Retail therapy

Today (apart from this blog) I have taken a break from work - well sort of.

My daughter wanted to go to the shops and we needed to finalise one last purchase for Father's Day (in Australia it is this Sunday- tomorrow for us)

But in true Shaw shopping style we got side tracked and not only did my daughter spend up big so did I!

I did buy some books (more books - earlier this week I blogged about some other book purchases)

 

But today I also bought some clothes - 2 dresses, 1 cardigan, 3 tops (one is a flesh colour and didn't really show in the photo).My daughter thought it was great as they are not all black!

Sometimes you just need to shop.

An update on our focus wall

I have been playing around with our front wall that has our Anchor Charts and Word Walls.

 

Our Word Wall was too big - took up too much room. It didn't flow and the words didn't stand out.

 

I wanted a smaller one and wanted to move around the posters, so it was a bit more organised.

 

I am a bit obsessed with the graphics from Melonheadz and Scrappin Doodles at the moment.

 

So these cute kids have a letter each and a picture that relates to that letter/sound.

 

They look great and are smaller and work for us at the moment and fit so much better under our Smartboard.

 

I love that they are there, as some of my kids work on the floor to write and the words they need are just there at eye level for them.

 

 Now the anchor charts sit better and I have room to add some more writing prompt posters - watch this space for more photos later in the week.

 

The  Daily5 Anchor Charts are free in my stores.

The blue posters - I am happy to email in PDF form for any followers of my blog.
Email me at pjshaw2@gmail.com 

Our Daily 5 planning

I have been asked to share the planning for Daily 5 that is used in my learning space.

The four teachers who share this space (yes - we have 4 grades and 4 teachers working very closely together). This means two of us plan Maths and two of us plan English. Our planning has evolved over time and this is what the planning looks like for my grade and the grade I team teach with for Daily 5.  

So here are the explanations of each section
1 - Contains our Reading focus - Learning Intention, Success Criteria and Café Strategy. At the bottom of this column are the foci for Letters/sounds, Shared Books/Big Books and Explicit Writing Focus.
2. Writing Focus - similar to format of the Reading Focus
3. This is our timing and is in the same format as an anchor chart. One column is what the students do and the other is what we do!
4. Now there are two of them - each one represents a teacher in the space. If I am the first column - I work with the groups on that side this week and then next week I work with the other side. This column also contains the names of students who are at the same reading level.(Guided Reading group)
5. Tells us what day we see the group - the title of the book and the focus for the guided reading task

Teacher Focus –Wed

Book –The Hungry Kitten

Focus Read across the word and get your mouth ready

6. Are the icons to show what order their tasks are (Scrappin Doodles). We also have posters around the room to show what and where they need to be,

7. The tasks for each group for Writing

8. The tasks for each group for Word Work
9. Suggested stories for Listen To Reading
10. Notes pages for Reading
11. Notes pages for Writing

As a team we then copy  the notes pages on Friday and pass them on to the relevant teacher.

If you would like to share your planning -please link up here.

Mathematics Online Interview

I thought I would share with you the way in which teachers in State schools in Victoria can collect data on their students for Maths.

 

We have an Online Interview that contains sections on Number - Measurement - Space.

We can then drill down into the data and check that data in certain areas within topics.

So in Number - we can see -  Counting - Place Value - Addition and Subtraction - Multiplication and Division. This helps us to plan for point of need and cater for individual students for exactly what they need.

 

This covers assessment for/of and as learning.

 

In these photos I have removed the names of my students - but you can see the growth points across the top and this is what drives our teaching and learning.

 

The tool is aimed at P-4 - but is great for struggling students in 5/6 for finding out what they don't know.

So this spread sheet is what you can print out as a profile and it will help group your kids and tell you the next growth point they need to master. This is the one for counting and you can print out the others as well. In Prep we spend a lot of time looking and working at counting.

 

Place Value is a place where some of our students are working - this is best fit for them!

 

Where there is no line - the student was not able to answer questions. What I love about this tool is that it is adaptive and takes children to questions that are testing their ability and asks about what strategies they are using.

 

Maths time

                                                                   Today we started on  revising  'friends of 10'.

 

We rolled a large dice and made that collection and then worked out the collection that we needed to make ten.

 

We had lots of fun doing this. Some used farm animal counters and some used unifix.



We had a bit more fun and challenged ourselves to do this with accuracy and fluency.

 

Then we moved onto doubles. Again we used a large dice and used counters. It is so important to have a variety of hands on materials to choose from to show our learning and understanding.

 

We have also been working on vertical addition.

 

Another glimpse into Daily 5

A photo story to add to my Daily 5 collection

Take a chance - Maths Linky

These photos I took a few weeks ago - they show my kids playing a game called 'Take a Chance'.

I am also linking up with iSURF to share - go on over and link up a game you have used

Use this link - to get the free game mats for all three sets.

They need to predict the number they think they will roll the most.

Then they roll a dice using a the rolling mat. A quiet dice is a great dice.

In our new curriculum - this is now Statistics and Probability.

We use a 1-6 for children who are working on numerals under 10 and then we use 1-12 for students who know there numbers to 10.

I need to do a 20 sided dice version as we have students who are best fit with those numbers.

Father's Day ideas for your grade to celebrate Father's Day

In some parts of the world we celebrate Father's Day in September (Aus) and in other parts of the world it is in June (USA). When do you celebrate Father's Day?

We like to make a Father's Day card for all the Dads, Grandads and special people in our lives to tell them how important they are to us. 

We have two card options for you to use. 

Let us help you with these printable cards. 

Firstly we have some simple card options for you to print and go.

All the dads will love this...

Interactive Card

Donuts for Dad

Father's Day Pack

Thanks to all the Dads for being Dads

 Scroll down or click here to see each pack in more detail.

We also have a card that is ready to fill with memories, facts and ideas about the time spent with the important Dads in our lives. This is available with Grandad and other options. 

Then just for fun we have prepared some Math Centers that are themed for Father's Day. 

Happy Father's Day...