Tech Tips Tuesday

Getting Started with Seesaw

This week I started using Seesaw with my class as part of my exploration into digital portfolios and the power of feedback. I have been searching for something that I can use to collate my students digital work when using shared iPads. I wanted something that allowed for feedback from peers, students and even parents. I got the go-ahead from our ICT department to trial it this term and they loaded the app onto all the iPads.

During the last holidays I set up a login with Seesaw and added my classes. I made a test class to use to experiment with my son and get a sense of some of the issues that might come up with my class. It also gave us a chance to see what can be done and test out one of the Seesaw tutorials.

Prior to starting I wanted my students to understand the purpose of feedback, so we completed a couple of tasks last week that involved students seeking feedback, giving each other feedback and applying this information to their work. I printed out the appropriate signage for my class and set up management for the class such that student work posted immediately, they could "like" one another's work, but could not post comments.

My introductory lesson was just to show students the app and let them know that we would be using it. I demonstrated how they would log in using the QR code and the basics of how to create something and save it in their name. At this point I did not let students have a turn. Seesaw offers introductory lesson ideas to familiarise students, however I just wanted to get started with using it with our content and learning outcomes. I wanted for the task to be familiar enough for students to work with in a new format.

The next day we started Seesaw in our English lesson. I made a page for students to use as a digital worksheet. The task was the Circle of Viewpoints thinking routine, considering the perspective of different characters from the first chapter of Charlotte's Web. We re-read the chapter first, then students recorded their responses in Seesaw. They enjoyed having the opportunity to read each other's work and "like" it. The work itself showed that students were thinking about different perspectives. Some students got to more than one perspective. Others only saw through one lens. It helped students to realise that there is more than one way of viewing a situation.

One of my students quickly figured out how to give himself a like from every other student in the class, so we had to have a discussion about only selecting your own name when saving your work or liking people's work. We also discussed the point of "likes" and how the value is diminished if you just "like" everything you see.

In our Literacy Group time, students completed another digital worksheet to show an understanding of synonyms. They rewrote the sentence I had used and changed the word in brackets into one of its synonyms. Once finished students used the draw feature to make a page about a word eg. Cold, hot, large, etc. (their choice) and make an audio recording to go with this. They enjoyed this process and were prompted to get out thesauruses to add to their list. The technical side of things was working really well. It was great to see them looking at one another's work.

That night I reviewed students' work and left them comments using the feedback feature. We then reviewed the work on the IWB and I taught students how they could make changes based on the feedback by using copy/edit and making a revised work sample. Students were keen to revisit their work and those who didn't get the opportunity expressed their disappointment!

Every time I sat down with my students I found they were asking if we were about to do something with Seesaw. They were obviously hooked! On Friday I threw something together for them quickly, following on from our work on Charlotte's Web. I gave students the writing prompt "If I had a pet pig..." and they were off! They loved it. Some named their pig, others thought about playing rugby with it! Some students loved this task so much, and the ability to like one another's work, that they started to look for ways to give each other written feedback by Copy/Edit and then writing at the bottom of the page.

As soon as I clued on to this, I realised that I needed to introduce the feedback aspect properly and give them that freedom. We discussed the sort of feedback that we are wanting - feedback that is respectful of the other person's feelings and helps them to improve their work. And then they went to it. This is an area I would like to fine-tune with them some more, probably making some class charts with examples that they could use.

From a technical perspective, my students have definitely worked out how to get started, create, save and edit files, and how to logout. They are working extra things out for themselves and teaching one another. I look forward to seeing how their use of this develops in the weeks to come. I also look forward to being more creative with how we use it, drawing on photos and files as well.

From a skills basis, my students are learning how to use the iPad keyboard for typing, and they are learning where the keys are. They are also learning how to use the predictive text feature to help them when they are unsure of spelling. I was amazed how quickly they got their ideas down in text compared with how long it usually takes to write by hand. This may have been more about the motivation to get started than anything else! 

Motivation for Writing

I have been reading Diary of a Wimpy Kid - Old School by Jeff Kinney with my class of Year 3 boys and they have been LOVING it! I noticed a few copies making their way in to class early in the term, so jumped on iBooks and got a copy to display on the IWB. As we read together as a class the boys follow along on the screen, and some read their own personal copies. Sometimes I do the reading, other times the boys take turns.

Today we read the part where Greg forgets to put the lid on the toothpaste. One thing leads to another, and before the day is done Greg has manoeuvred the family car into a ditch! We loved reading this episode, and on completing we bounced off into our own writing. I paired students up with this free worksheet from MrsCroak at Teachers Pay Teachers.

