L. said that our next 'goal' will be more like a 'research' and the more I think about our class inquiry about our ideal New Entrant Classroom and RE and probably other aspects of early childhood learning I am wanting to make that my 'area of research". Wouldn't it be great to learn along side the children - to think, to question, to view, to make, to design, to listen, to????? like them. I am excited about my learning again.
However, I better keep going with our Travel Buddy work also. I am bad at not finishing things properly. Oh and that class blog needs to develop- great that K. Mum's comment came through - it was me not clicking on the right heading. I need to get other whanau involved too.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Reggio Emilia
Its amazing how much this is coming into my life at the moment. Chrissie said she has some photos of RE centres on her laptop that she got when she went to Melbourne and also the new Early Birds centre for 4 year olds (where Josie S works ) uses RE ideas. I am certain our class inquiry for term 4 and RE can be tied in somehow.
From the Curriculum
For our term 4 inquiry about the best kind of NE classroom I can find these curriculum 'links'
Social Sciences- Place and Environment - Students learn about how people perceive,represent, interpret and interact with places and their environment.
The Arts- Visual Arts - Investigate visual ideas in response to a variety of motivations, observation and imagination. By this I mean things like the students making models, taking photos, drawing etc as a way of sharing their thinking.
English - Listening, reading , viewing - for finding ideas etc-
-Speaking, writing and Presenting- as ways to share information, ideas, thinking
ICT - use of tools to be part of all of the above and the KC's
Key Competencies now there's an interesting area for planning.
Thinking - "Thinking is about using creative, critical and megacognitive processes to make sense of information, experiences and ideas. Students who are competent thinkers and problem solvers actively seek, use and create knowledge. Do I want this for my students from this unit -YES
Using language, symbols and texts - YES
Managing Self - a can do attitude, self assessing YES
Relating to Others- By working effectively together, they can come up with new approaches, ideas and ways of thinking. YES
Participating and Contributing - its about being actively involved in communities. Communities included whanau, school , other learning places (eg Preschools) - locally, nationally and globally. YES
Social Sciences- Place and Environment - Students learn about how people perceive,represent, interpret and interact with places and their environment.
The Arts- Visual Arts - Investigate visual ideas in response to a variety of motivations, observation and imagination. By this I mean things like the students making models, taking photos, drawing etc as a way of sharing their thinking.
English - Listening, reading , viewing - for finding ideas etc-
-Speaking, writing and Presenting- as ways to share information, ideas, thinking
ICT - use of tools to be part of all of the above and the KC's
Key Competencies now there's an interesting area for planning.
Thinking - "Thinking is about using creative, critical and megacognitive processes to make sense of information, experiences and ideas. Students who are competent thinkers and problem solvers actively seek, use and create knowledge. Do I want this for my students from this unit -YES
Using language, symbols and texts - YES
Managing Self - a can do attitude, self assessing YES
Relating to Others- By working effectively together, they can come up with new approaches, ideas and ways of thinking. YES
Participating and Contributing - its about being actively involved in communities. Communities included whanau, school , other learning places (eg Preschools) - locally, nationally and globally. YES
Term 4 inquiry
I am going to do some brainstorming before planning our term unit as after the trip to Wanganui I now know that HEAPS of work goes in BEFORE the unit starts. L has lend me a book by Kath Murdoch called Classroom connections and it has heaps of easy to follow material for each stage of an inquiry.
Iwill use her headings and read thru her stuff and come up with some of my own.
Tuning in - to find out what students already know, think and feel about the topic. This could be where I do my first assessment as this is where students share their personal experiences and ask questions about the topic.
finding out - to provide shared experiences for all students to process and reflect on and to challenge their prior knowledge and beliefs. Its also about raising more questions as well as providing new information.
sorting out - to provide students with various means of processing and presenting info and ideas from the finding out stage.
going further - to extend and challenge childrens thinking
making connections/conclusions - to assist students to make conclusions and generalisations about the topic and to assess and demonstrate students progress through providing a comparison for students between the ideas generated at the beginning of the unit and now (stage 2 of assessment?)
taking action - to assist students make links between their understandings and their experiences in the real world. To develop an action plan for the school. (SEE Topic later)
sharing,discussion and reflections - to develop skills to report to others, to provide feedback for evaluation purposes about the successful and less successful aspects of the unit
She also has great planning sheets and I need these at the moment as I tend to start with a hiss and a roar and never finish the inquiries properly.
