ANZAC stories

I have been making an effort to put up lots of the children's stories in my classroom so that they can read their and each other's work.  We had ANZAC ceremonies at school last week and the children put out crosses to represent soldiers from the local area.  They wrote and illustrated stories about the experience and I was proud of the way they turned out.  The illustrations were done with crayon and dye.  

Writing observation 29.3.18

My tutor teacher Mary observed me teaching a
writing lesson. Here are her notes from her observation:

Put up your hand if you have a dog at home.

Chn interested and engaged “ I have a puppy” I have a dog’
I have a cat:

Gave specific instructions –

I want you to turn and talk to your partner about your dog
or a dog that you have seen.

I like those people who followed instructions.

Have a think

T modelled “My dog is …….”

chn: my dog is black

my dog is spotty T had modelling book with dog
picture and lines.

What is the word

Capital why ? because it is starting ZM because it is
the starting letter.

Who can come up and write the first word? Avah

Dog is not on the word card.
who can hear the first letter. What letter can we hear in the middle.
HR d-o-g.

Who can write the word is? AS

Good boy for remembering your finger space.

Is is in the red box.
LV what sounds can you hear and write in spotty.

Used te reo to praise. Ka pai.

What do we put at the end of the sentence?

Lets read it all together.

I am going to write one more sentence.
What colour is my dog? approximated and wrote
black and white. Chn all putting hand up and offering
letter sounds

What box is the word and in?

Re focussed students by pointing to visual chart.

Lets read our whole story together.

Chn still listening, attempting to
hear letter sounds.

T told them about the magic e
letter at the end of white.

T gave out books and reminded chn
what side of the page they had to write on.   
Reminded some chn of their goal for today
LV – remember to write a nice long story.

Get out yuor alphabet card .
Chn knew exactly what was expected of them
and settled down to work quickly.

Positive encouragement for chn who got straight
down to work. Gave date stamp to tables working quietly.

Much positive encouragement to chn working quickly,
conscientiously. All chn on task. and keen to write.
BH – look at my dog. S saying to herself “My dog is…. “

Praised A for using adjectives my puppy is cute and soft.

Nice atmosphere with calm thinking and
writing going on. Good vibe. Chn very keen and on task.

AS tell me the sentence you are writing “I have a dog”
T helped him HR the word have.

Can you write me one more sentence.
Great brain storm of describing words.

angry, fluffy, pretty, pink, can play, fast, cute.

Variations. My dog is cute. He went to play. He is hiding in a shoe.

My dog can woof.

Gave praise for writing 2 sentences

L – good describing “ my dog is spotty. My dog is soft.
I like my dog” – 3 sentences. – over and above what was asked.

Good sounding out those words, S

Reminded what goes at the end of your sentence

Conferenced students individually.
All chn brought writing to T when finished.
Routines well established. T checked story and
chn placed in marking box. Chn went to next task quietly.

Lovely manner with students. Called over E - how are you feeling?
I am worried about you today - did you have a late nite?

E - I am tired. - go and lie down - E asleep within a minute!

Obviously has a very good
relationship with students. Caring and reciprocal.

Observation - writing in Year 1

Yesterday I observed Jas teaching writing in her Year 1 class.

First she went over the 'letters with long sticks' - d, f, h, k, l, t.  She had these on a handwritten chart.

She talked about what good writers do - saying that it's important to use finger spaces so our words are not mashed together like mashed potato.  I think this explanation would appeal to my class.

Then she set up the two groups who were going to be writing independently.  One had a box of sentences like "I like to shop." printed out big and with a photo.  That group had to write a story from the card and illustrate it.  The other group had a box with sentence starters like "My brother is nice to me because..." on one side and options like "he reads with me" or "he looks after me" on the back.  I thought these would be really effective for independent writing activities for my low group and that the everyday topics would appeal to them.