After showing them how the Old School episode would sit on the worksheet, I got students to create their own storyline, starting from something simple and unproblematic. The buzz in the room was magic, and I was quietly pleased that they took to it so well at 2:30pm on a Thursday afternoon in the second last week of term! My students are typing them up in Google Docs and will use Sketchbook Pro on the iPads to add their own pictures in the style of Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

Friday Fun

It has been quite some time since I wrote any Friday Fun posts. Generally, my school has had other ways to share learning with families, thus I haven't had time to double up. At my current school, I started writing up weekly reflections for families, which highlight the main learning in the grade level, some class specific items, information about events coming up, and some snapshots. This takes a bit of effort to put together each Friday, and needs to be left fairly broad in order to cater for all Year 3 classes. When I do Friday Fun posts, I like to add more detail, and give a better sense of the task, its purpose and how we went about doing it. In doing so, I hope to make it interesting for students and their families, as well as the teaching community. I make no promises in terms of whether this will return as an ongoing feature, but I thought I would give it another go this week at least!

Reconciliation Week

This week we launched into our new Inquiry unit, "Why Say Sorry?" The central idea of this unit is that Indigenous culture changes over time. Given that Reconciliation Week is this week, it seems very good timing on someone's part - though I think there was quite a bit of luck involved this time! 

On Monday I read Idjhil by Helen Bell to my class. This story shows the connection Indigenous Australians have with the land and tells something of the impact of European settlement in terms of loss of land and the stolen generation. I chose this narrative to give students a glimpse of these concepts through the eyes of a boy of their age. 

Once we had finished reading, we used a modified version of the thinking routine "Step Inside". Students imagined they were Idjhil and wrote down the things they thought he knew and believed. They then wrote down the things they thought he cared about. A second column labelled "What makes you say that?" prompted students to give evidence from the book for their ideas. I moved around the room marking student work, and those who finished early glued their sheet in and illustrated the border with symbols and images that were important to Idjhil. 

To conclude the lesson - we played "Hot Seat" where one student took on the role of Idjhil, and others asked him questions. It took a few questions before everyone engaged in what was happening, but by the end we were getting some well thought out questions. 

On Tuesday we read Walking for Reconciliation By Beth Hall. This followed on nicely after our story of Idjhil, and helped students to gain a better understanding of what Reconciliation is about and why it is necessary. We followed this reading with another thinking routine called Making it Fair: Now, Then, Later: Finding Actions. We talked about the stolen generation and students discussed how things could have been done differently in the past to make things fair, what we can be doing now, and what could be done in the future. Students used Google Docs on the desktop computers to record their ideas. I was a bit frustrated by some of the nonsense I got when students were contributing anonymously and had to keep on top of everyone to ensure they weren't erasing each other's ideas.

On Wednesday we looked at our Google Docs list (teacher edited) as a class, and everyone chose one idea that they would like to expand on. They wrote their individual responses in their Inquiry books and wrote the steps that would need to be taken in order for the plan to be enacted. These ideas were shared with the class and we sorted our ideas into things that could be done now, and things that could be proposed for the future - both for the school and for our city.

On Thursday students worked in teams to put forward their proposals. One group focused on writing a letter (using Google Docs simultaneously) to our local government about how we would like our city to celebrate at NAIDOC week, one focused on a fundraising proposal for our school and two focused on proposals to our SRC. The ones for our school used Explain Everything on iPad as we felt that a video presentation would be more appealing to the student audience.

On Friday I gave feedback to students and helped them to edit their proposals. I still feel that some need a little reworking to create a more professional product, however I'm impressed with the quality of their efforts and technical ability.

Maths

This week students learnt how to work out their three times tables mentally by taking the double and adding one more group. Students practised their three times with a friend. We then worked on times tables using an erasable multiplication chart and songs from the Mathletics website. Some students were extended to multiply two-digit numbers by three, and also to investigate the divisibility rules for 3. We will continue with this next week.

We also returned to some fraction work that we began earlier in the term. Students practised writing fractions along a number-line. In our computer time, students completed fractions activities from Mathletics including Rainforest Maths.

Literacy

We revisited Idjhil by Helen Bell, and discussed:

• What was the author's purpose?
• What does she want us to take away?

Students then wrote their personal response in their books using the prompts:
I think the author wrote this to...
I learnt...

It was definitely a busy week, particularly with parent/teacher interviews in the afternoons and planning for school camp. I look forward to seeing how things progress next week, particularly as we further explore our Inquiry unit of work.

Tech Tips Tuesday

Three Simple uses for iPads in the classroom

I've been trying to think of more ways to use the iPad in the classroom. We've had a great bank of iPads that have been useless because they can't be set up without the departmental passwords (which we haven't been able to obtain), and an additional small bank of iPads that were set up before the passwords changed. I don't really understand how that works, but decided to get started with the five that were available. I was also teaching some iPad demonstration lessons for teachers in my school, and some of these ideas were born from our discussions. I needed to use what was already available on the iPads.

1. Listening Post

This is an example of old ideas with new technology! The iPad can be plugged into a transmitter for a set of headphones so students can listen to stories without disrupting others. Obviously, students can listen to stories online, or read interactive book apps, but why not have students record their own stories or readers? I had one group record their reading of a reader for another group to follow along. The trick with this is to choose a book that the recording group should read fluently, and that the listening group will be reading at an instructional level. Our iPads didn't have an audio recording app, so we just recorded with video.

