Inquiry Reflection

Term 4- Collaborative Inquiry

In this afternoons session our Inquiry Group discussed :

How to introduce a book when reading in a  small group and how much information do teachers need to scaffold to make text meaningful and purposeful?

Various behaviour management strategies during mat time. Children sit in a group on the mat so they are more focussed, positive praise for good behaviour, use Incredible Years strategies, point system, rewards for acceptable behaviour, children seated in a specific arrangement.

We looked at how teachers can extend vocabulary so that its relevant in multiple contexts. Encouraging children to use these words in their writing to create rich text. Quality instead of quantity.

Developing more independence in writing in Year 1. Children learning to write a simple sentence. Children say their sentence to the teacher then to a friend to help them retain the words in the sentence and then  they attempt to write some known words( high frequency words) with some support from the teacher. Teacher continue to conference with children and work in small groups.

Creating Explain Everything activities for reading levels 15 and up for Year 1 children. Looking at the progressions when creating these activities for children at this level.  Teachers in Year 2 have created some amazing resources- How can Year One teachers use these activities and change, add to it, so that it is appropriate  for our young learners.

Overall we had interesting conversations and it was good to have a  mixture of teachers from different areas of the school. Teachers were very supportive and their suggestions and comments were much appreciated. I will take on board what they have suggested and give it a go during the course of the term.

Term 3 Writing focus

This term my focus was on writing and creating rich word groups which were created around stories during our classroom brainstorm sessions. The children can access these word charts through their class site which made it much easier for children who had difficulty retaining the letters in a word.  I have also displayed them around the classroom.

Achieving my goals

This week I have been focussing on creating  worksheets for maths that children can use as a follow up activity. I have created some worksheets and laminated them so that it recycled throughout the next few weeks. Children have to type out the questions and fill in the answers. Once completed successfully they continue onto the next sheet. In this way they will be practising and consolidating their learning on a regular basis which will help them achieve their goals.

One slide magic

The children in my class are now confidently using the site to access their learning. I have put together a movie showing you how they go through the site, find their follow up activity and complete their task in Explain Everything using a variety of tools.
The best part about this resource is that it can be used in other aspects of learning but children must have a solid foundation in using the tools in Explain Everything to be successful.

Not too young to learn......

At our last toolkits session at Stonefields, teachers from other clusters shared their experiences and success stories about children using digital devices in the classroom. I was really impressed  with how they were using their class sites for learning. I thought about it and decided to try it out with my Year 1's. So, for the last two weeks I have been teaching children how to use my class site to access their Explain Everything activities. I started out  by doing it group by group  during  my reading lessons. It took me a few days to learn how to link the Explain Everything activities and make it accessible to learners. Mrs. Belt was very supportive in helping me with my site and answered all my questions. Her video clips were very useful and I still refer to them when needed. Some of my more capable children are now using the site independently and they are now supporting the others.

The amazing thing about using the class site is that now some children have started using the site from home to extend their learning. My next focus is to encourage other parents to use the site to continue to help their children in their digital learning journey.

Reading activities.

Maths activities to practise number knowledge.

Follow up tasks assigned to groups when  children have
completed their Explain Everything activity.

Literacy with Gwenneth Phillips

I have been using Gwenneth Phillips Litearacy Programme in my class over many years. I have attended all of her tutorials and am very lucky to have received this amazing knowledge from her personally. In my classroom, I continuously  used her strategies and prompts to help children become confident and independent readers.
At Point England School we have been revisiting Gwenneth's Programme as part of our inquiry focus.
Today our focus was looking at readers between the Blue and Gold levels.
Please read through the slides and I hope it will improve your teaching practise.