Target Readers - and where is Ma'uke?

I set up a little target reading group, organised a new scrapbook for recording tricky vocab, questions, summaries of text and titles of what we've read, and began guided reading sessions with them. I chose 5 children to work with, Will, KK, Kahla, Keenan and Tekyllah. So far we have taken a lot longer than the rest of the class to get through our reading, but discussion has been good, and they are beginning to realise that if they don't speak up when they are confused or have questions, I will find out.
Today we read a school journal story. Ma'uke was mentioned, the place where 'Papa' grew up. None of them questioned this, so in the end I asked if they knew where it was. In the South Island was one response. Another was somewhere in NZ. I asked them to look at the illustrations as they may provide a clue (the people were wearing lavalavas, they had flowers decorating their mirrors, and tivaevae patterns on their furnishings). So one of the group responded with... New York!
I suggested using the atlas to find out. The first thing they all did was turn to a map of NZ. And then painstakingly search for Ma'uke within NZ. Eventually I had to say that perhaps there might be an index that will help us. This was located at the back of the atlas, they discovered, and after quite some time they also realised places were listed in alphabetical order! Finally, someone reached the word we were looking for. I asked which page we could find the map on, and was promptly given... the map coordinates!
I could have just given them a laptop and said look it up online, but where's the fun in that?  So much learning!
The rest of the class are keen to work in groups now too, so I have decided to group them mixed ability, even though they are all reading at or above expected levels, and they can have their own scrapbooks too (I think this is what they actually wanted) and they can carry on with reciprocal reading and the prompt cards for this, as it has promoted a lot more in depth discussion around texts. I am also thinking that I shall add Alicia and Tylar to my target group for a little boost.
It's April Fools Day tomorrow. Now that they all know stories in school journals are fiction, and articles are non-fiction, it might be time to do the Macaroni Forest article again!

Growth Mindset

I have to put these on really quickly and I will write up a proper post soon, I just needed to say that I absolutely am so very excited about what I learnt about growth mindsets at the Maths PD day and I keep finding more and more information about it which I find amazingly interesting! I am feeling very inspired by this!

Early Finishers and 5 x 10 Update

I have a couple of children who always seem to finish work to a high standard, and very quickly, so I turned my little shopping trolley into an early finishers cart. It's full of activities to extend those children, and I will add to it as they go through the activities (which are more challenging than my writing options, spelling options and "make & do" box.

I also saw a giant game of Boggle on Pinterest when I was looking for ideas for moving toys, got inspired, and made one for the classroom. This is a hit with the children, and might help the likes of William, who consistently gets 0/6 in his weekly spelling test. In fact, his results are so bad that I think I shall have to take it right back to rhyming words and focus on letter sounds, blends and vowels with him for a bit. Anyway, I need to purchase a 3 minute egg timer, then the children can run the game themselves in little groups when they've finished their work.

My little 5 x 10 group finished on Friday. I really thought that they were getting quicker at solving subtraction facts to 20. They loved the quick sessions, and competing against each other. They were all eager and focused and enthusiastic. So I was a little disappointed on the last day when we had a 10 minute session and played BINGO. Bingo cards were a 3 x 3 grid with basic addition and subtraction facts to 12. My group of 4 sat with their cards, insisting that no one needed a number 4. "No, none of us need that," "I'm waiting for a zero," (she actually needed a 12 as the equation she was focused on was 12 - 0) and, " what's the next number?" were the responses I got. Every single one of them needed a 4! 10 - 6, 3 + 1, 9 - 5 and 7 - 3! I am going to really push them for the next few weeks and see if I can get some progress!
We (senior school teachers) have decided to not do maths swap for numeracy anymore. It worked well, we got results, and it was nice getting to know children from other classes. But I think keeping our own classes will work well now that we can use the talk moves, and have problem solving groups, and we're still having professional development to help us make the most of these in the classroom. It will be interesting to see what happens by the end of the year, results wise. And I am actually quite pleased, it will make reports, interviews and assessment so much easier.   

Habits of Mind

The back wall was annoying me, it faced me, blankly, black and empty, and I intended to use the space for a Mantle of the Expert display. But then I had an idea...

We discussed the Habits we would focus on as a class, what fit with what we were doing, and chose 5. Listening with Understanding and Empathy will be a focus throughout the entire year and is not on the display currently, but these ones can be changed easily, I just have to make new speech bubbles! The children took photos and cut out their faces which were stuck onto coloured paper (some more accurately than others) and a velcro sticky dot on the back allows them to put their photos up when they've been practising a particular Habit in class. In order to keep record the children devised a tally chart that can be added up at the end of each month. This should work well. I have yet to decide on a reward system - they suggested McDonald's, but I can't bring myself to reward them with that (seems more like punishment to their health in the long run!) so perhaps I shall go book shopping and choose some nice books, then I can add a little certificate with it and hope that will be enough extrinsic reward, and motivation to keep practising those Habits!

10 x 5 and Empathy

A really quick update, I had release today and intended to do this during the day, but by the time I finished running records, basic facts testing and sorting out goal sheets for parent/teacher interviews, the day got away on me. But I am getting on top of things finally! I hope!
I have to share this though. My little 10 x 5 group, (Alicia, Will, Kahla and TeKyllah) started on Monday. We are focusing on subtraction facts, under 20 to start with. On the first day we got together for 5 minutes before lunch as we have swimming straight after. I produced a deck of playing cards and we played some games (yes I did make some up as we went along) subtracting the number I flipped over from 20, from 10, then adding 9, doubling etc. We played snap to 10, if both sides add up to 10 then it's SNAP, adding was easier than subtracting, but they still found it a challenge. Counting up cards and pairs of cards at the end gave us winners. Tuesday we met straight after lunch, and the class were silent reading while we played. They were pretty good (the class), I was surprised, maybe because I asked them to have empathy for the kids who were working with me! Today, as I was on release, I had not given it another thought. They sent Jill, my reliever, down to let me know they were all ready to come and see me! So I did, and they just loved it! I know it's not one on one, and I really assumed that one on one would be better, but with a little group of 4 there is the chance to compete, and as they are all at similar levels, they all have the chance to be successful. I think it is going to work well. They are just so keen :)

And here are some photos of our EMPATHY wall so far...

Shoes, I have some talented kids in my class! I just wanted to do a thing about putting yourself in someone else's shoes. And the chance to do some sketching just happened!

Using wordle with the words Room 7 believe relate to 'empathy'

Wow, Leni!

And Wow, Finn!

Illustrating Empathy

It's a pretty nice wall with the black background! The class chose purple for the backing paper, I'm not so sure about purple...