2. Graphing

Students worked in small groups to conduct surveys, collect and represent the data, and present their findings to the class. We had Draw Free, so I based the survey questions around the stamp images available in this app. Questions included things like: What is our class's preferred way to travel - car, train or plane? Students used the stamps in Draw Free to represent the data in a pictograph. We then plugged the iPads into the interactive whiteboards to display the graphs while students discussed what they had found.

Tasks for students

Students cut these roles into strips, put them in a hat and selected one to determine their role in this task

Example of pictograph

3. Story Making

Prue had a great idea to make stories with felt boards, take photos and have students write their story on paper. She then printed the photos and made them into books for students to read. We took this idea and explored it with the iPads. Again, students created pictures using the felt boards. They took photos with the iPads and wrote their story on paper. We then used a story making app - Story Creator - to make the 'books'. Students inserted their photos and recorded the audio for the story. We viewed the finished products on the interactive whiteboard.

Students working cooperatively on story making task

Example of felt board story page

Why use the iPads for tasks that can be done without them?
It's true that at times it takes more effort to organise lessons around iPads (or any other ICT for that matter) but using them increases student engagement in lesson content and gives students an opportunity to develop ICT skills. Due to the limited numbers of iPads, I feel that it also leads to greater use of collaborative tasks which help students to cooperate and share both ideas and resources. Outcomes in the Australian Curriculum call for greater use of ICT as a way of demonstrating understanding and creating content.

Friday Fun

Hooray for week 2!

I had a not so happy start to the week, with particularly bad Monday blues (but on Tuesday as I don't work on Monday)! I had to keep checking the mirror to make sure that I didn't have a "MESS WITH ME" sticker on my forehead! I'm very happy to say that things picked up in the days that followed.

We also had our parent information night which always throws me out of my comfort zone, but also allows me to make initial contact with parents. It went really well and opened the door to start sending email as a communication tool. Since then I've done a lot of emailing which has been well received.

Cinquain poems
For Valentine's Day students wrote poems about someone special to them. We used the structure for a cinquain poem. We introduced the structure, gave some of examples and then walked through writing the poem line by line. We edited the poems and then students wrote and decorated a good copy for their someone special.

Crazy Creatures
We led a brainstorm of animals with students contributing ideas. Students then combined elements from three of these animals to create and draw a new animal - similar to those created by Graeme Base in Uno's Garden. Students are now in the process of writing a cinquain poem about their crazy creature.

Buddy Maths
For one of our lessons this week, students paired up with a buddy to complete a worksheet from the Mathletics resources. It worked brilliantly as a cooperation challenge, especially once students reached the second page.
On the first page, students filled in missing 2-digit numbers in forward and backward number sequences. They then used clues to determine a mystery number. We had done something similar early in the week when students chose a mystery number and then asked each other yes/no questions to work out the answer. We also did some work around covering up a mystery number on a hundred grid.
On the second page students used a hundred grid (on the interactive white board) to solve complex mystery number problems. Few students were able to find the answers, but it was great to see the way they worked together, and to hear their discussion. At the end of the session we went through the problems together so students could see how the answers could be found.

Quick games
We had a couple of times through the week when the kids had worked really hard and we were all exhausted but still had about 20 minutes until the next scheduled break. On these occasions we grabbed our hats and ducked outside for a game. We played Jam Drops, Toilet Flush Tips, and Golden Child. These worked well in the allotted time.

Selby's Selection by Duncan Ball
Having been a bit of a fan of Selby the only talking dog in Australia (maybe even the world), I decided to introduce students to his antics. Unfortunately, the corny humour in this particular book seems to be a little beyond my students and I find myself struggling through the embarrassing silence after I deliver each pun! We now discuss the humour at the end of each chapter and I point out the play on words. Is humour something that comes with age? Or that is taught? Any suggestions for another more suitable novel for Year 2 students?

Uno's Garden #1

One of the teachers in my teaching team arrived this year with a great idea for a unit theme. Each year we select a theme for the unit (grade) and each class chooses a relevant class name. This year we are Uno's Garden based on the book by Graeme Base. Our class names are Magnificent Moopaloops, Talented (instead of Timid) Tumbletops, Super Spectacular (instead of Sneaky) Snagglebites and Great Galloping (instead of grazing) Gondolopes.

On our first read through of the book, we did not show students the pictures. I'm sure this is some kind of sin when it comes to the amazing work of Graeme Base, but our motives were pure!
In line with the Australian curriculum we want our students to: identify visual representations of characters' actions, reactions, speech and thought processes in narratives, and consider how these images add to or contradict or multiply the meaning of the accompanying words (ACELA1469) We thought a good way to get students to start thinking about this would be to take away those images and see what the students would create in their minds. Our students then drew what they imagined the class' mascot to look like. They wrote a description of the character below the picture using this model:
A Talented Tumbletop is ... small, soft, and furry.
It has... big eyes, a tiny nose and a long tail.
It (does)... swings in the tops of trees and tumbles back down to the ground.
The students' work was marked, collated in a plastic sleeve folder and then used for an overnight take home book. Students take turns to take the book home, share it with their family and return it the next day. Parents leave a comment for the class in the back of the book.

