We also developed a class treaty for our class to follow throughout the year.
Thursday, 26 April 2018
Chapter Chat Guidelines
Here is a list of digital citizenship guidelines that I created with my class. We use them during Chapter Chat.
We also developed a class treaty for our class to follow throughout the year.
We also developed a class treaty for our class to follow throughout the year.
Tuesday, 10 April 2018
Learning Progressions
I finally finished by Learning Progression chart for my classroom. The display shows which stage the children are at when it comes to managing their own learning.
The focus is on time management, integrity, on task behaviour, listening skills and having a great attitude towards their learning.
The goal is to have everyone working within the Self-guided and Independent Learning stages by the end of the year.
The focus is on time management, integrity, on task behaviour, listening skills and having a great attitude towards their learning.
The goal is to have everyone working within the Self-guided and Independent Learning stages by the end of the year.
Chapter Chat 13
Chapter Chat 13 has just finished and has been a huge success. The book we read was REFUGEE by Alan Gratz. It was a story about 3 refugees and their different stories to safety.
Chapter Chat 13 starts next term and the book I have chosen is POSTED by John David Anderson.
Also Chapter Chat recently featured in the Herald Newspaper. Here's a link to the article. LINK
Chapter Chat 13 starts next term and the book I have chosen is POSTED by John David Anderson.
Also Chapter Chat recently featured in the Herald Newspaper. Here's a link to the article. LINK
Trip To Palmerston North
In Term 2 the teachers at Norfolk School went on a trip to Palmerston North to check out some schools and see what they were up to.
I visited Whakarongo School and Opiki School. Both schools I have been to before as I taught in Palmy for 10 years.
I especially enjoyed the Y7/8 pod at Whakarongo as they had a fully functioning MLE.
Saturday, 5 August 2017
Thursday, 20 July 2017
Play Based Learning
Teacher instruction - Progress
Play with no teacher instruction - Little to no progress
Play with teacher instruction - The most progress
Children need to pick their own activities and own rules
QUESTIONS
How do teachers get around all the students to coach, teach, guide? If play based learning requires teachers how do you cover 30 kids in a one on one basis? What about all the kids that are playing by themselves? Isn't this just free play without teacher instruction? The area where you make the least progress?
Parents might say why can't they play at home?
How can kids choose their learning all the time when they need to cover reading, writing and maths? They are never going to choose these activities?
Isn't there research to support teacher instruction? The leading schools in the world come from Asia which have a teacher instruction model?
Some kids are ready for tradition learning?
If kids aren't playing at home, what are they doing?
5-18 in the same group? Really?
It shouldn't matter what you call it? Play? Learning Model?
The research comes from early childhood! No real primary school research. Discovery learning
Adults are ready to self direct their learning, are kids?
It comes down to results. Do play-based learning classrooms have better reading, writing and maths results?
Do we need National Standards? Parent want to know how their kids are going?
Do we have resources available in school?
Kids are engaged as they are doing what they want.
When kids get around their friends they don't do a lot of learning.
Acceleration - you are not miracle workers. Play is the best thing for these kids, not instructional.
Is play based learning really linked to lower suicide rates?
Do we really want to let conflict go? Sometimes?
HOW CAN I PUT PLAY-BASED LEARNING IN MY CLASS?
Choose open ended materials - JUNK
Still do 2 reading, writing and maths groups a day. This is explicit teaching then roam and teach again!
Integrated approach!
Play with no teacher instruction - Little to no progress
Play with teacher instruction - The most progress
Children need to pick their own activities and own rules
QUESTIONS
How do teachers get around all the students to coach, teach, guide? If play based learning requires teachers how do you cover 30 kids in a one on one basis? What about all the kids that are playing by themselves? Isn't this just free play without teacher instruction? The area where you make the least progress?
Parents might say why can't they play at home?
How can kids choose their learning all the time when they need to cover reading, writing and maths? They are never going to choose these activities?
Isn't there research to support teacher instruction? The leading schools in the world come from Asia which have a teacher instruction model?
Some kids are ready for tradition learning?
