Animal descriptions/language features

After learning about language features, we applied it to our inquiry topic which is about animals and the environment. I gave each student a picture with an animal on it, and they had to write at least 1 language feature or describing word about that animal on the paper. Then after 30 seconds (ish), we rotated the papers. For every student to write on every paper took about 20 minutes. The students were engaged the whole time, as they had something different to think about every 30 seconds, and had an attainable goal of only writing 1 thing about each animal. 

We did get some similes for some of the animals, but I would like to go back and add more onomatopoeia and alliterations which are easy language features to do.

I can see some connections to the habitat information from the day before as well. 

These brainstorms will be used in writing poetry about habitats and animals. 

Language features

Today we did a sorting activity about language features. 

I have observed in the students writing that they don't use language features. I knew many of the year 4's wouldn't know anything about them.

We did a brainstorm - what language features do you know about? Without any help from me, they came up with similies and metaphors. The rest I had to suggest because nobody came up with them. I asked how many people knew what that was and wrote the number beneath the feature. 

Only 4 students knew what a simile was. 

only 5 knew what a metaphor was. 

only 1 knew what a hyperbole was. 

nobody knew what an idiom or personification was.

We talked about what each one was, and I gave an example. 

I handed out the tiny papers that had examples of language features on them.

Students talked to each other and tried to figure out which language feature they had on their piece of paper.

Then we made lists - 

We read through them all and agree/disagreed if each one belonged there. Some had to be moved, and some we agree could belong in more than one category (for example, an idiom is sometimes a hyperbole as well). 

By the end 3/4 of the class could remember what each language feature was. 

We definitely need to review these and apply the knowledge so the kids remember it.

Sorting, brainstorming, collecting

For our inquiry unit, we have been learning about environment/animals/evolution etc. 

This week we introduced habitats. The kids knew the word from different journal articles they had read, and knew it meant 'home'.

When I asked them what kinds of habitats they knew about, they easily came up with some ideas. They didn't know a lot about each one, which animals lived where and why.

I had some printed pictures of different habitats ready and we did a bus stop activity where students moved from paper to paper, with time to write down any ideas they had about each one. 

The things they wrote were describing words (e.g. colours, shapes they could see), animals they thought lived there or anything else they knew about it. 

After they had shared all their ideas, I assigned one habitat per group and they used Google to help them get more specific words to use.

Later in the week we are going to use these brainstorms to create poetry about habitats.

Next week, we are going to make dioramas of a chosen habitat, and again these brainstorms will be used to help the kids make it rich and realistic. 

DMIC observation

Today I had my latest observation/mentoring session from Don.

We are learning the DMIC way of teaching maths.

Today for the session, I had my lower half of the class working on this problem. 

The following 4 photos are the 4 groups attempts to solve the problem.

This groups first attempt is the crossed out bit in the bottom left hand corner. They shared equally between Josh and Mele, but got stuck when they realised that Josh had $4 and Mele had $5. Knowing that they should have the same amount, they crossed this out and tried again next to it. The resilience here is awesome. They used the same strategy on the right hand side to solve the second part of the question.

I liked this groups approach to the second part of the question. You can see in the bottom left hand corner, one group member started drawing 17 stick people. The group then discussed and decided that's not what the 17 means, so decided to cross it out. Above this they drew 4 people and equally shared the 17 people as best they could. (Note the first stick person has $5, whereas the others have $4).

This group first split the $9, into 3 lots of $9. They gave $2 to each smiley face, and then split the last $3 into 3x $1. They gave $1 to each smiley face, leaving $1 left over which they split into 2x 50c, and then shared these. 

For the second part of the question, they drew the 4 faces, but didn't get far enough to solve this part.

This group started breaking up the $9 and $17 into smaller numbers which were more manageable, but weren't really sure what to do with them. 

This is how the group (with the pink smiley faces on their paper) shared their explanation. It was awesome to see typically quiet students being able to stand in front of the class and clearly explain part of the problem. This is a big social phobia for some kids, so for them to do this so confidently was a huge achievement. 

At this point Don encouraged me to sort of take over a little, and facilitate the second groups sharing. I had asked the second group (the ones that wrote in green felt) to share the second part (1/4 of $17). Because of time factors, and considering how long the kids take to present, it was better for me to do it.
I asked the same child (call him J) who drew the above diagram, to draw 4 circles to represent the 4 people. Then we stopped and talked (altogether) about how we could try the same thing the pink group did, and split the $17 into a number that is more easily divisible into 4 groups. So they came up with 4x4=16, and I asked 'J' to write the number 4 in each box. Next we talked about how we could split the leftover $1. We had established with the pink group that half of $1 is 50c, so now we needed to work out quarter of $1. The students offered different answers - 10c, 15c etc. We checked these using skip counting and repeated addition,  but they didn't add up to 100 cents. Finally we got 25 cents. So each person gets 4.25.

Our connect and generalise was driven by me - at first I thought maybe if we can just understand the fractions of $1, that would be awesome for today. So we did that. 

We had established through our problem solving that 1/2 was 50c, 1/4 was 25c and $1 = 100 cents. 

I challenge the kids to think what might 1/5 of $1 be.. 

eventually we figured out 20c. Same for 1/10. 

So I made it even harder, what might 1/20 be..

At this stage I circled the 1/2and 1/4, and circled the 1/5 and 1/10, and asked them to think about halves and doubles.  This helped them to see that if 1/10 of $1 was 10, 1/20 would be 5c, because 5 is half of 10. 

Then one student offered her ideas that we could use times tables. I never thought this group would have realised that. I was quite happy with them realising the fractions of $1. So we looked for patterns and were able to record the times tables that went with each one. 

Overall it was a really good lesson. 

Things for me to work on 

- facilitating as a group instead of a 2nd or 3rd group presenting. It kept the kids engaged way more and we spent less time waiting for kids to draw stick people.

- sitting with the group before they present and rehearsing what they are going to say. Don modelled this with the pink group, who were able to present really well because they had practised with an adult. Don revoiced some of what they said (E.g. "we split the other 3 and got 50c" became "we split the last $3 into $1, $1 and $1, then gave $1 to each person and split the last $1 into two, so they got 50c). I had always been hesitant to do this, as I felt it took away from the kids thinking by revoicing and making them rehearse. But it worked really well, so this is something I will try.

PENZ Meeting 15/5/19

This year I am participating in the Primary PENZ (Physical Education New Zealand) professional development. I feel that as a school, we do not have a good PE programme - to clarify, we have a very good sport programme, but PE and sport are not the same thing. PE is about skill development, movement and body awareness whereas sport is playing a game of rugby, netball etc. 

This is something we can improve on.

At our PENZ meetings, which happen twice a term, we discuss issues faced by our schools and how they can be addressed. We learn new games/activities, and how to adapt these for inclusion, different aged children, lack of resources/space etc. 

PB4L Restorative Practice

not what rules did you break?
instead ask what happened?

not who caused this?
instead ask who has been affected by it?

not what is the punishment?
instead ask how can we make it right?

not take a privilege away from them
instead provide a way for the child to make amends, including making themselves feel better.

Staff strengths
- calmness
- explain impact of behaviour
- step back/detach/don't react based on your own emotions
- listening
-validate feelings
-acknowledge our mistakes
-asking for support (teachers/SLT)

Working towards
- being observed on our restorative practice
- handling issues on my own
- relationships with students repaired (Absolam, 2015)