Image: Uno's Garden book by Graeme Base. You can buy the book here.

Tech Tips Tuesday

Animated Online Books

Another site for online books was brought to my attention this week. Story Time For Me currently has 30 books in its library and 1-2 books are being added each month. The stories are animated and narrated with options for students to read at their own pace as well. Most of the stories have a moral for children to learn - some more explicit than others. It would be wise for teachers to view the stories in advance to select those stories that portray the messages relevant to the needs of their students.

A word of warning - this site contains quite persistent advertising for personalized books that can be purchased. These may be a bit distracting and deter student attention to the text. Teachers should be mindful of this when using the site and monitor how this impacts on student learning.

The Beloved Library

The Mummy Bit...

Being a big believer in reading to babies, I started to read to mine in the womb. Yes, a little bit extreme, I know, but it helped me to keep the habit going despite all the many challenges of starting out with a newborn. We also began visiting the library regularly to change books. I can't rave enough about how great the library system is and how fantastic to be able to enjoy such a vast array of books at no cost. We have been borrowing board books, picture books, CDs and parenting books and magazines.

Our library also has story time for under school aged children, and Giggle and Wiggle for the babies.

The Teacher Bit...

I never cease to be amazed by how much my students enjoy their visits to the school library. They get so absorbed in their search for books of interest and they love to share their finds with their friends. They love to be exposed to great reads and to seek out books by the same author.

Selecting Good Books

One way of selecting good books to read is the trial and error, quick flick method. We have found a few gems this way including Isabella's Garden by Glenda Millard and Rebecca Cool and You and Me by Giovanni Manna. We've also walked by the display table on the way to the door and picked out a couple this way too.

Another (perhaps more efficient) way is to draw from book lists of recommended books. I purchased Don't Leave Childhood Without... A guide to the best books for children and have been working my way through the books listed. I log onto my library's website from home and request items from the list. The library texts me when they arrive and then I just pop in to pick them up. (Much easier than trying to find the books by looking through the shelves myself!) I've used this book when teaching to find a novel my students might enjoy hearing read aloud. 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up is another resource that could be helpful for this.

Of course, it's also nice to see some of the newer books that are coming out, and to go with a few that are being noticed for awards. The Children's Book Council of Australia is a great source for these gems, although it may be more difficult to get your hands on a copy through the library system.

In wrapping up...

Don't forget the beloved library as a resource for encouraging children to develop a love of reading. It is free and convenient, offering a great range of material.

12th Teaching K-6 Carnival

Welcome to the January 2010 edition of the Teaching K-6 Carnival. This edition marks the start of the second year of this carnival. As we head into 2010 we look forward to another year of learning filled with inspiration, collaboration, and challenges.

Brain Strain

Allison Johanson presents a great read for those teachers on vacation who are looking for ways to keep their minds active. You may also find some useful ideas for the classroom in her 55 Tips to Instantly Make Your Brain Stronger and Faster posted at Masters in Health Informatics.

Nightwalker explains Content-Based Instruction – A Cognitive Approach in his post at My English Pages. This is a good introduction as a starting point to learning and applying content-based instruction.

Gripes and Brags

Mimi shares her passion for children's books and tells us about a close encounter with the author type in Warning: People In Mirror May Not Be As Fabulous As They Appear posted at It's Not All Flowers and Sausages. If you haven't discovered her blog yet, don't hold off any longer - it's a winner.

In the News

Keira presents Why Should Kids Read Newspapers? posted at Literature Young Adult Fiction, saying, "Reading the newspaper is a great way to encourage reading habits and teach skills."

Innovate - Beyond the Slate

Rachel Lynette of Minds in Bloom gives us a great list of ideas to help us Get out of that Rut! These suggestions help to shake things up in the classroom to prevent boredom setting in.

Tom DeRosa presents Use a Deck of Cards to Set Your Child Up For Future Math Success posted at I Want to Teach Forever. These simple suggestions help students to develop skills with sorting and counting and pave the way for more difficult concepts.

MG presents ideas on Teaching our kids to save. posted at Personalize Baby. Why not use this suggestion to inspire an art project to make personalised piggy banks that students can fill at home?

At A Reader's Community, M Dahms presents an answer to the question What is Reader's Workshop? Here you can find all you need to get started and keep going with Reader's Workshops.

Elementaryhistoryteacher presents Bespoken Blacksmiths posted at History Is Elementary. This post helps us to think more about the importance of teaching subject specific vocabulary, and also helps us to understand the context of blacksmithing.

Vera Lang presents How to Knit Christmas Tree Ornaments posted at Fine Craft Guild .com. While a little late for this year, these may come in handy for 2010. "These little Christmas tree ornaments are so easy that kids could make them as presents for their family home. Great seasonal projects. Free patterns, illustrations and craft tips provides."