I want this one to work.
The inquiry will come from our term 4 overview about designing a new 'system' to solve a problem at school. I am going to take it further and our unit will be on what would make the best new entrant classroom. Next blog will be after I have had a good look at the curriculum. Oh and I also want the parents to be involved in this unit- how???
Iwill use her headings and read thru her stuff and come up with some of my own.
Tuning in - to find out what students already know, think and feel about the topic. This could be where I do my first assessment as this is where students share their personal experiences and ask questions about the topic.
finding out - to provide shared experiences for all students to process and reflect on and to challenge their prior knowledge and beliefs. Its also about raising more questions as well as providing new information.
sorting out - to provide students with various means of processing and presenting info and ideas from the finding out stage.
going further - to extend and challenge childrens thinking
making connections/conclusions - to assist students to make conclusions and generalisations about the topic and to assess and demonstrate students progress through providing a comparison for students between the ideas generated at the beginning of the unit and now (stage 2 of assessment?)
taking action - to assist students make links between their understandings and their experiences in the real world. To develop an action plan for the school. (SEE Topic later)
sharing,discussion and reflections - to develop skills to report to others, to provide feedback for evaluation purposes about the successful and less successful aspects of the unit
She also has great planning sheets and I need these at the moment as I tend to start with a hiss and a roar and never finish the inquiries properly.
I want this one to work.
The inquiry will come from our term 4 overview about designing a new 'system' to solve a problem at school. I am going to take it further and our unit will be on what would make the best new entrant classroom. Next blog will be after I have had a good look at the curriculum. Oh and I also want the parents to be involved in this unit- how???
Technology
Last night I went onto L.'s ICTPD wiki and saw this really interesting slide show on 32 Technology integration tips. I saw some things that support how I feel about how its about the learning , how we learn off our teaching mates (like our cluster shares) and the power of the kids. I left a comment but this morning there was an email saying it was 'a fraud attempt". Once again when I think I am doing something right with this ICT something goes wrong!!!! One step forward and 2 steps back?
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Reggio Emilia
I was talking to Chrissie - my lovely daughter in law -who is an early childhood teacher- and she said that when I babysit my moko, while she went to Melbourne a couple of years ago, it was a Reggio Emilia conference she went to. What a small world. I am finding out more about his philosophy etc from internet and I found a book in the library and now I will enjoy 'interviewing' her.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Hira School
I just want to list some of the great things I saw in Tia's class.
The maths learning intentions laminated and put up by the numbers. The display of special places.
Tia
I just received an email from Tia and she has included the web site for Kowhai 's (her class) work on the picture books they have studied . What a great way to set it out . I will post it here so I can get to it easy.
http://www.kowhai-kids.com/
http://www.kowhai-kids.com/
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Nelson
I had a great time in Nelson and really enjoyed my time with Tia and her class. I have come back with some more new ideas and things I want to try out. I felt that I knew her and her class through following her wiki. It was great to see in real life some of the things they had made -such as the cloak, the children's fabulous art work etc.
I like what she does for inquiry -term one is teaching the kids to wonder and ask questions, term 2 is teaching them how to use a variety of resources to source information, term 3 doing an inquiry -children work in pairs and select their own topic (theirs was science based) and they have to do a presentation (same type -theirs was making a documentary involving filming) and this is then presented to an audience (including parents) and term 4 is reflecting.
Here is a picture of Nelson taken from where I was staying.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
class blog
An aha moment yesterday when there was a note in K's homework book from her Mum asking about how to get on to our Kikorangi's Kids class blog. K must have told her about her story on there. I need to see L now for the next stage of letting whanau onto it. I also want to put in images (not of the kids ) but their work, paint pictures of them etc.
e mails
I wish I could get my emails at home on my lap top like I used to. I hope things get fixed up at school soon. C said its not me its the system.
I am sitting at home all packed ready to go to Nelson. I am really looking forward to seeing T. I find her writings on children's literacy so inspirational and I love the picture books she talks about. I want to ask her to keep her writings going as she helps me to select wonderful books for my class. They are so into making connections with these books.
In my cubbie hole at school was an interesting article about questionning and how new entrants have been asking questions all their lives (well since they can talk) -what do we do to them at school that they have to be retaught how to work with questions.
