Maths Inquiry (T3 2017)

Maths target students Syraiah-Lee Stanley Priority students Lopiseni Sosaia Viliami

Goals: Transfer skip counting knowledge to be able to use times tables. Memorise 2, 5 and 10 times tables. Learn to skip count in 3s, 4s and 6.s Use PV knowledge to solve problems. (PV partitioning) Be able to identify how many 1s, 10s, 100s and 1000s in a number.

We would say these forwards and backwards, altogether, in pairs.Towards the end of the week we did some simple word problems together, and the students had to write the times table that applied to it AND draw the array to help them remember.Word problems like...
Week 2I would ask them random times tables questions and they would have to answer. I would go around the circle first, saying 1x ? 2x, ? in order, so the students knew the answer (or could add on from the previous persons answer to feel success and build confidence.Towards the end of the week I gave the students a test.Kordell, Lopiseni and Syraiah-Lee didn't engage as much with this, as they found it hard to compete for who said it first. But they do know the answer...We also did Clinics on Friday and I wrote a blog post reflection on it.
Week 3We didn't get as much time to practice this week, as we had 2 different trips on 2 different days and Whanau Conferences. Ottilie (who has been teaching these kids for clinics wrote a reflection here).I taught them the hand trick for remembering your 9x tables which they all use and find helpful.

Week 4Throughout weeks 2-4, we had been doing maths clinics (between myself and Ottilie). All of these target students went to Ottilie for maths, and did clinics such as...



One gem moment was on Wednesday, while I was practising using play money with some of the students. Syraiah-Lee happened to be sitting next to me.
Week 6Week 7Sosaia this week got 100% on a times table challenge. Paula attempted the same challenge, but I think got overwhelmed by being given a worksheet and left to it. He could answer the times tables questions quickly and correctly when asked orally, but couldn't read/write it by himself. This is down to his English proficiency and unfamiliarity with worksheets and written English. Week 8
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Week 1

We started off in the first week of school with our 2x, 5x and 10x times. I made up boards that had the times tables written out, as well as an array diagram for each one.
Every time we meet, we start off by skip counting..
2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18,20,22,24 (we stop there because you don't need to know beyond 12x tables)

Repetition, repetition, repetition.


There were 5 rows of houses and 3 houses in each row. How many houses were there altogether?

We practiced almost daily, and I could tell the kids were starting to know them instead of just reading them. Some even physically turned away or closed their eyes while saying them to prove they really know it.

They lined up by the door and we made it a little competition. I would call out a times table question (one they knew and had practiced) and whoever said the answer first got to take one step forward.
Viliami and Sosaia really took to this, and were the first to reach me at the other end of the corridor.

The target students sharing something/anything they learnt are at...

Syraiah-Lee - 25:00-28:00

Stanley - absent.

Lopiseni - did not participate.

Sosaia -22:00-25:00

Viliami - 19:00-22:00

This week I introduced 3x, 6x and 9x tables. We followed the same routine, and did 3', 6's and 9's in addition to practising 2's, 5's and 10's.
It was interesting to see other students want to come and join the group, as they could see that group were really learning their times tables quickly.
For example, when we started our 3 times tables, Merielle asked to join because although she knew she didn't know her 3's.

In week 4 I introduced 4 times tables. We tried to do 8's, but it was a bit much for them.

WAL strategies to remember our timestables

WAL how to solve multiplication word problems

These workshops were really awesome as it gave the target students a chance to practice their times tables yes, but also, and more importantly for me, to feel successful. That they finally got it, could do it by themselves, could answer the teachers questions and explain it to other people, that is what was awesome to see. They are so much more confident.

Week 5

This week was awkward for maths, as we had the PWC FLiP course (Financial Literacy in Primary Schools). This was an awesome programme and the students learnt a lot, however to keep up with the LTP/Overview, we had to do that for maths as well as introducing ratios. 

We were still able to practice the times tables we have learnt about. 

