ilep Course

I was lucky enough to compete the ilep course this year. It's a great introduction or 'refresher' in language teaching which I really enjoyed. I'm currently encouraging other teachers from my school to sign up for next year. There really are so many wonderful opportunities available for language teachers.

iLep inquiry

A Snapshot from the Past

I recently came across this lovely photograph. The smiling teacher in this picture is my grandmother, Eveline McQuoid.  She was born in 1899 in Coromandel. I don't know when or where this photo was taken. I believe Eveline did much of her teaching in the Titirangi or Huia area of Auckland and I guess it was taken in the 1930s.

Eveline passed away in 1970, so I never knew her, but I wonder what she would think if she could visit me in my modern classroom today.

End of Term Reflection

Reflection	Forward thinking
Literacy: Reading: Groups and rotations routines were established quickly. Students needed some scaffolding around expectations and using google tools including classroom. Shared novel ‘Kensuke’s Kingdom’ was a good choice enabling some on line back-channel sharing thus reinforcing digital citizenship learning. Te Puawai readers established. Writing: One piece of poetic writing and one piece of non-fiction has been assessed.. Routines of using feedback to create individual goals have been established. The class generally seem to have a very positive attitude towards writing.  The schoolkit writing programme (metaphor poem) was a highlight.  Surface features are a focus for some. Spelling:  Weekly spelling tests have established specific words which target spellers need to learn. SpellingCity has been used as a learning tool.	Reading: Joining NZreadaloud is a possibility for next term - this will depend on the selected novel. Lower reading group must continue to focus on mileage and developing vocabulary as well as specific teaching of strategies ( Sheena Cameron resources) Will consider using a scrapbook for this group. TePuawai readers will have more regular running records - will use seen texts from their reading group work. Higher groups will move into higher level strategies including inference and will consider developing reciprocal reading. Writing: Will begin next term with a focus on other forms of non-fiction writing. This will integrate well with science fair and statistics. Late in the term will re-visit poetic writing - possibly using The Literacy Shed and or pobble for on line motivation and learning activities. Punctuation will be taught in whole class lessons and followed up with target group students as appropriate. Spelling: Will continue to use the essential word lists and commonly misspelled words as a focus. I expect to be ready to use an individual on line spelling programme in T3.
Numeracy: After testing and establishing routines most classroom teaching was based on whole class teaching with withdrawal target groups for extension and remedial focus. Grouping was fairly fluid and based on formative assessment. Maths talk moves was based on constantly changing randomly selected groups of 3. This was good for establishing expectations and practising maths talk.	Numeracy To establish more concrete ability groups. Will consider using scrapbooks with the lower groups to record strategies. Teaching and practice of number will continue throughout the year with a secondary focus on statistics next term. This will enable more gsuite skills to be taught and learnt, particularly using sheets to manage data and graphs. Basic facts focus for target learners.
Inquiry/Topic: Digital citizenship unit completed. Using an interactive slide show was successful and a good way to introduce some of the GAFE tools. Earth Science Unit complete - see separate reflection on unit plan	Next term the main focus will be ‘The Nature of Science’ as we work towards the school science fair. Camp will be a major event of the term Changes at Puberty will be taught in the last 2 weeks of the term
PE: Swim for Life was the main focus for this term. The children really enjoyed this - engagement levels were high.	PE: Winter games / fitness focus next term with the possibility of ‘expert’ students preparing, submitting lesson plans and (with support) teaching some class lessons.
Learning Languages Te Reo: All students are familiar with the school tirohanga, karakia and waiata. This was the focus for our early lessons. Since then we have covered basic greetings and unit 1 “Taku Whanau’ Integrated where possible. Mandarin Chinese Sisi, our MLA has taught a few Chinese language and culture lessons in the class.	Will continue to integrate where possible and move on to subsequent units in ‘Te Reo Tupu, Te Reo Ora.’ Chinese learning will continue next term and a keen group of learners will be given the opportunity to join an enrichment class with a view to completing the L1 Confucius Institute exam.
EOTC The class attended the Asian Friendship Festival where they presented a song in Chinese and a dance. Team trip to Action World	Camp in week 3 will be a major focus next term.