Why not submit your post for the next carnival?

The Teaching K-6 Carnival is posted monthly on the 7th. I will be collecting submissions throughout the next month, looking in particular for posts that discuss and exemplify innovative teaching and the integration of technology in the K-6 classroom. I also invite some discussion around education related news articles and a few "brain strains" to keep our minds alert and challenged. Please submit only articles of which you are the author and refrain from using this merely as a sales pitch. For full details, please read my call for submissions.

If you have a relevant post that you would like to submit to the next edition of Teaching K-6 Carnival use our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Support this Carnival

If you enjoyed this edition of the carnival, you can support its continuation by sharing it with others. Link to us, add us to a tweet, stumble or digg us. Thanks!

Technorati tags: teaching k-6 carnival, blog carnival.

11th Teaching K-6 Carnival

Welcome to the December edition of Teaching K-6 carnival. With Christmas just around the corner, teachers in Australia and New Zealand are getting more than their fair share of the silly season. Finishing the school year is tiring business - with Christmas concerts, graduation ceremonies, reports, Christmas crafts and the hustle-bustle to finish everything off in time. The summer heat doesn't help either as tired children feel tension in the friendships that have been so strong throughout the year.
There haven't been an overwhelming number of relevant posts this month, so enjoy this small sampling of delights. As you 'unwrap' this month's offerings, I hope you find some goodies to motivate and inspire.

Gripes and Brags

This month Sonja Stewart shares her frustrations about the state of education in US schools. In Where Have All the Students Gone? posted at Parenting Squad she wonders how her child is going to receive a world class education with only 15 days at school during the month of November. She questions the usefulness of half-days and their impact on student learning. Why not pop by and share your thoughts on the issue?

Following on from this, Edwin Choi presents Elementary School in Seventeen Easy Steps posted at K12 Directory of Schools Blog. These tips may be useful considerations for parents when determining the best place for their child's education. It always helps to know the philosophy of your child's school and what the school offers. This list may also help schools to identify those issues of greatest concern to parents. Edwin Choi also shares her list of The Top Ten Books for Preschoolers. These all time favourites would make great Christmas prizes or presents. Alternatively, they could be purchased for a fresh new library set at the start of 2010.

Wendy Piersall at Classroom Jr. shares free Christmas Math Worksheets saying, "These were a huge hit last year, so I wanted to share them with your readers early this year!"

Brain Strain

Tracy Rosen shares her thoughts from Alfie Kohn's QPAT speech in her post On de-rubricizing at Leading From The Heart. She questions our use of rubrics and goes so far as to call them 'creativity killers'. Rather than limiting students to a set of boxes in which they find a place to sit, she encourages us to lose the rubrics, but raise the bar.

Innovate - Beyond The Slate

In his post at Open Educator, Graham Wegner considers the term Digital Transition to describe the current state of his school - somewhere between a traditional paper based, non-digital classroom and the always on, 1:1 connected environment. Read his blog and consider your own situation and your progression within the 'digital transition'.

At NZ ICT Edublabberings you will find the must-read post from Rachel Boyd, For Kids, By Kids: Nelson Kids' ICT Expo. Here she shares the story (and videos) of the amazing things her 6-7 year old students are doing with ICT. Not only have they developed skills in the use of ICT, but they have also taken the initiative to share their knowledge with others. This a very inspiring post demonstrating what can be achieved with the right encouragement and opportunities.

Look No Further

Ferrari Dude presents Top 50 Bloggers to Help You Study, Focus and Learn Better posted at Best Online Universities.com.

Why not submit your post for the next carnival?

The Teaching K-6 Carnival is posted monthly on the 7th. I will be collecting submissions throughout the next month, looking in particular for posts that discuss and exemplify innovative teaching and the integration of technology in the K-6 classroom. I also invite some discussion around education related news articles and a few "brain strains" to keep our minds alert and challenged. Please submit only articles of which you are the author and refrain from using this merely as a sales pitch. For full details, please read my call for submissions.

If you have a relevant post that you would like to submit to the next edition of Teaching K-6 Carnival use our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Support this Carnival

If you enjoyed this edition of the carnival, you can support its continuation by sharing it with others. Link to us, add us to a tweet, stumble or digg us. Thanks!

Technorati tags: teaching k-6 carnival, blog carnival.

Tech Tips Tuesday

This Week's Tip: Book Reviews and The Quality Teaching Model

Today I found a great site for teaching English in middle to upper primary and secondary classes. Writing with Writers takes you step by step through the process of writing a book review. Rodman Philbrick shares a book review that he has written that can be used as a model for students' own writing. He then gives a series of writing tips to guide students and reminds them of a few challenges to keep in mind. Philbrick provides some guidelines for revising work upon completion and suggests a site where students can publish the final draft of their book review.

I found this site really useful as everything was explained so clearly and could be displayed on my Interactive Whiteboard for students to return to as they wrote. While my students haven't completed and published it yet, I can see the value of having a real purpose and audience for their writing.