The two girls I was asking, were adding decimals (in the context of money) in their heads. Syraiah-Lee was looking at them sadly. I turned my little whiteboard to her and said to her 'you know place value don't you?'. She looked at me and said 'yeah I do' (looking confused), and I replied 'so you can do this like they can. Use place value). After looking at it for a second, she realised she could do it and then went on to add decimals, in her head, unhelped. She looked so surprised at herself that she could do the same thing that other students (who are known to be really smart) could do. 

Something that happened this week that I felt was a huge indicator of the progress these target students have made, occurred on Monday. Ottilie and I continued our student-sign up workshop thing.

On Monday morning, all my target students chose to go to my workshop instead of Miss Morrison's, even though they knew we were doing the same learning intention. Then they came to me in the afternoon as well (even though they have never done add/sub of fractions before). 

They all said things like

'Miss I want to try it even though its harder'

'Miss I think I can do it'

'Miss I want to try'

That, from kids who last term even would refuse to participate out of fear of getting it wrong. 

Their confidence has grown sooo much this term. 

They finally feel success. Learning their times tables has allowed them entry into that next step of maths, where they had previously been locked out of.

And you know what, they could add and subtract fractions. They did it. 

Syraiah-Lee and Stanley's absences is an on-going issue. They miss the first half of the week, where the 'teaching' happens, and then come on Thursday and Friday and don't know what to do for follow ups. This makes them feel confused and loose confidence, and even if I offer to go through it with them, they don't want to do it because they feel its extra help and that they are dumb (when in reality, they just missed the lesson). 

Week 8

This week to encourage the target students to keep practising their times tables, I made times tables bracelets and made them wear one a day of a times table they didn’t know. It worked surprisingly well, as the rest of the class wanted them as well and hence the target students didn’t feel so weird about wearing the bracelets. Almost overnight, Syraiah-Lee learnt her 4x tables and Paula learnt his 6x tables. I will continue using these bracelets.

Times table bracelets

Most of the target students have mastered their goals for this term and now need to practice and refine their skills. The bracelets work well as it is a constant in their face reminder of what they need to practice.

End of Term 3 2017 - Student feedback!

Once again I got my students to complete an end of term survey to give me some idea of how they think their term went. 

Here are the full results.

I literally can't pull out any highlights because I love every single one of their responses.

I have had an amazing term, and think my students have learnt SOOO much (far more than they realise they have).

I genuinely am so excited for testing next term, as I know my students will have jumped up in their levels (especially in maths). I am looking forward to report writing, is that weird? I am just so proud of how far they have come and can't wait to show them off to their parents and whanau.

Why was this term so great?

Although there was always a lot going on, I felt so classroom-focused this term. The collaborative planning and teaching with Ottiie for maths made a huge difference to both myself and the kids, and we all became extra motivated to learn and work hard. Having no tesing to do througout the term always makes a difference as well, because you can spend the entire term focused on the learning, rather than spending two weeks testing endlessly.
Seeing the kids so motivated in everything we did then encouraged me to keep putting extra effort into the next thing, and the next thing, and it became this cycle of excitement.

Writing Inquiry (T3 2017)

Literacy Target students Ariki Joshua Suave Priority: Sosaia Lopiseni Stanley

Goals: Write more than 5 sentences independently. Use full stops, capital letters correctly without reminders. Use speech marks and paragraphs correctly with limited support. Remember to elaborate and give detail without T reminder.

To I asked my students (the whole class) to complete this Padlet, asking them what they wanted/needed to learn about for narrative writing.

Along with these ideas from the students, I got them to write a sample narrative for me.
The purpose of this was to see what they can do/what they remember.

Key areas to work on for the whole class

• making the writing 'flow' - linking between and within paragraphs
• implementing different language features (powerful words/adjectives/metaphors/similes)  seamlessly into the writing rather than sticking them in as an afterthought (and making sure they make sense and are appropriate to the context of the story)
• checking work after writing it to check it makes sense
• showing, not telling

Key areas to work on for target students

• Write an entire piece of writing (5 paragraphs, at least 3-4 sentences in body paragraphs)
• Use some language features in their writing
• Use full stops and capital letters correctly without being reminded.
• Use speech marks correctly for character dialogue
• Buddy check or self-check their work before giving it to teacher or putting on their blog

Week 6

This week we focused on character and setting descriptions. The goal was to get students to use descriptions beyond the physical/obvious. 