Well that's me covered for the next couple of years.

 First Aid is so easily overlooked - until you need it! That's why I'm happy to take a Saturday to keep up to date.

Well that's exciting! I recently entered some of my classroom coding work into the Interface Magazine Excellence in Teaching Awards. 

I was delighted to find out that I am one of three finalists. You can see my entry and the details of my project below...

Describe the coding activity that you want to be considered for the award?

In this learning activity, year 7 and 8 students use code to explore geometry. Using Tynker (www.tynker.com/) students enter a teacher designed code, which although meaningless on its own, will build endless variations of geometric patterns when students enter their own values.
Students explore geometric principles using the prescribed code as a base for developing geometric patterns. In doing so, they learn a lot about shapes and angles. They solve problems and learn through trial and error. They collaborate and share and they also create a beautiful piece of virtual art. You can see my instructions here:

Why did you choose to use this activity?

I had only recently introduced my class to coding and although they were enjoying some simple activities, I wanted to integrate coding into my classroom learning and teaching programmes. I also wanted to move away from prescriptive coding activities and help the students to use code as a way of exploring and embedding their learning. Our current maths topic – ‘Measurement and Geometry’ enabled this perfectly.

How did you implement and use it?

I shared this document with my students and left them to explore.

They were totally engaged. Although I did not really consider it to be a collaborative activity, I soon noticed that the children were sharing, discussing, helping each other and problem solving together. I found that my maths lessons had to be extended as students were reluctant to stop coding.

What outcomes has it achieved for you and your class?
The students were very motivated by this activity, engagement levels were high. Students have been able to create some beautiful pieces of virtual art. Many of them are very proud of their work. In producing their art, they learnt a lot about code and about geometry. You can see some examples of the learning and my own effort by clicking the links below:
Aimee's Geometric Shapes
Jacob's 'IDK' Coding
Cool Shapes by Nia
My Geometric Design

Please take a few minutes to take a look at the rest of the competition and all the catagories. You can see the details here. 

National Literacy Association Conference - Te Taitokerau

I just returned from the national Literacy Association Conference. This year it was hosted by my local branch, Te Taitokerau and held in the beautiful Bay of Islands. What a brilliant place to hold a conference and how lovely it was to showcase our local area to teachers from all around NZ and further afield.

 The organisers did a fabulous job to bring this conference together with great keynote speakers and workshop presenters. There was enjoyable activities including a boat cruise and ferry rides and of course, delicious food.

 A highlight for me was listening to a presentation from author, Des Hunt. Des spoke about how books were a big part of his life as he grew up. He shared some of his special book memories and spoke about his journey to become the prolific author that he is today. He demonstrated a chemistry experiment and used this as a metaphor for the financial struggle of being an author. It was hilarious. He shared his technique for talking to children about story, where he demonstrates the journey of a character using a special puppet controlled by magnets via his mobile phone - his own invention. A fascinating man and a real gentleman, Des Hunt was a delight.

 Another highlight for me was finally meeting face to face twitter buddies from my PLN. I've been communicating for some time with @kerriattamatea and @MrsThorogood. We tweet about literacy and all things teaching and it was lovely to meet them in person.







It was a personal challenge for me to present a workshop at this conference. I prepared a presentation about collaborating and connecting from the classroom.  It included  a lot about twitter and some of the collaboration techniques I use in the classroom. I shared some of my experiences - particularly the 'Building Cultural Connections-  Indonesia' trip I went on in 2015. I hope I was able to inspire some of the teachers to try some of these out for themselves. I really appreciated the support of my friend and colleague Deb Brett who came along to my presentation.

You can see my presentation here:




My thanks goes to the Tai Tokerau Literacy Association for all their hard work in putting the conference together. It really was great, I've only mentioned a few personal highlights here. Thanks for reading this post.