Dance and the Blog

I am very proud of the kids at the moment they have all worked real hard to develop their own jumpjam routines.
I was particularly proud of my shy kids who got up in front of our team yesterday and shared their work. Something that they would not have done at the beginning of the year. And my boys who at the beginning of the year hated dance (some still do to be honest). The Kids all really enjoy working on dance now large because of the blog. They get to see themselves and I think most importantly they get to share their performances with their folks at home.
What 8 - 11 year old doesn't want to do that in some degree?

Cybersafety

The other day two kids came across some material that was inappropriate. They did exactly what they are supposed to and I was so proud. The material was mislabeled. It really brought home how important it is for them to know what to do when things get through.
As a follow up as a class we filled out a RAMs sheet together for when we go out into the world (cyber stylz).

The hardest thing about student inquiry!

I have discovered the hardest but most important thing about student inquiry. This thought has been building in me for a while. For a long time I have had an inclination that I was on to something, but I now know I've got it.

The hardest yet most important thing we can teach children is to learn how to change their mind about something.

Where else other than student inquiry do the children really get a chance to develop their thoughts and ideas along a path only to find that they are way off. The skill of developing a hypothesis, then proving or disproving it is very important. The problem is children are driven (Often Blindly) to prove that they are right because that's what people do. No one ever wants to be wrong.
The thing I have struggled to do the most tho this year is to help children change their mind without blatantly saying; "Sorry but that is wrong and doesn't fit with the rest of your research."
I am working hard at the moment to help the kids make these changes. It's been hard this unit particularly because we all thought we knew so much about being healthy.

Goal 5 Progress

Well I am coming to the end of the term and I am thinking about how my kids surface features are going. How engaged are they in their spelling learning. And How well can they identify what they can do and what they need to get better at.

The other night I had a terrible nightmare that the kids had not progressed at all and some had even gotten worse. It really shook me up for a couple of days. How Sad Is That!

Well The children are really enjoying their spelling lessons. See the attached videos of the kids.

Lexia gives the kids a clear phonics practise at the level they are at. They all enjoy working towards moving up levels. I have half of the class on Lexia now.

My beliefs on spelling education rely on 3 key learning approaches.

1) Spelling patterns/rules/phonics.
2) Knowledge of words, their meanings and the effective use of them in context.
3) The knowledge of spelling some words just needs to be rote learnt because their spelling is not phonetic or follows traditional rules. eg. science, lamb, knight.

Lexia is helping to reinforce the teaching I am doing with their groups. The results are also informing my practice. The higher achieving students who do not need as much rote learning to reinforce the phonics rules are creating instructional videos on their spelling rules or concepts. This means they need to synthesise what we do on the mat. The engagement around this is excellent. with the only problem being that 1/2 an hour a week isn't enough time on the mat to get work completed quickly. But the paperwork practise and application they do in the other sessions I think is still very valuable.

Cybersafety

Yesterday I ran a session on Cybersafety in my class. Very Briefly this is how I do it.

Firstly I believe that running a one off unit in cybersafety at the beginning of the year is flawed for two reasons:
1) I don't have enough time to do everything else let alone another unit.
2) It's tough to expect kids to remember something now in September we did briefly in February.

So I integrate my cybersafety lessons into my reading program. Once a fortnight or so showing the kids a video or 'internet game' on cybersafey like you would a shared book. When I do this I make clear our WALT is what ever we are working on in reading.

Here are some examples:

WALT: understand the text better by making predictions
We know we have achieved this when we can…

1. Look for clues to the topic
2. Think about what we already know about the topic
3. Use what we already know about the topic to predict what we think will happen next.

3 pigs

WALT: understand the text better by making inferences

We know we have achieved this when we can…

1. Find the clues hidden in the text.
2. Remember our own experiences that are related to these clues
3. Make predictions about the implied meaning based on our own experiences and with the clues the author has given us.

WALT: understand the text better by making connections
We know we have achieved this when we can…

1. breaking the text into smaller parts (pausing every now and then)
2. Making text to self connections
3. making text to text connections
4. making text to world connections