I gave them examples of boring and exciting descriptions, and then asked them to brainstorm what made a good description.

Then they had to use those characteristics (things that make it 'good') to describe me, before going and doing a follow up task.

I strategically separated their descriptions of me into external and internal. The external side filled up quickly with very obvious physical characteristics (as per norm). I made them keep thinking until they could add the same amount of descriptions to the internal side. 

Encouraging students to give their characters a history I think got them thinking the most. 

In the follow up task, where students wrote 1 paragraph descriptions about a picture of a person, all of a sudden we had homeless children, abandoned grandparents, clowns and alcoholics. 

Tense, emotional writing. Yay!

Week 7 

This week we focused on being able to write a short story quickly (not taking 2 hours, or worse) and then being able to give feedback to a buddy. The reasoning behind this was that students weren't critically reading their own stories, so hence weren't picking up their own mistakes. 

By having to give feedback to a buddy (with sentence starters provided), they had to look more deeply at the writing they were presented with. They also received feedback on their own work. My hope is that they would  begin to independently check for the things they would receive feedback on and ensure they had them before saying 'finished Miss' and stopping the writing process.

Week 9
This week I tried to encourage the students to write faster, as they can take an hour to write a one page story. I gave them 30 minutes between morning tea and swimming to write a story about a given prompt.

Most of the stories I got back were incomplete.

On Wednesday, I gave the students as much time as they wanted to complete one really good narrative sample and  I told them I would mark them as well.
Here are the target groups samples (apart from Stanley, who was away again).

Paula's update - T3W7-9

My student Paula, who around 2 months ago turned up at school and couldn't really speak English at all, is doing amazing.

He is learning so fast and I am so proud of him.

Over the past few weeks he has done so many things that I thought he wouldn't be able to do till next year at least.

He presented in front of 50 people about penguins in English... (with support)

He has moved up levels in reading (already) and has learnt so many new words. He frequently makes connections to books he has read and I can tell by that he is absorbing the books and is thinking about them wether he realises it or not. For example, anytime somebody says they are hungry he talks about Greedy Cat being hungry. We visited the zoo, he saw a parrot and started talking to me about Jolly Roger the pirate and how parrots sit on your shoulder.

His writing has improved astronomically as well.

He started off writing this kind of stuff (with support) - unconnected sentences, repetitive structures about himself and what he knows. 

 We then moved on to trying to write stories... (with support)

And recounts about things he had done (with support)

For this example, he talked and I wrote it for him.

The words written in red were words I wanted him to use; knew he knew orally; but knew he wouldn't know how to write them. He was able to use them in his story by copying them.

We kept writing recounts (stories about things he had done), such as his swimming recount. 

And for the first time yesterday he wrote a made up story about a given prompt. This is very difference from a teaching sense, because they don't have direct experience knowledge to draw from. It is not a 'I' story, but has to have characters. This requires thinking from another persons point of view. He also had to think about the setting for himself, as he hadn't been there exactly.

I was amazed. 

Then he asked to write another story about a picture prompt some of the other students had.

These pieces of writing really struck me as a great example of how far he has come. 

