Digital Tech

It is the holidays and I kind of wish I was still at school! The last week at school was exciting for me, I bought the full version of Tellagami, and Sock Puppets. And then I got the Aurasma app, oh my gosh, the best thing ever, too much fun and I have already decided how I will use it effectively with maths... my brain won't let me sleep at night as I keep coming up with ideas. Thank goodness for Google Keep, I can note my ideas quickly. I've even taken photos of text I want to remember (currently reading Jo Boaler's Mathematical Mindsets, absolutely brilliant, will do a separate post about that as soon as I've finished the book!) and my notes on Google Keep are prolific.
Aurasma is amazing, even more so once I figured out how to let others see. After practising with grandson's calendar art and insisting my daughter download the app immediately so she could see my video message, I discovered you have to follow to be able to see it. Good to know. Now I have about 10 messages linked to Logan's 2016 calendar! 
But then I wanted to figure out how the 4D thing works, and wondered if I could create my own. I found an app called Augment. It is super incredible. Truly an amazing thing that I need to play with a bit more so that I can actually use it in the classroom, rather than just going, "wow, that's amazing!" I am not sure how to make my own 3D models to put on it, although there are already educational ones on there. I got another app called Sculpt and had a go at making a 3D model, it's like working with digital clay I guess. Lots of fun to play with but I don't know how to put it on Augment... yet! (I have tried a couple of things, unsuccessfully so far, but mistakes grow my brain so it's all good!)
Speaking of growing brains, I did get Class Dojo as well, and the little videos are really great for promoting growth mindset - thank you Leslee! I'm still hyped up about growth mindsets, and the Jo Boaler book is making me think about it even more.

The video was a rush job, we made it really quickly on the last day of school because I was too excited and wanted to try out Aurasma before the holidays. Sometimes I think I get more excited about these things than the children do! I suppose in this day and age they are exposed to so much more, have so much more and technology is so much more advanced. I zipped down to Auckland at 4am on Tuesday to look after the younger grandson who was too sick to go to daycare, and even he, at the age of 14 months, plays with the ipad and apps on the phone, and is rather fascinated with the xbox controller, when he can get his hands on it. Logan is 3, and he is very clued up with technology. Only geeks went to computer class when I went to school, I preferred to spend my time either in the art room or smoking behind the bike shed, listening to Motorhead or Iron Maiden... on tape! How times have changed. I really love technology. And I still love art, and I still love Motorhead (R.I.P Lemmy) and Iron Maiden, and e cigs are way better than smoking!

Tellagami Hologram

Putting this on so you can see... and thinking of a million ways I could use it! If I buy the full version of the tellagami app, I can type in the text and then it will use a different voice, and that would be nicer than hearing my own! Or I could do a sock puppet one, or animate my own with hyperstudio... too many possibilities!

Inspired by Apps!

I have a whole lot to post, and I need to get into the habit of posting right away, because now I have a whole lot to say and it's not all nice and orderly and I will miss things out!
Perhaps sub-headings will be the way to go...
Maths PLD
was awesome! I came away feeling very excited about the things I learnt, and wanted to share the Mindset reading with the rest of the staff (so I did) and I hope they liked it too. Since then I've found loads online about it, have considered this way of thinking in the classroom, and I have begun to introduce the idea to my class. I love it. Pam has a book by Jo Boaler which she offered to lend to me once she has finished reading it, thanks Pam! I don't yet feel that I know enough about it to fully use it... yet, but I will learn (and grow my brain!). Aside from that, I also found the information about active listening very helpful, and have used this in the classroom already. We created a poster which has been a great reminder for the class on how to listen. 
Digital Tech PD 
I wasn't really focused during our staff meeting, darn tummy bug! But I love google keep, padlets and that we are going to link maths and digital tech, and focus on our appraisal inquiry. Yay. And after all this time, years, of trying to stay anonymous and not have my real name or photo online, I ended up with my name on my class google account. It's ok though, I'm still refusing to have facebook!
The IDEAS session 
was a brilliant, motivating and inspirational afternoon, I enjoyed every second. I really did come straight home and download apps that I couldn't wait to try out. And I used them in class the next day! The Elements 4D app is amazing! I want to know how they made it! Lot's of exclamation marks sorry. But it really is super cool. I posted a video of the class using it on the class blog. 
I also have found an app that allows me to create my own hologram, so I got all carried away and made a video with the tellagami app and turned it into a hologram for the class for Mantle of the Expert - the commission from my fictional charitable organisation. I just know the children will want to make them too!
I put a padlet on the class blog after seeing Yvettes and the brilliant way she used it. 
Other things I love - popplet, reading eggs (for spelling for Will - who incidentally has achieved 8 out of 8 in spelling two weeks in a row - admittedly, the words all rhymed, but it's a start!), and puppet pals. These are all things we can use in our classroom. 
And the Mural
is almost complete! When I'm out there, painting, I feel like I could paint forever! The children involved in the designing and painting were just wonderful. I will complete it during the holidays, I just need to get up the ladder and paint another row of bricks and add detail to the lettering and put the names on. 

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!