This resource has great potential for implementing two dimensions of the Quality Teaching Model. (For summarised explanation of the elements of QTM click here.) These are the connections that I can readily see, but you may see other connections as well:

Intellectual Quality
Deep Knowledge - This tool can be used to give detailed explanation of how to write a book review.
Deep Understanding - Students demonstrate a deep understanding of the book they read
Problematic Knowledge - Students recognise that people have different opinions about books and come to value the opinions of others
Higher-Order Thinking - Students are involved in analysis and synthesis and evaluation as they reflect on their book and the author's style.
Metalanguage - Philbrick uses language that students can understand and explains terms like 'genre'.
Substantive Communication - Teachers could use Philbrick's example to create discussion about what makes it effective. Discussion could take place in small groups which then share key thoughts with the whole group.

Quality Learning Environment
Explicit Quality Criteria - Philbrick's model and tips provide explicit quality criteria that students can revisit as they write.
High Expectations - The section on reviewing work challenges students to revisit their ideas and improve their initial drafts.
Students' Self-Regulation - The writing task is purposeful and students can continually monitor their own work using the tips.

Ideally, I'd teach this lesson using an Interactive Whiteboard and a classroom full of student computers or laptops. The explanation and discussion could take place with the Whiteboard, and then students could type their reviews in a word processor, referring to the website as they typed. Once completed, the text could be revised and then copy/pasted into the review page. What a great integration of ICT!

New Gold Mountain #1

This week my literacy class started reading New Gold Mountain: The Diary of Shu Cheong by Christopher W. Cheng. This is an historical fiction which is part of the "My Australian Story" series. It tells the story of life on the goldfields at Lambing Flat, NSW in 1860-1861. Shu Cheong, a fictitious character travels to Australia to find gold to take back to his village. On the journey both his father and third uncle die, leaving Shu Cheong alone in a foreign country. The local Chinese Society arrange a foster parent (Uncle) for Shu Cheong and it is at this point that we pick up the story.

Summary of Pages 1-30
The first thirty pages introduce us to Shu Cheong and life on the goldfields. As time passes, more people arrive, and tension begins to develop between the Chinese and the Europeans. Shu Cheong learns how to swim and longs for the day when he can begin earning gold to pay his way home to his village.

Activities
Code Breaker: Begin a vocabulary chart with the class. Add to it vocabulary from the text along with definitions. This can continue to be built up throughout the term.

Text User: Explain about the historical fiction genre. Explain the meaning and purpose of a 'preface'.

Text Participant: Look at a map of the area where this story takes place. Students begin a chart to show the historical facts in the story, the fictional elements, and the parts they're unsure of.

The pure and honest truth...

In my previous post I mentioned how students read through some books nominated for awards in order to get a good sense of what makes a story great. Joyce has asked me to share those books with you, however, I cheated a little bit when selecting the books. To tell the pure and honest truth, I just went to the library and borrowed picture books with Children's Book Council of Australia Award stickers on them!
HOWEVER, I checked out the Children's Book Council of Australia website and here are some links to the nominees for this year and the winners from previous years. ENJOY! :)

The Short list for 2009.

Past Winners

• Winners and Short Lists 1946-1959
• Winners and Short Lists 1960-1969
• Winners and Short Lists 1970-1979
• Winners and Short Lists 1980-1989
• Winners and Short Lists 1990-1999
• Winners and Short Lists 2000-2006
• Winners and Short Lists 2007
• Winners and Short Lists 2008

Rowan of Rin #7

We finished reading the book Rowan of Rin by Emily Rodda. In the last couple of weeks we did a number of activities to compile our thoughts about the book. For an overview of activities in earlier chapters please use these links:
Chapters 1 and 2
Chapters 3 and 4
Chapters 5 and 6
Chapters 7 and 8
Chapters 9 and 10
Chapters 11 to 13

Activities after reading the book

Adventure Story
Students consider the things they learnt about crafting a narrative and apply these to writing their own adventure narrative where the characters face their fears. The photo below came from my Smart Board lesson for this activity.
Tying up the loose ends
We reviewed the last chapter to consider how Emily Rodda tied together all the loose ends. We considered which information was necessary early in the story to make the ending believable. We discussed the imagery used to provide a sense of desperation during the climax. We also discussed Emily Rodda's use of stars to break up the chapter and provide details about other characters elsewhere in the story. This lesson was a really important session that helped students to focus more on the importance of story endings.

One Pager
This was an idea that I found in another book. Students created a 'one-pager' about Rowan of Rin. There were a number of ideas provided about what the 'one-pager' could be, but it needed to be a page about the book, with some added colour. Many students created a new cover for the book. Some chose to write about their feelings about Rowan's character development, and still others illustrated a scene from the book.

Book Chat
This was the first chance I had to play with our new Snowball Microphone. I set the microphone up on a stool so that six students could gather around it. Together we created a basic outline for a book chat with sentence starters and key topics to discuss. While other students were working silently on their 'one-pager's, I selected a group at a time to conduct their book chat. It worked really well and we even had time to listen to a couple at the end.


