Get New Zealand Writing 2019

This year I decided to sign my class up to the Get New Zealand Writing programme run through Warehouse stationery. It was very different to the one we had last year, with students exploring Poetry this year. The theme was "CAN WE FIND A POEM’S WORTH OF STICKY WORDS INSIDE EVERY SINGLE THING?" We had a box containing 13 different objects. 

Students worked in small groups to brainstorm 40 different words around their object. They then narrowed this down to 20 words. Students then either wrote each of these words on to a piece of paper, or use http://note.ly/. Once they had done this they manipulated their words so that they made the most impact. They had to ditch two more words, so that their final poem had 18 words.

The students really enjoyed working on this project. I have embraced some of Murray Gadd's theory's from his workshop I attended this term. Our moto in our writing is that when we write we ensure we are being courteous to our reader, in this case it was for the class at Cambridge Middle School that we were swapping postcards with. I was really impressed with how each student rose the challenge, even those with lower writing ability in my class, and how well they all worked together to complete the shared poster.

The first word of each Poem was an anagram. My class loved the anagrams, once they got the hang of it! To begin with they were not sure of them, but once they cottoned on to them, they were away laughing.  The last word was the object from the box the student had chosen. 

Things I learnt for the Get New Zealand Writing Programme this year: It is a great way of connecting my students with others students. The activities were achievable for all abilities, and my students really enjoyed them. What I did struggle with, was last year it was about connecting students to other classes by showing "what was outside our classroom door" I felt that that was a better way of connecting the different classes to each other. Also the cards we received had amazing poetry and words written, but my students were disappointed with the lack of colouring (None) that their postcards had. They felt "ripped off" that they had taken the time and effort to ensure that their finished product was courteous to their reader and most of them felt that it hadn't been reciprocated. I was able to turn this into a teaching point, that every piece of writing needs to be courteous to the reader so that they feel good when they read it. 

Māori Lessons made Fun

We have been learning our Pepeha's in class. Rather than just do them for the sake of doing them I wanting the students to really find out where they came from. I was impressed with how excited the students were. Many of them have taken their arts and language book home to find out more about where their ancestors are from, and have come back to school excited to share their findings.

 I had used a visual mihi last year for students to share their pepeha and the students last year seem to enjoy it. They have really enjoyed it this year. I decided not to use a template, and let students design and present their pepeha any way they saw fit. One we finish it, we will create a koworai to go around the outside, then present it.

Because we had been doing so much around I Pepeha's I decided to mix it up and start teaching the students how to say how are you.

At the start of the lesson I introduced them to the phase Kei te pehea koe? All of them had heard the answer Kei te pai ahau. I did a bit of role playing with the students saying that I was tired, but when people asked me Kei te pehea koe we also go to the default of Kei te PAI ahau. All of the students agreed, so we started to look at different ways of saying how we are in Māori.
We went over bored, happy, sad, tired, hungry. I was surprised at how much the students were soaking it up, and wanting more!

To finish off the lesson I taught the class how to play Paki Whetu. They loved it! Certainly a real hit with everyone! I was impressed with how engaged everyone

Mathematics - Multi-level grouping

This year there is no streamed maths at school. We have all our students in our class. This means I have a range of beginning level 2, to end of level 4/beginning level 5. I have been thinking how best to cater for all the needs in my class. I want to encourage those lower level learners to accelerate their learning, whilst still pushing those more able mathematics. This lead me to re-trying multi-level grouping, which I have done before in a year 3 class with what I believe was success.

When thinking about the grouping in my class I wanted to ensure that each group had students that would work together effectively, I also had to think about catering to each students ability. I didn't want the "top" students to become the teacher and get bored by holding back the rest of the group.

So far the groups seem to be working well. Students are enjoying the challenge of being grouped. Because Im using mixing ability I make sure the students are being challenged at the appropriate level. I do this by using Education Perfect, and also setting tasks that are levelled. The students that are more capable work through the tasks faster as the first lot are usually easier for them.

The next step I am going to working on in my maths class will be to work on running workshops. Students will need to attend certain workshops unless they can prove they know the concepts. I am still not 100% sure what this will look like, but have been doing some reading and some thinking about how I can do effectively to benefit the students in my class.