If kids aren't playing at home, what are they doing?
5-18 in the same group? Really?
It shouldn't matter what you call it? Play? Learning Model?
The research comes from early childhood! No real primary school research. Discovery learning
Adults are ready to self direct their learning, are kids?
It comes down to results. Do play-based learning classrooms have better reading, writing and maths results?
Do we need National Standards? Parent want to know how their kids are going?
Do we have resources available in school?
Kids are engaged as they are doing what they want.
When kids get around their friends they don't do a lot of learning.
Acceleration - you are not miracle workers. Play is the best thing for these kids, not instructional.
Is play based learning really linked to lower suicide rates?
Do we really want to let conflict go? Sometimes?
HOW CAN I PUT PLAY-BASED LEARNING IN MY CLASS?
Choose open ended materials - JUNK
Still do 2 reading, writing and maths groups a day. This is explicit teaching then roam and teach again!
Integrated approach!
Monday, 22 May 2017
JK - Term 2
Here is the JK lessons that we planned for T2. Brenda taught first and Kerri second.
The focus was on acceleration and inferring. The lesson was a 'Who dun it' mystery and proved to be very engaging for all the kids that were involved.
It was basically the same lesson for Seniors and Juniors with a few little tweaks.
Acceleration helped all the kids in the main lesson as they were prepared and felt comfortable.
The focus was on acceleration and inferring. The lesson was a 'Who dun it' mystery and proved to be very engaging for all the kids that were involved.
It was basically the same lesson for Seniors and Juniors with a few little tweaks.
Acceleration helped all the kids in the main lesson as they were prepared and felt comfortable.
Friday, 31 March 2017
Saturday, 4 March 2017
Dinah Visit
On Tuesday I had a 1 hour session with Dinah Harvey in my room. I did a lesson on skip counting in 7's and subtraction strategies.
It was awesome having Dinah's input and I learnt lots. The things that rung a bell with me were Star clock grid for skip counting, using cut up paper for the kids to share their strategies, drawing number lines on the board when numbers get past 100, using numbers well into the thousands for stage 6, have the kids place their strategies into lists with the strategy headings.
Thanks Dinah!
It was awesome having Dinah's input and I learnt lots. The things that rung a bell with me were Star clock grid for skip counting, using cut up paper for the kids to share their strategies, drawing number lines on the board when numbers get past 100, using numbers well into the thousands for stage 6, have the kids place their strategies into lists with the strategy headings.
Thanks Dinah!
Monday, 21 November 2016
Scooter Park Video
Check out this video I made about the scooter park for our class assembly!! Pretty cool!
Saturday, 5 November 2016
Maths Time
My maths group was struggling with the concept of area until I introduced the blocks! As Dinah says, "Everything is better with materials!"
Also to make the process more engaging we decided to get another class involved. Here's our challenge we sent them!
Also to make the process more engaging we decided to get another class involved. Here's our challenge we sent them!
Saturday, 24 September 2016
Dance Video
For our class assembly this term I made a dance video with my class. The kids loved making this video! Check it out!
Chapter Chat Tasks
Each week during Chapter Chat the students throughout New Zealand complete a number of tasks relating to the book. At the end of that week the best tasks are chosen and showcased on the Chapter Chat blog.
Check out the tasks from my class that have made the best of the week!
Check out the tasks from my class that have made the best of the week!
Class Art
Here are 3 pieces of art I have completed with my class in the last term. I believe in producing quality work and displaying it so everyone can appreciate it!
Chapter Chat - The story so far...
This morning I was on the Chapter Chat Facebook page and I was thinking about how far CC had come in such a short time. Then I thought why not write a post to explain my journey so far. So here goes....
In term 1 my class took part in NZReadAloud which was a positive experience. I loved the idea of connecting classes through a chapter book but struggled with Edmodo, which was the platform used to connect classes. Edmodo was hard to use and the Y3/4 ReadAloud didn't provide live interaction with other classes.
This got me thinking how I could improve the concept for myself and my kids. At the time I was running Kidsedchatnz (a Twitter chat for kids) so the idea of using Twitter to connect instead of Edmodo popped into my head.
