailing it this week and it is going amazingly. The children are excited to come to school and can't wait to get started. The parents have been interested in the hive of activity when they walk into the classroom. The children are collaborating together and very engaged in their activities. We have started with wooden blocks, playdough with shape cutters, different types of lego, marble track, craft/drawing tables, cars and a racing track. All activities have been used by the children. I walk around the room and the conversations I hear are very positive. The children are experimenting, reflecting, giving each other feedback, sharing their successes and listening to each others ideas. I am excited about the next steps for play based learning!

Collaboration Breakfast

I thought this was a great way to celebrate what we have been learning in collaboration. I thought the clip touched on many points that we should be reviewing in our own collaboration processes. I liked the idea of being more open with your teaching hub and developing our relationships both inside and out of school. We are teaching the children about collaboration and we are excited about our new collaboration spaces next year. We have been working on collaboration planning. The junior team meet together on Tuesdays after school and then the Year 1/2 team meet on Thursday mornings to get reading books and Thursday afternoons to plan reading, writing and maths plus anything else we need to address. We often have chats together throughout the day on breaks how the day is going. As well as other arranged meetings when needed. I agree on more administration things to be done by emails and more planning when we meet together. I think this morning has given us lots of ideas for us to think over how we can run our collaboration time as efficient as we can, especially with the new year upon us.

Praying in Colour

My colleague suggested we pray in colour one day and I had never heard of this before. I was very interested and questioned her how this process worked. As soon as I heard about it I wanted to do it in my classroom. We as a syndicate had been thinking about other ways we could do prayers in the mornings. I tried it out this week and the children really enjoyed it. They could draw anything they wanted I encouraged drawing their feelings or things they wanted to thank God for. The children were very engaged, singing, moving with the music and drawing. When we had to finish the children wanted to continue. I suggested to our syndicate leader for it to be a regular activity and she agreed. I have since found a great website I intend to use, especially the templates. Lent is coming up and one of them would be perfect to pray in colour about (what they are going to give up or an extra thing they are going to do). I also have borrowed a book off a teacher to research more: Praying in Color Kids Edition By Sybil MacBeth. I have read about many different ideas on how to pray in colour and want to try them all out in the classroom: using a bible story as a focus, scripture passage, prayer list of people, tracing around your hand, calendar focus, tree of life, praise and worship prayer, forgiveness or confession prayer, gratitude or thanksgiving prayer, stillness prayer or a prayer about yourself. I am even encouraged to try this out myself at home. A new refreshing way to pray!

Useful Websites:

Praying in color Sybil MacBeth

Utube clip Praying in colour in action

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Google Images

Mathematics-N.Z.E.I Professional Development

On Wednesday 9th August I attended a Mathematics course by Audrey Tan through the N.Z.E.I free professional development intiative. I loved the positive mindset she had about maths-"your brain grows when you make a mistake." Audrey presented us with research that showed how low NZ performance is in maths compared to other countries. I liked this quote "If a child can't learn the way we teach, maybe we should teach the way they learn." She suggested a simple recipe that results in rapid improvement. Step 1. Efficiency and accuracy with the 4 basic operations. Step 2 Word problems and applications (instead of teaching strategies). Step 3 Whole class teaching Step 4. Explicit instruction/student practice. I think we are covering the 4 basic operations well in the junior school. We are teaching the children knowledge and strategies through the new Numeracy framework. The children encounter word problems for these 4 basic operations throughout their instructional maths lessons. They have time to practise with 5 questions to prove it afterwards. I really liked seeing problem solving in action on our visit to Hoon Hay School which I think ties in well with this P.D lecture. I am keen to give this a go and would like to start with 'Mrs Johnston's Laundry.' I enjoy both whole class teaching and ability grouped. I think a mixture of both would be good for the students. Mostly our strands are taught as a whole class which does work well. Audrey suggested many ways why whole class teaching is very beneficial in increasing student engagement and teacher contact time.

PBL with Thom Markham

I found this professional development to be very beneficial. It was great to have Thom here in person to answer our questions. It was great to look at our term 1 idea for PBL and get some planning completed. I'm excited about our final product (dreamboard) and how PBL will look next year in our hub. I enjoyed looking through the toolbox and getting some great ideas that we can use in our planning. The critical friends protocol was very positive. It was great to get other peoples views on our PBL project so far. I really liked the questions that we can use with our children e.g I like.. I wonder...I suggest... for feedback. I feel more confident going forward in PBL and I am looking forward to working more on PBL Global. I think it is great that we will be keeping intouch with Thom and skyping. I also think the rubrics are a good idea to have across the school.

Play, eat, learn

The sandwiches in the morning is going well. Sometimes I see the children who need to be having them opting out. We have seniors making the sandwiches sometimes it is a struggle for them to get it done before school starts which changes our programme, we have to come back after phonics to get bread on the way to reading. The drink bottles sometimes lose their labels and the children sometimes pick them off so we have had to have another session putting labels back on. It is good having them easily accessed in the classroom. The dishwasher also washes off the labels on the lids. The children like having their own drink bottle in the classroom, some children bring another one in their bags. I am finding that the children's behaviour in the afternoon is more difficult than the morning. I like having play first as the children are not worried about eating fast to get to the playground. Some children say they are hungry at playtime. I like eating outside afterwards as the classroom doesn't get so messy. I like community time, some children need to be encouraged to join others and have a chat. I am finding that children are still wanting to go to the toilet a lot. I like fruit snack in the afternoon where we can have community time or read a story. Fitness is good in the afternoon this is when the children need the break more. I think it is much better adding more time onto the middle block, writing and maths is in this block, the extra time is definately needed. Overall I think it is all going well just a few problems to work on. I look forward to seeing the results when we have stuck to the routines for a good few months.

PBL Global

I am enjoying working on the PBL Global professional development. I find it very motivating to have points you can earn and follow a leaderboard. I like how each tile is broken up into clips, readings, examples and short exercises. I have been slowly working my way through the tiles taking notes as I go. I like that you can work with others as well as independently complete tiles. I am grateful for the time at meetings to work on PBL Global as I find this is a good motivator too, talking to teammates finding out where they are up too, how they are going and discussing answers to the exercises. I really like this form of PD online that I can easily access and complete in my own time. I like that you can always go back and refresh what you have learned the following day. It is good to have a goal to reach tile six by week 5 as this keeps me on track. I am learning a lot about PBL and I am keen to put it all into practise.