• Firstly, that he had the confidence to write more than one page in English by himself (I didn't write for him). 
• The way he is using 'beautiful car, beautiful beach' in his first story showed me he was absorbing things from weeks ago when the whole class was trying to make stories better by adding in interesting words.
• His stories have sequence, and this accurately reflects how he tells me the story aloud before writing it. Memory is working! 
• In his giant story, he was able to look at the picture prompt and explain what the giant was doing (literal thinking), but then his story becomes very imaginative and creative. I helped him with the words and spelling, but all the ideas are his. Even the fact that he said the giant got tasered in the foot was incredible to me, because it showed he had thought about the size of the giant and that the solider wouldn't be able to reach anything else but the giants feet. Even though he laughs and plays, he was really thinking about the realities of his story. Also the fact that if the police can't kill the giant, then the soldiers come in to help, is logical in a real world sense. He must be watching a lot of action movies.
• He is learning all the teachers names around the school and making an effort to greet them, and talk to them, to show them he knows them. 
• He talks in class discussions now, instead of staring at me confused. He knows that nobody is going to laugh at him for saying something wrong, he knows he will be listened to. 
• He comes and tells me when he needs help, and doesn't feel embarrassed for working with me 1:1. 
• He is in my maths target group, and loves competing with the other students to see who can learn their times tables first. 
• He has made more friends, and is more confident in moving from friend to friend, within and outside the classroom. 

The Paula I have in my class today, is a completely different kid to who turned up 2 months ago.

My reflection - why is he able to move so quickly?

I think what has allowed him to move so quickly is a combination of many things, many of them not anything to do with me and my teaching. 

Such as...

• The rest of the class being so friendly and inclusive towards him from day 1 - they initially spoke to him in Tongan so he could understand what to do or what I wanted from him. Without the Tongan speaking students in my class, those first few weeks would have been a nightmare for me.  I literally wouldn't have been able to communicate with Paula at all.
• The rest of the kids don't speak down to him - they speak at a normal speed, don't change their words and 'dumb down' what they say to him. This has made him learn a huge vocabulary, very quickly, just from talking to his friends. He then uses those words in his writing (e.g. bullrush, kick tennis).
• As soon as I got him, I asked for help. I knew I would need it and wasn't afraid to admit it. This led to Luti helping me (especially with communicating with the family), Lucina helping me (to assess his reading level and plan for guided reading, also on how to get him to start writing because at first he wouldn't write anything), and Ottilie helping me (observing me with him and giving me feedback). I acknowledge I wouldn't have been able to help Paula so much without my friends and colleagues. Thank you team!
• He is ready and able to learn. He has such an amazing attitude that anything I give him, he takes with open arms and runs with it. At the same time, he isn't scared to ask for help or say he doesn't know/understand. His own attitude towards learning makes a HUGE difference. 
• The rest of my class is amazing, and doesn't begrudge that I spent a lot of 1:1 time with Paula (meaning they get less time with me, because I am spending time with Paula). They don't tease him for being dumb or anything like that, they understand is he smart but needs to learn English. They love helping him if I am busy and consider it normal classroom practice to do so.
• Whatever he came with (learning wise), I accepted. For example, in New Zealand we have the numeracy project for maths, which teaches students to break apart numbers, understand why numbers are the way they are, be able to put them back together in lots of different ways etc. For Paula, he doesn't know any of that. He was taught the 'old fashioned' way, with rote learning (repetition) and algorithm. I accepted that that was what he knew, and kept encouraging him to do it that way. I thought if I tried to make him learn 50 other strategies to do what he can already do, it would be a waste of time for him. It also worked well that some of my class can do algorithm as well, so this made his way of thinking accepted and normal (and made him feel smart). 
• I listen to him. This might sound stupid, but I honestly think it is a huge part of his success. As I have English as my first language, and don't speak another language fluently, I have no idea what it would be like to be immersed in a world you don't understand, have people expecting you to do things you've never done before and where you don't even know what people are saying to you. I imagine it is exhausting. So when he says he is tired, or he can't do it today, I listen and respect that. We try again the next day, and 9/10 times he is then ready for it.
• My whole school team is on board to help him. No matter who I ask for him, or show his work to, or talk to about him, they are ready and willing to help me. That is an awesome feeling.

Animal presentations

For week 7 and 8 for reading/inquiry, we focused on animals as we had a trip to the zoo in week 8. 