So my first thought was, "Ok, why don't I create my own read aloud and use twitter as the sharing platform?" Chapter Chat was born!
I thought if I can get maybe 2 or 3 classes to join me it would be worthwhile.
So the first thing I did was to start work on creating the concept. I researched names on the internet and came up with Chapter Chat. It seemed appropriate as I was running a Twitter chat about chapter books. Next I created a blog where I could share information, tasks and questions. From there I created a Chapter Chat logo and started a Chapter Chat Twitter account and Facebook page.
Blogs, Facebook and Twitter are all platforms that I am very familiar with through my years of teaching in a digital class room at Russell Street School.
My final step was to choose a book to read. To be perfectly honest I didn't give this much thought. A child in my class had bought in 'Charlotte's Web' the week before, and I had always wanted to read it, so I decided to choose it. I knew it was a classic and wouldn't let me down.
Now I was ready to share my concept with the world! So how was I going to find a class or two to join me? Well I was a member of the NZ Teachers Facebook page so I thought I'd advertise on there.
Hey presto! Within 2 weeks I had 75 classes wanting to join! WOW, there was no going back now!!
My next step was to actually read the book. I read it in one day and loved it. From here I started to create questions and tasks. I started by setting the reading schedule and breaking the story into sections.
The next step was to reread the chapters and create questions and tasks for each section/week. I needed 10 questions and 5 tasks for each week.
I like to generate all the tasks and questions prior to starting the Chapter Chat. That way it's all organised and I don't have to worry too much about it.
Classic books like Charlotte's Web are easy to generate tasks and questions as there are so many resources on-line. A bit of research and everything falls into place. I try to create tasks that my kids would like to complete.
I decided to run the Twitter chat on Friday at 10am as this time suited my class best. There was no point in trying to find a time that suited all the classes as my experience with Kidsedchatnz taught me this was impossible!
From here it became apparent that a lot of the classes taking part had never used Twitter before. So I decided to create a page on the CC blog to help each class join. I spent a lot of time going through all the steps the classes would need to follow. The page talks about how to set up Twitter, follow classes, use tweetdeck and basically how to take part in the chat.
Running a Twitter chat was a piece of cake for me as I had been running Kidsedchatnz for the last 4 years. Kidsedchatnz is a weekly Twitter chat based on one off topics.
I also created a 'How to write a quality tweet' - criteria that all the classes could use with their classes. I think it is important that the chat on Friday is about quality tweeting not just having fun.
Chapter Chat 1 kicked off in week 1 of term 2. I was a bit nervous on the first Friday wondering what was going happen. The result? An awesome chat where kids were sharing and tweeting up a storm!
It came apparent quite quickly that Chapter Chat was all about the sharing of tasks and the questions were secondary. What I had created was a live audience for the kids to share their learning with!
Seeing all the different creations each week has been inspiring for myself and the kids. The kids love getting 'likes' on Twitter and get ideas from the different classes.
From here I decided to put a bit more effort into the task creations. I tried to make them a bit more interesting with a variety to choose from.
To keep Chapter Chat running each week there are a number of tasks that I complete. I start by posting on Friday the next week's tasks and questions. I like to put these up on a Friday so teachers can plan ahead for the week. I post them on our blog, Facebook page and Twitter account.
Then during the week I keep an eye on the Chapter Chat Twitter account to see if any classes have tweeted any tasks or tweets. There's usually a few.
I also usually send out an email to everyone reminding them of a few things. It's usually stuff about how to use Twitter.
My next task is to schedule all the questions on a timer in tweetdeck. I set them all on 5 minute intervals.
Next I run and moderate the chat on Friday morning. I try to check every tweet and retweet all the fantastic tasks.
Once the chat is over I check all the tweets that I have liked during the chat and pick the best ones to go on our Blog and Facebook pages. I usually do this during lunch time.
And finally I email everyone about the chat and share next week's tasks and questions. The cycle continues!