Chapter Chat - Make Literacy Engaging

At the end of last year, the chapter chat team announced that they would not be continuing Chapter Chat for years 7 & 8. This gutted me as I really enjoyed it, and saw the benefit my students had in it. This made me make the decision that I would try to continue to offer it. I contacted the people who were in charge of CC to offer my services. Unfortunately they choose not to take up my offer. I was gutted by this decision, but then decided with the help of a principal friend, that I would just run it anyways.  I choose a book over the holidays, read it, and set up a google site for it. https://sites.google.com/longford.school.nz/chapterchat2019/home. I have four other teachers decide to do it for their classes. Two of these teachers are from other schools. It took several hours to set up. Not only did I set up the google site, but also two twitter pages. One for year 7 & 8 Chapter chat, the other for my class.

I have used the same formate as what the chapter chat team were using, 10 literacy based activities that students can complete, and on the Friday 10 questions about the chapters.

The first week we did it, I got my class to complete as much work as they thought they needed. Some managed to complete all activities, some hardly any. I talked to the class about this, some said they actually needed more guidance about how much they should be doing and all stated they enjoyed the freedom to choose their activities. This lead me to changing it up by giving each activity a number based on how hard it is, and then telling my students what number they needed to achieve by the end of the week. This has resulted in all my students being more focussed during literacy time. However, I do have a couple of students who are not pushing themselves.

Overall my students seem engaged the are enjoying the book (Out of my Mind by Sharon Draper) and are invested in what is happening next.

The following pictures are students sharing their work and commenting on others using Twitter Twitter page

Te Tiriti O Waitangi

This year I really wanted to focus on the Treaty of Waitangi and really push my students to a greater understanding of it. This is due to the fact I have become frustrated with how many Kiwis don't fully understand the implications of the Treaty and what it actually means. I felt that as a teacher I would be able to help my students fully understand the history of it, because we can learn a lot about ourselves through history.

We started with a KLW chart on the Treaty. I was surprised at how little the students knew.

I then split the students into small groups and they then worked together to complete a venn digram comparing the Treaty of Waitangi with other treaties around the world. I felt this was a great introduction for the students to the treaty as they were researching and discovering different things about it.

After having a taste of the treaty, students have then come up with their own inquiry question to look further into. I only used one question this time as I wanted to students to be able to answer it in the time we had (Approx two weeks) Their questions are displayed on our inquiry wall bricks in our class.

We have also been researching Hone Heke, James Busby and William Hobson. Students are gaining a better understanding of not only why the treaty was set up, but also why there are so many issues now.

After spending some time learning and researching about the founders involved with the Treaty, I thought it was time to challenge them around the timeline of the Treaty. To do this I split the class into small groups of 3 and 4. I gave them each a copy of the dates and the significant events that happened then. Students were then given 20 minutes to try and put the significant event to the date. It was really interesting how many students wanted to use the chrome books to check their answers, rather that just going with their gut. The groups did fairly well getting over half of the questions correct.

Over all I feel my class has gained a better understanding of Te Tiriti O Waitangi. Whilst I could have spent longer exploring it, I feel my students are ready to move onto something new. We will move into learning where we are from in the form of our Pepeha's, then onto ANZAC. We are also going to explore the New Zealand Land wars this year, which my boys seem very interested in.

What worked well: Group work, Resources for students,
What didn't work so well: Inquiry of students.Their questions were very brief and not conducive to a deep inquiry. Some of their questions were too simple. Next time I would need to ensure that all my students understand the inquiry process before they select their question.

New Year, New Class

I am really excited about this new year continuing to work at Longford Intermediate

This year I am continuing to teach year 8's. I have 26 students in my class. Made up of 14 boys and 12 girls. The class has a range of abilities ranging from a student with ORS support, to students that are very capable.  I also have a range of health and behaviour issues from one student with ADHD (Medicated), another with ASD and mental health issues, to a few that have behavioural issues which they currently meet with a councillor for.

Due to the range of needs I have spent the first two weeks getting them to understand that we are all in a learning journey together, but some are at different stages of our journey. I have been trying to create an environment of trust and support, where my students feel valued and not afraid to give things a go. I have been working on several class projects around art, which I will share once finished.

The classroom space I have is currently set up into two main working areas. The first involves the actual classroom. Students have individual desks. I had set the room up for the first week, and have now let the students reset to the room to how they feel it should be set up. Some students have chosen to sit by their friends in small groups, some have chosen to sit by themselves, four students have chosen to sit in pairs. Students are welcome to move around the class during working time, to find a space that suits them. I also have a kidney table for meeting groups with, which students work at during working time. The second space is a "breakout room" which is attached to the class with a glass door. This was used last year for my ORS students. This year it has become the "study Lounge" where students can chose to work quietly in. Students have been given the freedom, but have all been told that first choice is theirs, however, if they are off task, second choice is mine. So far it seems to be working.