Term 3 Reflection

Term 3 Reflection

I have really enjoyed term 3. I feel that the class really works well together and are taking greater responsibility for their learning.

Highlights:

Chemistry

The class really enjoyed these activities. They were lots of different types of experiments covered and they enjoyed researching them to see which would be the best for our class.  It was very hands on and they learnt a lot. The children produced a slide to show their learning with a buddy and they all worked hard on these. We will try to incorporate this into Teach me Friday in Term 4. 

Teach Me Friday

The children really embraced this idea and we learnt a variety of things. I was especially proud of those shyer children like Bodhi who took a lesson by himself. It was great to see the 'teachers' stepping up and adapting along the way and making sure everyone knew what they should be doing.

Keeping Ourselves Safe

I was really proud of the class and the maturity they showed. They understood the importance of what we were discussing and gave really insightful and thoughtful responses. They retained this information well as well as it often was referred to even when we had completed the unit.

Speeches

This year we had an impressive range of topics. The class took part in a lot of practise sessions in class including impromptu speeches. We had great discussions about what made a good speech, bad speech, interesting speech and the children really took this on board in their writing.

Dance
This term we started weekly dance lessons. These were 'freestyle' in that the children helped run the warm ups, grouped themselves and got creating. There were only a few expectations of what had to be included in the dance. The key factor was that everyone was included and involved. There was a great number of dances with so many different interpretations shared to the set music. It was also fantastic to see so many groups choosing to perform each week.

Calendar Art
This term we made a variety of pieces for calendar art. The children had to discuss with their families what they thought would be good and something that their family would like. Any type of medium was allowed to used so that it best enhanced their idea. The children worked diligently on these are were proud of what they produced.

Maths -Statistics
For the graphing section of this strand the children were grouped and had to plan a teaching lesson that included a W.A.L.T, instruction and activity to reinforce and practise the taught graph. The children really enjoyed this. They even enjoyed marking the books at the end!

Reflection and Parent Input

Reflection and Parent Input

At the end of term one I had the children complete a simple reflection on what they had enjoyed, what they wanted to do more of, and also checked how they preferred to work. It was great to read the responses that were all positive with the key response being that they were happy both within the class and with the amount of time we spent working on the different areas.

In term 1 we also received information from the parents about where they felt there child was at and any information that they felt we needed to know. It was really great to read all the positive comments and know that the children are supported at home. There were a couple of things I felt necessary to follow up on which the parents were grateful for and were helpful for me to know.

Incredible Years

Incredible Years

Terms 1 and 2 

Programme Overview:

1. Building Relationships with Students and Proactive Teaching

• Goal: develop non verbal cues
• Result: use of door bell, clapping pattern where children are 1 beat behind, music played for different reasons as cues.
• Next Step: I haven't been as consistent I have I would have liked with this so definitely need to revisit.

2. Teacher Attention, Coaching, Encouragement and Praise

• Goal: introduce and use compliment circles
• Result: this worked very well and it was great to hear all the genuine compliments
• Next Step: time table this in more regualry. Introduce 'I am proud...' wall.

3. Motivating Students through Incentives

• Goal: giving quality focused praise
• Result: this goal was harder to remember but definetly was recieved positively when I did remember and I can see the benefits of being more specific
• Next step: be consistent in using this method even if I just focus on one subject area at a time

4. Decreasing Inappropriate Behaviour - Ignoring and Redirecting 

• Goal: increase the use of compliment circles (include I am proud...)
• Result: introduced the 'I am proud...' wall. The children were really keen to share things that htye had done that they were proud of
• Next step: Make sure both compliement circles and time to add to the 'I am proud...' display are timetabled inso not forgotten

5. Decreasing Inappropriate Behaviour - Follow though with consequences

•  Goal:

6. Emotional regulation, social skills and problem solving

• Goal: 

Video Review with Jayne

1 May - Session 1 Highlights: genuine, use of coaching, proactive, reminders/redirect, children enthusiastic and engaged, children taking ownership

10 June - Session 2 Highlights: Calm and children very attentive, clarifying, proactive, encouraging children to take pride in all things no matter how big or small they seem, coaching

Mindfulness Display:

Keep calm box:
This idea came around from both the life education sessions and sessions with Adrienne. The children asked if we could have a box in class and they were really good at thinking of what to add to it. They including breathing techniques from Adrienne as well as positive quotes.

Circle Time

Circle Time

In Week 8 we did our first circle time. This was an activity linked to our Kia Kaha Unit - Anti Bullying. In Room 8 we have looked at encouraging the opposite of bullying by completing a variety of activities that encourage kindness while still learning the impact that bullying can have on a person. 

We had to pass a ball of wool around or across the circle and give a compliment to the person who received the wool. It was encouraged to not pass to a person who we would normally sit or play with. It was wonderful to hear all of the positive and genuine comments that show Room 8's class culture is developing really well. This is something that we will definitely continue to do and do more regularly. 

This circle time activity links well with the Incredible Years training I am doing. On discussion with Adrienne she also encouraged that, as the compliments come easier for all the children, we should include a 'I am proud of myself' statement as well. I realise that expressing pride is difficult for some but it will be a great addition to the circle time and can even start as an optional statement to begin.

Learner Profile - Goal Setting

Putting the Learner Profile to work in our room through goal setting...

As a class we reviewed the four key areas of our Learner Profile to ensure that the way things were written was in a way that we understood. It was important that we all understood what each area was about so that we could choose an area to work on and be able to discuss our goal with others. We needed to also know what we could do to achieve our set goal. Once we had reviewed and glued our own sheet in our books we chose the one we wanted work on and added our names to the display so we could all refer to it. This is something we are going to review regularly and keep working on to ensure we are doing all that we can to achieve our goals.

Term 2 Update:

We updated our goal setting display by adding some positive comments around them. We also added a 'saying' to each of the four areas to help us remember what they meant. For example Confident - Maia was 'Being brave'. We also changed how we chose our goal by having our names as part of the whole area rather than just one specific part as many of the goals within cross over. We choose our goals at the start of the term and revisit and move around if needed throughout the term. We have a copy of the goals in our Inquiry books where we highlight them once we have achieved them.

Culture

Culture

In Room 8 we have spent a lot of time in the first term getting to know each other and learning about the Room 8 families, looking at where we came from and the culture we have within our families. We realise that all families have a culture of their own and that is this something to be celebrated. 

While we were sharing and discussing our own family cultures we discussed how Room 8 could (and does) have it's own culture. As a result of this discussion, we thought about events that happen throughout the year that we might like to celebrate. We chose a few different event and came up with ways to celebrate these within our class.

Extra:

Further to our discussions around families we also looked at our favourite places to visit within New Zealand. We also completed research around where our families came from and displayed both of these in our classroom.

We also made hand prints that we decorated and made into a flower showing us all united and growing together. We put these alongside our class treaty.

Oakura Quality Practice

Oakura Quality Practise

Link to my Oakura Quality Practise Sheet that this Blog documents relevant data to show how I am working on achieving these goals.