When the two independent groups were settled Jas sat down with the group she was writing with.  She had a picture of a pig glued into the modelling book.  They briefly discussed the pig, how it had four legs like a dog etc.  Then she said she'd like them to write "Look at my pig."  They counted the words in the sentence.  Jas had some big word magnets on the board and she got children to go and find the words on the board. She then got them to compare the words from the board with the words on the alphabet card. She got one child to be the 'spacer' - making the finger spaces in the modelling book.  When they got to the word 'pig' in the sentence, a word that wasn't on the alphabet card, Jas gave them different options for hearing the letter sounds.  "Is it 'i-apple' or 'i-insect?'  Is it 'g-goat' or 'g-orange?'"

Then she got them to read the completed sentence from the beginning and to record it in their books.

Takeaway: I would like to make some sentence starter cards for my low writing group as an independent writing activity when they are not writing with me.  I really liked the way that using the magnets got the children to physically go and find the words.  I would like to get a set of these to use with my class too.  

PTC 4. demonstrate commitment to ongoing professional learning and development of personal professional practice i. identify professional learning goals in consultation with colleagues ii. participate responsively in professional learning opportunities within the learning community iii. initiate learning opportunities to advance personal professional knowledge and skills

Writing observation in J8

I observed writing in J8 - they were working on using commas correctly.  

Sandhya started by talking about punctuation - she gave the example of  a full stop being a kind of punctuation.  The children clapped their hands with a fist to demonstrate a full stop.  

Then Sandhya modelled a sentence with commas.  She said "I like apples, bananas and pears."  She got the children to repeat it after her, to hear how the comma would make you say the words.

She then role played a sentence with commas by getting some children to stand up.  She said "I like Esita, Jacob and Hamid."  pointing to each child as she said their name. 

She then wrote the sentence on the board without the commas and chose children to write the commas in a different colour.  

The children's writing task was to choose three to five words from their red dictionary and to use them in a sentence.  They then had a follow-up worksheet.

Takeaway:  I liked the way Sandyha used role playing to visually represent the sentence - it made it come alive for the children.  Another good tip I picked up while observing was that if Sandhya wanted a child to come back later she would wave her hand around her face like the hands of a clock.  This was a great non-verbal signal to come back later.  

PTC 4. demonstrate commitment to ongoing professional learning and development of personal professional practice i. identify professional learning goals in consultation with colleagues ii. participate responsively in professional learning opportunities within the learning community iii. initiate learning opportunities to advance personal professional knowledge and skills

Paua drawings

 I was very proud of these paua drawings my class have been working on - I passed around a polished paua shell and got the class to notice things about the shell - the colours and patterns they could see, the texture and shape of the shell.  I then got them to draw the shell with pastel and outline details with black vivid.

They wrote a description of the paua shell and I got some of them to read their stories at our assembly.
I think the observational drawing we have been doing has been great for noticing objects carefully and has helped with thinking of adjectives in writing.  The paua inspired these pieces of writing:

Writing PD with Leytia

This term we have been having writing PD with Leytia Leota-Preston.  I observed two writing lessons with her (in Shabnam and Sandhya's classes) and she observed one of my lessons.  One of Leytia's key messages has been that language experiences are valuable for engaging writers (especially boys).  One of the language experiences she talked about at our PD session in the holidays was dissecting a hammerhead shark.  When I watched Shabnam's lesson on adding adjectives, I got the idea of using post it notes to collect student voice.
When Leytia came to watch my writing lesson I got the children to taste a small piece of mango.  I got them to go around in a circle and describe the mango.  I then got them to write their description on a post it note and identify which of the senses it belonged to. I added the post it note to a a chart organised into the different senses.

The resulting writing had some great descriptions using a range of adjectives.  

Balloons

For our language experience today we blew up and played with balloons.  Unfortunately some of the balloons popped!  This made for great writing material and this is an activity I would like to try with a class again. 

Bubbles

I have been wanting to try out some language experience activities with my class and decided to do bubble blowing as an activity to spark descriptive writing.  I bought some small party favour bubble wands and gave out one between two, with the instruction that one was to blow bubbles, and the other could catch or pop them.

I was struck by how engaged the children were in this simple activity and how positive their behaviour was (I have been finding transitions to outdoor activities challenging).  Afterwards we brainstormed adjectives we could use to describe the bubbles and the children wrote stories about the bubbles - I was impressed with their attention to detail when describing them.  This reinforced the effectiveness of using language experience activities and made me excited to plan my next one...making sticky slime.