This is the second time in 4 days that there has been special mention of NE. Last part was that they have been inquiry learners since birth. Aren't I lucky having a NE class- I need to do more with them.
I am sitting at home all packed ready to go to Nelson. I am really looking forward to seeing T. I find her writings on children's literacy so inspirational and I love the picture books she talks about. I want to ask her to keep her writings going as she helps me to select wonderful books for my class. They are so into making connections with these books.
In my cubbie hole at school was an interesting article about questionning and how new entrants have been asking questions all their lives (well since they can talk) -what do we do to them at school that they have to be retaught how to work with questions.
This is the second time in 4 days that there has been special mention of NE. Last part was that they have been inquiry learners since birth. Aren't I lucky having a NE class- I need to do more with them.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Travel Buddy
Room 2 are going with this again and we have a posting on our Kikorangi's kids blog from The Isle of Man. Their TB is coming soon and should be hear after the holidays. We need to get K ready for travelling soon.The kids are enjoying reading what comes in. I need to learn to put in photos on that blog - it seems different than this one.
I am off to Nelson on Wednesday _ I can't wait to see Tia's class and share the Taniwha song with them.
I am off to Nelson on Wednesday _ I can't wait to see Tia's class and share the Taniwha song with them.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Inquiry
Had a great day in Wanganui hearing from the staff of Island Bay School (Wellington) about inquiry learning. We will need to be ready for cluster share at next Rellco time. My head is whirling around about what to do but in saying that ,at last I think I can see how it all fits together.
It has to start right back at the mission statement and as our school is relooking at that stuff its great to be part of that. TheIB staff were honest, especially the 2 year one teachers and I like their sharing of what they first thought inquiry was and how things changed the more they worked with it. I also thought it had to be very pupil lead, done all (or most) of the day etc. Maybe that's what I might do part of my sharing on -a bit like the inquiry assessment - first idea ---- work on inquiry---- second idea about inquiry.
Planning is a HUGE thing and I have been hopeless at it and I now realise its one of the most important parts. I hope our team plans together soon for term 4 inquiry.
I think I am lucky having NE as inquiry seems to be quite natural for them - "they have been inquiry learners since birth"-- but what do we do to them at school that we have to reteach them to be inquiry learners. I think its time for me to look at the other part of my goal - early childhood and learning.
It has to start right back at the mission statement and as our school is relooking at that stuff its great to be part of that. TheIB staff were honest, especially the 2 year one teachers and I like their sharing of what they first thought inquiry was and how things changed the more they worked with it. I also thought it had to be very pupil lead, done all (or most) of the day etc. Maybe that's what I might do part of my sharing on -a bit like the inquiry assessment - first idea ---- work on inquiry---- second idea about inquiry.
Planning is a HUGE thing and I have been hopeless at it and I now realise its one of the most important parts. I hope our team plans together soon for term 4 inquiry.
I think I am lucky having NE as inquiry seems to be quite natural for them - "they have been inquiry learners since birth"-- but what do we do to them at school that we have to reteach them to be inquiry learners. I think its time for me to look at the other part of my goal - early childhood and learning.
Monday, September 7, 2009
Friday, September 4, 2009
assembly
Our class assembly went well on friday. There were 4 kids away with an unveilling on (and one was sick) but we still had 11 families represented watching the kids. TA really got into her dancing and the pigs made the rest of the school laugh. It was great after school to get such a lot of postive feedback from both staff and senior pupils.
I hate the way I stress about things like assemblies, but I have learnt to start early in the term.
I used the data show/laptop for some of our items. I still needed V to help -but maybe next time I will do it on my own???? Lucky I had freed myself from being with the equipment and was there for the kids as some forgot their lines (stage fright) and R needed a quick dash to the loo.
On next saturday I am off to Auckland with a group to look at inquiry at Island Bay school and the following week its my Nelson trip. T has beenin touch again which is great.
I hate the way I stress about things like assemblies, but I have learnt to start early in the term.
I used the data show/laptop for some of our items. I still needed V to help -but maybe next time I will do it on my own???? Lucky I had freed myself from being with the equipment and was there for the kids as some forgot their lines (stage fright) and R needed a quick dash to the loo.
On next saturday I am off to Auckland with a group to look at inquiry at Island Bay school and the following week its my Nelson trip. T has beenin touch again which is great.
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