PRT and Inquiry

May 29, 2019 So my math inquiry started off being about how to group children - by ability, either same stage or multi ability. I'm now looking into 'Math Talks' to see how I can make maths more exciting in the classroom. I have many visual learners in my class and I feel that my maths is a bit 'stale' and needs more oomph. I've been researching online and this video has made me confirm that this is what I want to know more about:  Intro to Math Talks I'm really looking forward to learning as I go and to putting some of these new ideas into my lessons straight away.

May 14, 2019 As I sit here on my PRT day, I just can't believe I'm doing planning for week 4 already! It's been a fantastic start to term 2 and the children are really responding well to our 'fix it' topic. They have brought some wonderful ideas to the table about what they would like to do, learn and share. This takes me back to the Toki Pounamu lessons we have been discussing. The children in Kōtuku have decided to make things out of recycled materials to help fix the recycling problem in the world. They would then like to open a shop to sell these goods to raise money. The money was first thought to go to feed starving children in the world, but someone asked if there's anything we need locally to 'fix' our town. This was the beginning of an interesting conversation. The children regularly come back to this conversation so no decision has been made as yet. I love teaching inquiry this way. The enthusiasm and motivation of these children give me m...

April 28, 2019 After taking sometime to reflect on wellbeing in my classroom, I've realised that as a teacher I could be doing so much more in the classroom to ensure the children are happy, settled and ready to learn. Sometimes I can get hung up on what curriculum I'm meant to cover instead of thinking about what curriculum area the children need to learn. However, the reality is that there won't be any learning if the child's mind and body aren't ready for learning. Reading about happiness I realise that I do have a happy class. The children are excited and enthusiastic learners and are ready to enjoy a joke. The areas I feel I need to focus on are 'managing emotions' and 'mindfulness'. 'Managing emotions' include the excitement children feel doing a certain activity, frustrations when they don't get things, sadness when they've argued with a friend, and other emotions they may bring from home. 'Mindfulness' includes be...

A pril 08, 2019 With this being the last week of term 1, I'm really happy and proud of the work Kōtuku has done. As discussed with my mentor, it's quite easy to get a sense of having to fit  everything  into the inquiry topic. So much of the curriculum fit in well to the 'food' topic, that it could have taken many different turns. However, I've come to realise that it's okay to put things on 'hold' for another topic/term. It was also interesting having the children lead the inquiry so some learning areas I thought we'd put in it, didn't actually fit anymore. Going into term 2, I will relax more and 'go with the flow'. I will question more to find out 'why' children are selecting the topics/activities that they are. At the beginning of the term I will choose goals with my mentor and work towards them. I'm quite excited about my mathematics teaching inquiry. I want to critically examine my own practice in maths and find out...

April 01, 2019 Wherever I'm teaching I always try to 'keep things local' when using examples and throughout discussions. I've never had such a positive response to this as I have here. Being a small school the children truly live locally. Even when it comes to maths and science I'm finding the understanding coming through quicker and that children add their own experiences to the examples and discussions.  Whilst this is great, I can't help wondering if the children should also be introduced to the wider world, geographically. One child in my class has not been out of the south island. He's not been on a ferry or a plane. When he told me this, he seemed quite down about it. I told him he's the luckiest boy in the classroom. I told him that I had travelled the world and I haven't seen any place more beautiful than the south island of New Zealand. Now I'm wondering that my keeping my teaching local, he's not getting the experience of an...

March 25, 2019 I've noticed that te Tiriti o Waitangi is not very apparent in my classroom. We have a display from Waitangi Day, and the children all understand what that was about. My goal for the next three weeks is to encourage te reo in the classroom. I will be using commands in te reo and will label things around the classroom in te reo for the children to learn. We will make a mihi/pepeha and display them so we can read about our peers and understand where they come from. Having a goal like this gets me motivated and excited. Not just to 'tick the box', but because the children will grow an understanding of others and inclusiveness of all.

