A Reflection on my teaching.

When I think back on some of the highlights of my teaching this year there has been a lot. And I've come to the realisation that their should be, I am teaching 5 year olds. 

Reading

The class grew and I struggled to see all 7 groups in a day. So I took a deep breath, thought about what I wanted from the kids and their reading and decided,

Reading with up to 4 groups a day and getting some really good quality reading.

Extra time learning a new HFW.

Looking at follow up activities together on their ipads and not just saying "off you go, next group."  

This has worked well the students are enjoying reading with me and I am enjoying sharing in their success in reading. We all celebrate student success even if it is only small steps or beginnings. I know the kids enjoy reading now because they are so excited when I call their reading groups. I have 6 students reading AT (yellow level 6-7).

However, there is one success that I am very proud of and we have both worked extremely hard to get to this point.

This is Elemasi my deaf student reading at magenta 1-2 with Legacy. 

Writing

I have had some success in writing. The students are very interested in our inquiry focus. Which is animal survivors. A team 1 trip to the zoo was an excellent introduction to this inquiry.

We constructed the sentence together there are still a handful of student who are not independent writers but they can copy from the board now. My independent writers are beginning to write very simple sentences using HFWs from our word wall. Sometimes we might focus on a particular animal to get the students to think about the animals features and how they survive in their environment.

Ipad PLDs

I am learning how to do so much on the ipads. The ipad PLDs have taught me to make my own EE activities for new entrants. Thank you to everyone who is sharing their EEs.

I made an animation movie about deers going to see animal behind fences.

With some lovely ladies from Tamaki Primary school we made this animation using our own drawings. This is our version of Little Red Riding Hood.

So, an amazing year, I'm exhausted but content. I have learned so much it blows my mind of all the things I can do now.

1-1 ipad PLD

Another very cool afternoon with Mrs King and 1-1 ipad lesson. I learnt to make an animation using the animation movie app. It was a slow process very delicate but once Sue and I had finished the end result was hilarious. 

This is an animation movie I made a couple of days later.

Inquiry Question

Our Inquiry afternoon discussion.

19/10/15 The purpose for this afternoons discussion was to bringing along something you needed help with, some advice on how to best try to help your students. 

My question was, How do I get my students to write?"

What is happening presently? Well, as a class we choose a topic which might be, what you did in the weekend. I write what a student did on the board and then the students will copy from the board or in some cases I will write in their books,( I know sounds boring) and that's about it really.

In our inquiry discussion today I got some really great feedback about getting students to come up with a sentence repeat the sentence to the teacher, then turn to a friend tell them tell Harold our giraffe, this is to help the students retain the information. Again repetition is the main driving force for this age group. 

11/15 I have been using different ideas and experiences for the students to write about.

Our team 1 inquiry topic is "Animal Survivors". The students are enjoying the inquiry and we recently went to the zoo. There is a lot of vocabulary coming out of the students such as, soft, fur, rough, stripes,stretch, swing ,climb. 

So, the writing is not independent but the ideas and information is theirs. However, they are writing and finding the high frequency words they need for their sentence.

On reflection, Great conversations with my team different teachers from different year levels made the discussion interesting thank you for your support.

  

PLD 1-1 Ipads

At Stone Fields School

I learnt how to turn my animation into a movie.

Thanks Miss King for a really cool afternoon.

Inquiry Question

My Inquiry so far,

Inquiry 22222 from jocelyn Tumahai on Vimeo.

Awesome toolkits today

Blogging is going to be a lot more enjoyable.

Thank you Fiona and the team at Glenn Innes School awesome toolkits 

I'm going to be design blogging all night.

How has my teaching changed?

What has changed and why do I think this?

My class is now 20 very enthusiastic and energetic students. So this had made a huge impact on the way we do reading groups now. The area where I have notice significant change in my teaching is in reading. 

• I am finding that I am not getting enough time to listen to all my reading groups.
• The children are not getting the best out of their reading.
• I feel there is no quality reading coming from my students.
• The students are not enthusiastic about reading.

What did I change?

• I have made time in our day for me to read to the students so they can get excited about reading again with books they want to listen too.
• I don't try to get through 7 reading groups in 1 day however, my goal is 3-4 groups a day depending on absentees or just the general atmosphere in the room.
• There are benefits to taking home the same book for 2 nights (reading mileage, word recognition, knowledge of HFW)  
• Students are not reading the book together. They are now reading pages of their book individually using 1-1 pointing using the Gwenneth Phillips reading strategy.

I know this is working because I am feeling a lot better about setting goals and expectations for myself and my students. The students are also making progress in their reading levels.