Excursion to Sovereign Hill

What an incredibly hot day! The jury is still out - was it 38 or was it 4o degrees Celsius? This year we have been to Werribee Park Zoo in the extreme cold and now this. But how proud am I of my grade and how they behaved, participated and enjoyed the day. We looked at old toys and got to play with marbles, tops, dolly pegs, washing boards, quoits, slates, puzzles and hobby horses. We panned for gold and found some, looked at a candle being made, where the wheels are made and enjoyed some old fashioned lollies.

Off to Sovereign Hill

Tomorrow we are off to Sovereign Hill. The expected forecast is 38 degrees, it will be hot, hot, hot. We have been looking at old and new toys and will see lots of old toys tomorrow. We will also pan for gold, look in old homes, see the schools and best of all taste the old lollies they still make. We will be taking lots of sunscreen, big hats and lots of water.  

Love that writing

We are looking at Toys and Teddies and we have been discussing what makes a great toy. How great is this writing for Prep - first year at school and some sophisticated sentences and great punctuation happening. I love the planning pictures and the supporting text.

The format is available as part of my "Toys and Teddies' unit.

Toys and Teddies and e5

Here is my unit on Toys and Teddies.

It is suitable for K-2 and has many tasks that can be differentiated for your students.

Click here to see it in my TpT store

This is perfect in leading up to a Teddy Bear Picnic and Teddy Bear study.

It is based on e5 and enables students to record their learning as they work through the five components of e5.

Embedded Formative Assessment

This book contains information about why we need Learning Intentions and links the importance in daily teaching and improving outcomes. Many teachers find it difficult to use formative assessment as the systems in place in their learning environment are not conducive to this practice. Wiliams puts forward a very striking argument for this type of assessment, providing feedback and activating students as owners of their learning.

A great professional read.

Report Writing

It is that time of the year again! Report Writing time....

When gathering evidence all year round about what our students do - we sometimes forget how far they have come and how hard we have all worked. The assessment of/as and for have assisted us to drive teaching and learning and continually set new goals together.

Looking at samples of work, numerical data, anecdotes and photos all add up to a gorgeous picture of learning. Happy report writing everyone.

Where does Cafe Literacy sit?

How do you manage Daily 5 and Cafe Literacy? Leave a comment, question or follow my blog - love to hear from you.....

Cafe Literacy sits underneath and alongside Daily 5. Daily 5 gives us the structure to have five tasks that students move through to make the most of their learning while we provide the teaching strategies to make everything explicit.
The ready reference guides within Cafe Literacy provide support for teachers to explicitly teach and look for misconceptions for each strategy. Check out the http://www.the2sisters.com/ where you can access these.
CAFE - which stands for Comprehension, Accuracy, Fluency and Extending Vocabulary. These four components enable rigour to occur in our lessons. In our double teaching space these are the focus for our Learning Intention and help frame our Success Criteria. Our Preps are now assisting with the formation of these and we discuss then as a whole grade.

This photo shows our Cafe Literacy strategies hanging in our space. We add a strategy after we have explicitly taught it and role played, modelled and revisited what it looks like and why we use it. We often have children standing underneath it looking for help on how to handle a word or how to be more accurate or show greater comprehension.

A milestone for my blog

A huge thanks to all the people who have visited my blog. I have just reached 1000 views, a huge milestone for me. Check back over the weekend for more information on Daily 5 and how Cafe Literacy sits within what we do.

A goal for me

This weekend I have set a goal for myself. I am working on getting some work on 'Teachers pay Teachers' and 'Teachers Notebook'. Check back in on Sunday and see if I have accomplished this!

Sharing in the Reading Tent

As I was roving during Daily 5 today I noticed two of our boys in the reading tent and it was such a gorgeous sight. They were doing 'Word Work' and exploring dictionaries together. What made this particularly amazing was they have both been trying to ‘Expand Vocabulary’ from Café Literacy. They were comparing words that were missing and why dictionaries are not the same. We also have a few thesauruses in the tent. As we have allowed them to just explore the dictionaries in the tent, this coming week we are going to formally teach the features and uses of them. Our more able students are already using them in alphabet keys and list making tasks independently. Preps are always amazing

 

Work On Writing - Daily 5

'Work on Writing' has been an amazing addition to how we work in our Literacy Block. Our Preps have enjoyed the independence that this creates and the writing that is produced is amazing.

As outlined in 'Daily 5' it is important that our students know what their role is and what our role is. They need to know what the teacher does to understand why we confer and why they cannot interrupt that important time - as their time will come too! We make these anchor charts together and it makes a real difference to how learning occurs.

As stamina increases for writing and the urgency of writing takes place the atmosphere changes. These examples are from students who have been at school for only 9 months.

The set up of the room is important. If you want independent writers they must know where the anchor charts are and where all the equipment is kept.

We have a shared meeting space where the timetable is kept, groups are listed and tasks are identified for students.

Our Preps are able to choose how to write using a variety of formats. We provide some proformas like alphabet keys, rainbow words and checklists to extend and challenge our writers.

Our checklists are for point of need, so each cohort group has a colour and there are different expectations for each group. Our Preps know which is 'best fit' for them and will check what they need to do and work independently.

We also have books in our book stand that are waiting for authors. Children take a book that interests them and plan by drawing a picture, writing, read to someone to get feedback and then make changes if needed. While they are working on them they stay in their locker.

 Here are some examples of writing from our learning space.

 

Check out free downloads

I have just started to put some work on Teachers Pay Teachers. Here is a taster.
These are free - click on the tab to the right for my Daily 5 Posters.

A week of visitors

Again this week we have been able to talk about our amazing students with other teachers from schools across our region. Claire (who I work with in our double teaching space) and I presented our take on Daily 5 and walked teachers through the five parts of Daily 5 in Literacy. What we know about Daily 5 Literacy has impacted positively on our Numeracy Block and our stamina in mathematics.

Look out for 'Work on Writing' information this weekend. I would love to read your comments about what you are doing with Daily 5.