My Final Thoughts
I really enjoyed doing this unit of work with my students and would feel confident doing it again with a new group. Students learnt a lot from their involvement with this novel and the language stretched some of them more than the books that they prefer to read in their free time. It was an engaging text that proved useful for teaching a number of reading and writing skills. I hope you find it useful too.

Here is the complete Rowan of Rin unit.

Friday Fun

This was the final week for school in my state. It was another busy week, but still fun.

Fun This Week:

Are We There Yet? YES! - This week we finished off our imaginary journey around Australia. The last few pages of "Are We There Yet?" by Alison Lester were a bit of a rush, but we made it! I created an online quiz using ProProf which we did as a class and then I was going to have students do it in the lab. Unfortunately, the videos didn't work at school due to system blocking of videos. But if you want to check it out, you can see it here:

Australian Geography » Quizes

So instead of doing the quiz in the lab, students explored the SmartBoard Notebook containing all the videos/photos etc for the term. It was a great way for students to review the material. We then went back to the classroom where they tried to label an Australian map with states and capital cities. I was REALLY impressed with how much they had learnt. The following day we actually read another story about a journey around Australia called "Santa's Aussie Holiday" by Maria Farrer and Anna Walker. It was interesting to hear the discussion as the kids compared the two journeys.

Gifts - Students made and wrapped gifts for their families. (I'm not going to spill the beans about those!)

Swimming Pool - On Thursday the junior school (K-2) went to the pool for the morning. The kids did a lot of swimming and splashing early on. Towards the end a couple of my boys set up their own little soccer field and started playing soccer. A couple of the girls joined in as cheer leaders. I was most impressed as they did it all on their own initiative without any encouragement whatsoever from me!

Class Party - On Friday afternoon some of the parents organised a class party for the kids. It was a pretty wild half-hour so I think we were all quite glad it was at the end of the day! Again, the kids showed initiative - climbing on chairs, stacks on, and running around the classroom!!! (It's much better when they use their powers for good!) The parents were really lovely with all their kind words and gifts. It was a pleasure working with them.

Seize the Moment

I'm generally one for seizing the moment. If I can see an opportunity for the kids to learn something new from an experience, I like to jump on board. The other day I came across a blog made by children in Year 2 in Brisbane - 2M Gems. They showed a video of their class pet praying mantis shedding its skin. Having never seen this before, I found it quite amazing to watch, and knew the kids in my class would be just as fascinated.

As I walked out to my car the next day I saw a dragonfly on my pjs, hanging on the clothes line. I pulled out my camera and took a photo - realising the link we could make between the video and the dragonfly. I was very excited by the idea, but when I got to school, our internet was down, and then the next day, the video was blocked!


Today I finally managed to beat the system. We watched the video, looked at my photo and then discussed facts about praying mantises (also on the 2M Gems website). On Friday we have our turn in the library, so I grabbed all the insect books and the kids looked through them and tried to find out about different types of insects.


There's nothing like seizing the moment...even if it takes a while!!

Grandparents and Grandfriends Day

Today we had Grandparents and Grandfriends Day. About a month ago we sent out invitations to grandparents inviting them to come to our class from 10am - 12pm with the intention of sharing what life was like when they were children. We didn't get many replies, so we were uncertain as to how the day would pan out.

Prior to the arrival of the Grandparents, I explained the structure of the session to my students. I reminded students of the sorts of questions they could ask and the sort of topics that we wanted to find out more about. Some of the children who did not have guests coming had brought in photos to talk about instead - so they shared their stories with the class. Then I got the kids to sign their names on the back of certificates Kym (another Year 1 teacher) had made to give to our guests.

When our guests arrived, I showed them a bit of a Smart Board presentation (thanks again to Kym) and then the children introduced their guests to the class and asked them three key questions:

• What is your name?



• When were you born? and



• What was your school like?

Once everyone had been introduced we divided into smaller groups. In these groups students asked questions and listened to more detailed stories. Some guests even brought photos and artifacts with them. After about 5 minutes, the students rotated to a new grandparent/grandfriend and asked some more questions. This continued until everyone had had a chance to speak to all the guests.

As we still had a few minutes before we were due to have our picnic in the school's native garden, we sang a few songs for the grandparents - good oldies like "On the Good Ship Lollipop" and "The Teddy Bear's Picnic".

We thanked our guests for all their help and gave them their certificate. Then we headed out for our picnic. The picnic was lovely and it was a nice way to conclude the time with our guests.

As the kids had learnt so much during their chats, I didn't want to lose this valuable information. So when we came back in after lunch, the kids wrote down what they learnt in their Integrated Studies Books. I was amazed by how focused they were. They worked silently without me saying a word! As they finished off, I got them to jot down on a post-it note what they liked or didn't like about Grandparents Day. It was great to see their feedback. They were all very positive about the experience. Some of the comments were:

"I did like it, but I wanted to get more old people. But it was the best."

"I think it was good because it was a lot of time with them."