March 18, 2019 The Kōtuku café happened on the Thursday and the children LOVED it! They were completely engrossed in the café for the whole day. We started the day with food preparation and discussing what everyone's 'jobs' would be. The juniors came in first, followed by the seniors. Then it was our own turn to experience sitting in the café while our peers served us. Finally, the parents and families of the children came in. They thoroughly enjoyed it. In fact, they enjoyed it so much that they didn't want to leave so the class sung a song for them. And this was children led inquiry. Putting on my teacher's hat, the oral language was flowing. I have never heard my EAL child speak so much to so many different people as he did when he was baking apple muffins. The mathematics involved in tripling recipes and being able to tell how many portions of scrambled eggs 6 eggs would make, was everywhere. And my most proudest element of the day was the team work. I'...

March 11, 2019 To encourage and develop learner agency, I run my reading programme with a list of tasks to do for the week. These range from buddy reading, reading games, iPad work, reading challenge cards, silent reading and more. Children are aware that they can complete these tasks in any order, as long as they all get done over the course of the week. On the task slip, the last option is 'Complete unfinished work'. Yesterday most of the year 3's did 'complete unfinished work' first. So I'm going to take it a step back. My year 4's and 5's are well able to do these reading tasks independently, but most of the year 3's are not. Why? Children in year 4 and 5 have had time and opportunity to develop learner agency, while the year 3's have not. They need this time. What next? I will use the remainder of this term to develop the year 3's learner agency within their group tasks. They will go back to using the reading tumble which states wha...

March 03, 2019 With the incorporation of the reading and writing programme into our inquiry, I wanted to do something along the same lines as maths. Although I will still teach maths in isolation, I thought the conclusion to our place value topic could be light hearted fun. We had a fun time with the 'trend setter' place value house, marshmallows, raw spaghetti pasta and fruit loops. I called out a number and the children had to make the number using the fruit loops on the spaghetti. Then they had to challenge the person next to them. I could see a group of children weren't being challenged so I gave them their group model book with pre written large numbers in it, written in words. It was a fun lesson, but also an important one for me. The children who appeared to be 'not getting it' during our group sessions, were working really hard and asking for help from the children next to them. There was no frustration and I found the quiet children happier to ask ques...

-  February 25, 2019 So I've been planning and planning for reading and writing and yesterday I thought, hey, wait a minute. Why am I going to get the children to do these by themselves when they could be doing them within a topic area that they WANT to know more about. Why aren't I accepting that learning occurs more when the children are enjoying it and taking ownership of it. The children are so excited about the class cafe so why am I stopping the learning to go and read and write about something that's completely irrelevant for them? I am now going to roll with the class cafe inquiry. Children will be reading and writing throughout the inquiry unit. They are so excited about menus and recipes. Even though there is an element of maths in the inquiry, I do think there's a place for exclusive maths teaching that is seperate from the inquiry so I will still plan to teach maths separately, but with authentic situations and refer to the inquiry topic throughout.

5th February 2019 It was a great day yesterday meeting the class of 2019 Kōtuku! 21 students arrived with excitement (and maybe a few nerves) for seeing their peers, school and a new teacher. We played many games and I managed to remember their names. My challenge was to remember them by first break, but it was more like lunchtime! It was easy to see which children were the quiet ones, the determined and enthusiastic, the boisterous, shy, and creative as the day went on. Watching the children interacting with a variety of games and self directed activities, it brought my mind back to the Vision in the NZ Curriculum. Especially the first one where we want our young people to be creative and energetic. This was definitely in effect with Kōtuku yesterday. I'm looking forward to the rest of the week where I can get to know the children at a deeper level so I can understand where their individual needs are and can make a plan to meet those needs, keeping the NZ Curriculum vision in the ...

After exploring numerous ways to show my PD learning and thoughts, I've settled on this blog. I can connect with everyone and link evidence and ideas that show the teaching strands. I started doing this via my school blog, so my first step is to transfer my blog posts from the beginning of 2019 and go from there....