Week Six - Curriculum Areas Reflections & Assessment

It has become clear that students learning is progressing steadily in numeracy, however it seems to be more challenging in reading and writing. This could be due to the interest levels of students in these areas; they all enjoy maths and lack interest in writing. It is also a result of minimal full classroom days this week. On reflection, it is clear that next week needs to again have similar learning focuses in reading and writing (continuing with the thinking hats and wrapping up persuasive writing). In numeracy we can move forward into finding fractions of amounts and try to wrap up the fraction, decimal & percentage unit with a form of summative assessment.

In terms of my teaching, the biggest success was in getting group rotations sorted and finding a way to manage these effectively so I can maintain targeted group learning. In numeracy this has been very beneficial. I now need to work towards how I can improve targeted group learning and maximise their discussions and justifications within these sessions.

Here are links to the reflections and formative assessment in each main curriculum area.

Writing ; Reading ; Numeracy

Week Six Planning - Full Control

This week was a short week due to various interruptions resulting in only two full days in the classroom. Planning therefore continued from last week but with adjustments made based on progress and engagement from last week.

On Wednesday we were privileged to have a dance company perform Pasifika and Matariki shows to our school. The students loved these performances andused these to create a micro oral language unit that linked into our reading focus of using the thinking hats. We spent time after the performances using the jigsaw grouping strategy to use the thinking hats to interpret the messages behind the cultural performances. Each student loved the idea of learning through discussion and the various group activities maintained everyone's engagement for the entire afternoon.

Here are links to the weekly planning for each curriculum area, including the micro unit.

Micro Unit ; Reading ; Numeracy ; Writing ; Thinker's Writing Keys ; Weekly Overview

Week Five On-Going Curriculum Area Reflections & Assessment

Here are links to my reflections and formative assessment processes from week five planning. Multiple adjustments were made to original planning based on engagement levels and interruptions throughout the week. Overall these topics are taking longer than I plan for, so once again this weeks planning has overlapped into week six plans. Better to over prepare than under prepare!

Numeracy ; Writing ; Reading

Week Five - Full Control Planning

This week's overall topic continues on from last week - The NZ Flag Debate. I originally planned for this to only be a topic for one week, however all students were very interested in this topic and it worked really well with all learning focuses. It also became clear that there were gaps in their learning in some areas, so the original plans needed to be adapted and extended for another week. In reading we will continue reading articles about the debate but move the focus towards comparing and contrasting different viewpoints, and may try to use 'kahoot' to create quizzes on the debate. Writing will continue with creating a persuasive piece of the flag, but focus on setting individual goals and group assessing at the end of each session. Maths will focus on the survey and bar graphs they made last week about what our classroom thinks about the debate, whereby we will learn how to analyse and convert the data into fractions, decimals, and percentages. Inquiry will continue with the cultural music focus, with an aim of bringing that to an end this week and being able to move into sport next week. There should be plenty of variety and group work this week, ensuring engagement levels remain high and their achievement of all learning intentions persists.

Here are links to each area's weekly overview.

Reading ; Maths ; Writing ; Weekly Overview

Week Four - Curriculum Area Reflections & Assessment

Here are links to my on-going reflections and assessment for each major curriculum area - Reading, Writing, and Maths.

Writing ; Reading ; Maths

Week Four - Full Control Planning

I have begun full control, so my planning now consists of overall units that are split into weekly overviews. Here is an overview of my planning for the week for each main curriculum area. The topic focus this week is on the NZ flag debate. We are focusing on persuasive writing and will work towards writing a persuasive piece either for or against changing the flag. Within that they are reading articles about the debate to identify the author's opinion and reasoning. In mathematics we are learning about fractions, decimals & percentages, so at the end of our 3 days in class they will conduct surveys to see what each student believes and why, graph the data, and find percentages and fractions of their graphs. Many changes have occurred over this week already, so at the end of the week I will upload all of my on going reflections that have resulted in modifications being made to this planning.

Numeracy ; Reading ; Writing ; Whole Week Overview

Week Three Reading Group Reflections & Assessment

Here is a link to my reflections and assessment of learning from week 3 with my reading group. Next week I begin full control so will not be able to complete specific individual student assessment. I will still be tracking their progress but in a more simplified way.

Reflections & Assessment

Week Three Reading Group Overview

Here is a link to my planning for week three for my reading group. The main focus is on identifying the main theme in texts. We are moving towards persuasive writing so trying to link in emotive language within reading and writing.

Reading Plan Week 3

Week Two Reading Group Reflections & Assessment

Each week I will post the ongoing reflections and modifications I make based on the original plan. Here is a link to my ongoing reflections of the learning and my teaching in reading from week two. It also includes formative assessment of each student against each learning intention, based on my own judgements.

Reflections & Assessment

Week Two Reading Group Overview

My reading group planning will consist of weekly plans with around three lessons. It is often that some weeks we may only get through two lessons, and others we may be able to have four. Focusing on having an overview for three lessons provides flexibility as I can modify the plan after each lesson. These modifications will be published on this blog at the end of each week, to show what I planned for and what actually happened. Here is a link to this weeks reading plan.

Week Two Reading Plan

Reading Group Observations and Assesment Week One

Here is a link to the initial group discussions I had with my reading group. The discussion was based on my associate teacher's overall plan, and gave me an insight into how I can extend their learning; this group would become my reading group.

Week One Reading Assessment