"I liked it because it was a bit like chatting - a conversation."

"I liked it all."

"I liked it because we were in groups and I was with my best friend and her granny first."


The class then paired up with each other and read the notes that they had made about what they learnt. Once they finished with that partner they found a new partner and so on, until I could see they were becoming unsettled. I think they enjoy sharing their work with each other like this.


Because everyone had worked so hard, we had a bit of a treat in the afternoon. We went out into the playground and did some skipping and hopscotch - both games from the past. For the last 15 minutes of the day we read a story called "Grandpa's Surprise" by Rosalind Beardshaw.

What a busy day!!

Feedback from Grandparents was positive - they enjoyed the experienced and had fun reflecting on their memories from their early days. We teachers also loved the day. It makes the learning so much more meaningful. The challenge now is to get the whole school to participate next year!

Author Study - Mem Fox

We just began a new author study on the work of Mem Fox. This has been really exciting as I have found myself building on different skills to the earlier author studies. I'm also seeing a much deeper understanding of authors and illustrators and an interest in exploring new books.

We began with Mem Fox's most famous story – “Possum Magic”, and I was fortunate enough to be able to get access to a Big Book version of the text. I also managed to find a DVD of Mem Fox reading the story (and also “Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge”). On the first day we just read the book and discussed what we liked about it. On the second day we watched the video and then did some map work using the Smart Board and a worksheet I created. My students pieced together a map of Australia and then labeled the states. I then asked the class to find the places that Grandma Poss and Hush visited, and draw the path that they travelled. On a blank map they drew the foods they ate at the places they visited. I was impressed by how much they picked up.

On Mem Fox’s website, she outlines how to read a book aloud with expression. I found it interesting, and have been encouraging my students to use some of her suggestions. In particular, I pointed out that Mem Fox pays close attention to the end of her stories and wants the reader to draw it out to enjoy it more fully. I read “Koala Lou” with one of my guided reading groups, and demonstrated how Mem Fox would stretch out the words on the last page. I've also been re-reading my favourite parts with the class, so they can experience my enjoyment of the way the text is created.

Today I read “Sophie” as part of our unit of work on The Way We Were. It is a great illustration of the circle of life and the changes we go through. After reading this, the kids made a timeline of their lives so far.

One of my favourite moments was when one of the girls pointed out that “Sophie” tied in with both the Integrated Studies and our Author Study. This made me realize that my class now pays attention to who the author of the book is (even before I mention it). Another student also pointed out that they had read another book illustrated by Craig Smith – “Cats” a recent book week nomination.

It’s exciting to see students developing this interest in authors and illustrators. I set up a mini Eric Carle and Lauren Childs sections on my class bookshelf so they can begin their own author studies during independent reading time - we'll see how that goes...

Book Week - CBCA Awards

Many Australian schools celebrate Book Week in the week following the CBCA's (Children's Book Council of Australia) announcement of the Books of the Year.

At my school this year, we did this through a day of book related activities. Each of the teachers in years K-2 chose one of the nominated books and prepared related activities to last a total of 45 minutes. Students in these grades were divided up into mixed-grade groups. We ran two 45-minute sessions before lunch, and one after lunch, followed by a sharing and reflection time in own class groups. This meant that each teacher taught the same lesson to three different groups, and each student experienced the lessons of three different teachers.

The talk amongst the teachers at lunchtime was all very positive. We enjoyed the opportunity to meet and teach kids from other grades. We had a chance to polish our teaching through the repeated lessons. And we had fun, developing lessons around the chosen text.
The reflection of the students was also mostly positive - focusing on the enjoyment of working with different people for the day. The negatives were mostly about not getting the teacher they wanted or being with the kids they wanted.

I tried out a circle time for the mode of mine, and again it worked really well. I found it actually worked particularly well in this setting because it seemed quite normal for everyone to be "Checking In" by saying their names, and this served a valuable introductory purpose for the group. One of the things that really stood out to me was how quiet and settled everyone was compared to my usual group! I felt almost as though I needed to tell them that it was okay to talk to each other and get to know everyone.

For those interested in the actual lesson, it went as follows...

CHECK IN: Hi, my name is _________ and I am from class ______.
MIXER: Students lucky-dipped a bookmark and found someone with a matching bookmark. They sat together while they coloured-in their bookmarks. This was also how I formed the pairs for working together later as well.
ACTIVITY: I read the story "Parsley Rabbit's Book about Books" by Frances Watts. (As the title suggests, this is a book about books!) We then discussed favourite books, and students filled out a worksheet about their favourite books. Their partner helped with spelling etc. If they finished early, they could choose books from the displays to read with a partner.
DEBRIEF: Students told their favourite book.
ENERGISER: We danced to an old song about a rabbit. (Sorry, but I don't remember the title. I recorded it back in the days of cassettes!).
CHECK OUT: Hi, my name is ________ and I like to read books that ________.

We have a Maths day coming up in a few weeks, and I think I will use circle time again - this time to teach concepts in Chance and Data. I'm really looking forward to it.