Students worked in buddies (their choice) and started with a given text (here), then had to use Google to help answer any other questions they had. They had a lot of tasks to complete about their animals as well. 
I was surprised how engaged they were in these tasks, and how quickly they were able to get information from the non-fiction text (something they hated last term, but I have made them read all term so they can get better at it). 

All the groups completed the tasks. 
In week 8 I demonstrated a good presentation and set the expectation for the content and delivery of said presentation. They worked away at their presentations for only two days, including making a Kahoot for the first time.

Here are their presentations.

Note - the student I am helping has been in New Zealand for about 2 months and arrived with no English. I was amazed he had the confidence to read out loud, in English, in front of heaps of people. He has made huge progress.

I was so proud of all my students, as they got up and presented to a crowd (they didn't know they would have) in an order they didn't know ( I was calling them randomly) and not one person got scared, got stage fright etc. They were just amazing.

I was especially proud of my achieving learners who don't usually have the confidence to speak in front of the class, but this time they did, they used big voices and had informed presentations with detailed facts about their animals.

Area/Perimeter - Critical Feedback

Today we launched our area/perimeter week. 

Last week I checked in with the students how much they knew/remembered about this topic, and they literally remembered nothing. 

Great.. 

I decided to mark out an array on my classroom floor, and use this to help them understand the difference between area and perimeter. 

I will acknowledge that we used "20 people" as an area measurement, which is not accurate. It should be 20cm2 or m2 etc. I said this to them as well, but regardless of the unit measurement, I think it definitely helped them understand the concept.

Before we began, I asked for prior knowledge. One of my top students (who said she did remember everything) told me that area is the outside, measured by plussing, and perimeter is the inside, measured by timsing. Er, not quite.

The array had 20 squares, and I have 20 students. 

My reflection
I think this lesson went really well. I liked how everybody had an opportunity to be involved which is quite rare. Even my very low students, were able to count the perimeter because they can count to 20.  Using their physical bodies kept them engaged, and the students who weren't actively counting etc were still able to participate by being part of the area. I really liked watching them work together and figure it out together, with little or no teacher direction. I only stepped in when they really got stuck, or if somebody had a genius thought I wanted to point out.
By the end of the lesson, all the students were able to understand which one I was talking about if I said 'make me a shape with a area/perimeter of'. They were able to tell me which was the inside and outside, and how to figure out each one.


I'd love some critical feedback on this lesson.
Please leave me a comment on something you think I did well, and something I can work on.

Jude Parkes - Writing inquiry sessions

What works in maths so far??

1. Firm foundation of basic facts
2. Talking about their learning
3. Mini-workshops
4. Identifying own goals - choice
5. Using scaffolds 
6. More time, more often
7. Self and peer assessment (student voice)

What works for writing?

1. Writing and reading links - reading examples of what we are writing

We need to look at

1. LLPs - build our own content knowledge

Moving forward for writing

1. set that firm foundation - do we as teachers know the LLPs (where students ARE working, as well as where they SHOULD be working). 
2. Get the ELIP (English Language Intensive Programme) - online link
3. Use SLLPs for ideas for planning units
4. Use a variety of planning templates, be consistent with using them. Give them a plan and make them write a story, and the opposite.
5. Gradual release of control model - not just me show and you do. What about the middle bit?
6. Do we explicitly talk about the purpose of writing and who it is for (audience)?
7. Ask students - what do you like about writing? What do you find tricky?
8. Word detectives - investigations - root words, suffixes, prefixes, multiples, meanings, tenses, what kind of word is it, connections to phrases. E.g. centipede - pede means feet, thats where pedal comes from, centi means 100 thats where percent comes from.
9. Use visual clues for writing 'check lists' - do I have full stops? How many ands do I have? Do I have each of the simple, compound and complex sentences?
10. Are we utilising learning intentions and success criteria?
11. Do we have 'what good writers' do? displayed in the classroom - take picture of the class and write 'we are all good writers, we...' with stuff around it.
12. Do we have the writing process displayed? Is there consistency throughout the school about the terminology?
13. 

Link to Rhonda's notes