Another important part of running Chapter Chat is choosing the books. You could say this is the most important part! Chapter Chat is first and foremost about books! The funny thing about this task is I am not a reader. In fact at school I hated books! I never read books! I was the kid who liked to run round at lunch time playing sports, definitely not reading.
So this is the hardest part for me. In the last two terms I have read lots of books and researched lots of books on the internet. Thank goodness for Goodreads and Common Sense Books. They are my go to websites.
I also like to tap into other's thoughts about books. I post on Facebook a lot asking for suggestions, talk to librarians, teachers and my wife (she loves books!). My favourite spot in town now is Whitcoulds and Paperplus looking at children's chapter books.
The Chapter Chat 2 book I chose was 'Because of Winn-Dixie' by Kate Dicamillo. This book was recommended to me by Joy Kitt, a teacher at my school. It's a fabulous story about a girl without a mum and a stray dog that brings the whole community together.
Chapter Chat 3 was 'The Magic Faraway Tree' by Enid Blyton. Again Joy mentioned the book to me and I read it and loved it. The kids loved the crazy characters and the lands above the faraway tree is such a cool concept.
Chapter Chat 4 is 'Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume. This book was recommended to me by a teacher on Facebook. I got it out from the town library and loved its humour. The kids loved this one as everyone can relate to having an annoying little sibling.
Chapter Chat 5 is going to be 'The Person Controller' by David Baddiel. This book fell off the shelf at Paperplus into my hands! I started to read it in the shop and decided to buy it. I think the kids will love it as it's modern and fast paced.
I try to pick a different author and genre for each Chapter Chat. The idea is to expose the kids to as many different kinds of books as possible.
There are currently 50 classes taking part in Chapter Chat 5. I accepted 115 classes into Chapter Chat 3 and this was madness! Tweets were flying everywhere and I found it hard to keep up during the Twitter chat. I am now only accepting 50 classes and participation is invitation only. I regularly turn away classes wanting to take part.
In all I have had over 200 classes throughout New Zealand take part in Chapter Chat.
I am always looking to improve the Chapter Chat concept and have made lots of tweaks and changes to how I run it. In term 2 I sent out a survey to all teachers asking for feedback. The results of the survey were overwhelming positive.
In term 3 I ran a nation wide new Chapter Chat logo competition. Hundreds of entries were submitted and the contest was won by a girl in my class. Her logo currently features on all Chapter Chat sites.
My class are currently designing and creating Chapter Chat merchandise for our school market day. They are making Chapter Chat badges, stickers and bookmarks. We will also make these available to all the Chapter Chat classes.
Last week a teacher who takes part in Chapter Chat sent me an article from the NZ Herald newspaper about how Enid Blyton books had made a comeback this year. In fact they were now in the Whitcoulls top 50 kids books. I'm pretty sure Chapter Chat has played a part in that comeback.
I have written articles about Chapter Chat for both the Interface Magazine and Edutopia Website.
So what next for Chapter Chat? Will it continue next year? Well who knows. It really depends what age level I end up teaching next year (I change age level just about every year I have been teaching). If I stay in Y3/4 then definitely! If I move age levels then Chapter Chat will cease to exist. The way I see it is Y1-2 are too young for Chapter Chat and Y5/6 can take part in NZReadAloud, as this works well at that level.
The other day my Principal was talking to the staff about how reading was the most important thing children could learn. He thanked the library staff for organising the Book Fair and said anything we can do to encourage kids to read has got to be a priority for us. I thought to myself, "Well I guess I'm doing my bit as Chapter Chat has reached thousands of kids throughout NZ."
In term 1 my class took part in NZReadAloud which was a positive experience. I loved the idea of connecting classes through a chapter book but struggled with Edmodo, which was the platform used to connect classes. Edmodo was hard to use and the Y3/4 ReadAloud didn't provide live interaction with other classes.
This got me thinking how I could improve the concept for myself and my kids. At the time I was running Kidsedchatnz (a Twitter chat for kids) so the idea of using Twitter to connect instead of Edmodo popped into my head.
So my first thought was, "Ok, why don't I create my own read aloud and use twitter as the sharing platform?" Chapter Chat was born!
I thought if I can get maybe 2 or 3 classes to join me it would be worthwhile.
So the first thing I did was to start work on creating the concept. I researched names on the internet and came up with Chapter Chat. It seemed appropriate as I was running a Twitter chat about chapter books. Next I created a blog where I could share information, tasks and questions. From there I created a Chapter Chat logo and started a Chapter Chat Twitter account and Facebook page.
Blogs, Facebook and Twitter are all platforms that I am very familiar with through my years of teaching in a digital class room at Russell Street School.
My final step was to choose a book to read. To be perfectly honest I didn't give this much thought. A child in my class had bought in 'Charlotte's Web' the week before, and I had always wanted to read it, so I decided to choose it. I knew it was a classic and wouldn't let me down.
Now I was ready to share my concept with the world! So how was I going to find a class or two to join me? Well I was a member of the NZ Teachers Facebook page so I thought I'd advertise on there.
Hey presto! Within 2 weeks I had 75 classes wanting to join! WOW, there was no going back now!!
My next step was to actually read the book. I read it in one day and loved it. From here I started to create questions and tasks. I started by setting the reading schedule and breaking the story into sections.
The next step was to reread the chapters and create questions and tasks for each section/week. I needed 10 questions and 5 tasks for each week.
I like to generate all the tasks and questions prior to starting the Chapter Chat. That way it's all organised and I don't have to worry too much about it.
Classic books like Charlotte's Web are easy to generate tasks and questions as there are so many resources on-line. A bit of research and everything falls into place. I try to create tasks that my kids would like to complete.
I decided to run the Twitter chat on Friday at 10am as this time suited my class best. There was no point in trying to find a time that suited all the classes as my experience with Kidsedchatnz taught me this was impossible!
From here it became apparent that a lot of the classes taking part had never used Twitter before. So I decided to create a page on the CC blog to help each class join. I spent a lot of time going through all the steps the classes would need to follow. The page talks about how to set up Twitter, follow classes, use tweetdeck and basically how to take part in the chat.
Running a Twitter chat was a piece of cake for me as I had been running Kidsedchatnz for the last 4 years. Kidsedchatnz is a weekly Twitter chat based on one off topics.
I also created a 'How to write a quality tweet' - criteria that all the classes could use with their classes. I think it is important that the chat on Friday is about quality tweeting not just having fun.
Chapter Chat 1 kicked off in week 1 of term 2. I was a bit nervous on the first Friday wondering what was going happen. The result? An awesome chat where kids were sharing and tweeting up a storm!
It came apparent quite quickly that Chapter Chat was all about the sharing of tasks and the questions were secondary. What I had created was a live audience for the kids to share their learning with!
Seeing all the different creations each week has been inspiring for myself and the kids. The kids love getting 'likes' on Twitter and get ideas from the different classes.
From here I decided to put a bit more effort into the task creations. I tried to make them a bit more interesting with a variety to choose from.
To keep Chapter Chat running each week there are a number of tasks that I complete. I start by posting on Friday the next week's tasks and questions. I like to put these up on a Friday so teachers can plan ahead for the week. I post them on our blog, Facebook page and Twitter account.
Then during the week I keep an eye on the Chapter Chat Twitter account to see if any classes have tweeted any tasks or tweets. There's usually a few.
I also usually send out an email to everyone reminding them of a few things. It's usually stuff about how to use Twitter.
My next task is to schedule all the questions on a timer in tweetdeck. I set them all on 5 minute intervals.
Next I run and moderate the chat on Friday morning. I try to check every tweet and retweet all the fantastic tasks.
Once the chat is over I check all the tweets that I have liked during the chat and pick the best ones to go on our Blog and Facebook pages. I usually do this during lunch time.
And finally I email everyone about the chat and share next week's tasks and questions. The cycle continues!
Another important part of running Chapter Chat is choosing the books. You could say this is the most important part! Chapter Chat is first and foremost about books! The funny thing about this task is I am not a reader. In fact at school I hated books! I never read books! I was the kid who liked to run round at lunch time playing sports, definitely not reading.
So this is the hardest part for me. In the last two terms I have read lots of books and researched lots of books on the internet. Thank goodness for Goodreads and Common Sense Books. They are my go to websites.
I also like to tap into other's thoughts about books. I post on Facebook a lot asking for suggestions, talk to librarians, teachers and my wife (she loves books!). My favourite spot in town now is Whitcoulds and Paperplus looking at children's chapter books.
The Chapter Chat 2 book I chose was 'Because of Winn-Dixie' by Kate Dicamillo. This book was recommended to me by Joy Kitt, a teacher at my school. It's a fabulous story about a girl without a mum and a stray dog that brings the whole community together.
Chapter Chat 3 was 'The Magic Faraway Tree' by Enid Blyton. Again Joy mentioned the book to me and I read it and loved it. The kids loved the crazy characters and the lands above the faraway tree is such a cool concept.
Chapter Chat 4 is 'Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume. This book was recommended to me by a teacher on Facebook. I got it out from the town library and loved its humour. The kids loved this one as everyone can relate to having an annoying little sibling.
Chapter Chat 5 is going to be 'The Person Controller' by David Baddiel. This book fell off the shelf at Paperplus into my hands! I started to read it in the shop and decided to buy it. I think the kids will love it as it's modern and fast paced.
I try to pick a different author and genre for each Chapter Chat. The idea is to expose the kids to as many different kinds of books as possible.
There are currently 50 classes taking part in Chapter Chat 5. I accepted 115 classes into Chapter Chat 3 and this was madness! Tweets were flying everywhere and I found it hard to keep up during the Twitter chat. I am now only accepting 50 classes and participation is invitation only. I regularly turn away classes wanting to take part.
In all I have had over 200 classes throughout New Zealand take part in Chapter Chat.
I am always looking to improve the Chapter Chat concept and have made lots of tweaks and changes to how I run it. In term 2 I sent out a survey to all teachers asking for feedback. The results of the survey were overwhelming positive.
In term 3 I ran a nation wide new Chapter Chat logo competition. Hundreds of entries were submitted and the contest was won by a girl in my class. Her logo currently features on all Chapter Chat sites.
My class are currently designing and creating Chapter Chat merchandise for our school market day. They are making Chapter Chat badges, stickers and bookmarks. We will also make these available to all the Chapter Chat classes.
Last week a teacher who takes part in Chapter Chat sent me an article from the NZ Herald newspaper about how Enid Blyton books had made a comeback this year. In fact they were now in the Whitcoulls top 50 kids books. I'm pretty sure Chapter Chat has played a part in that comeback.
I have written articles about Chapter Chat for both the Interface Magazine and Edutopia Website.
So what next for Chapter Chat? Will it continue next year? Well who knows. It really depends what age level I end up teaching next year (I change age level just about every year I have been teaching). If I stay in Y3/4 then definitely! If I move age levels then Chapter Chat will cease to exist. The way I see it is Y1-2 are too young for Chapter Chat and Y5/6 can take part in NZReadAloud, as this works well at that level.
The other day my Principal was talking to the staff about how reading was the most important thing children could learn. He thanked the library staff for organising the Book Fair and said anything we can do to encourage kids to read has got to be a priority for us. I thought to myself, "Well I guess I'm doing my bit as Chapter Chat has reached thousands of kids throughout NZ."
Monday, 29 August 2016
Dinah Harvey Session
Last week we worked with Dinah harvey. We planned for fractions and I did my teaching session with Dinah.
My group session was based on division two ways. It was a cool session where I learnt to co-construct equations with the kids and how to get kids to image/skip count to solve division questions.
My group session was based on division two ways. It was a cool session where I learnt to co-construct equations with the kids and how to get kids to image/skip count to solve division questions.
Maths Time
A typical Maths Day in R10. Trying to work on multiplication and division through word problems.
Friday, 12 August 2016
Wednesday, 3 August 2016
Inquiry Group
Here's some things I have been working on with my inquiry group in Maths. I have been trying to use word problems and engaging tasks to motivate my learners!
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