What is my class landscape today? How is it different from 3 weeks ago?

What is my class landscape today (End of Term 1)? How is it different from 3 weeks ago?

Three weeks ago most of my students were at home. Only one student has been at school all term, unaffected by covid. The rest have had between 0 (some students not returning at all) and 4 weeks at school since the start of the year.  On average 6 students attend each day with the makeup of students different on any given day.

The upside of this situation was the ease of developing relationships with my students. The small class size meant each student got more teacher time. One-on-one time meant it was easy to assess their learning formatively and get to know them as individuals. This was so different from the usual start to the year where it takes a term to really get to know your students.

It was easy to do 'spare the moment', 'teachable moment activities', and to target individual needs as this I feel is sometimes where the best learning happens. For children with additional learning needs, they had my full attention which is much harder to give when you have a full class. 

By week 5, most students had been back to school for at least a couple of weeks, so most had learned our class routines. The downside was teaching routines up until this point was difficult with each day being like Ground Hog Day, having to reteach routines each time a new student arrived back at school.

Also, the inconsistency of attendance meant that students would start to learn things like the letter sounds and high-frequency words, then without having time at school they would forget what they had learned. It was like taking two steps forward and one step back all Term. This was challenging as my students had not attended school since before lockdown and prior to that had only had a couple of months at school, catching my students up on all the early literacy and maths knowledge and skills they had missed out on was something at the top of my mind. 

From Day 1 this Term, my team and I had the determination to put all our energy and effort into working with the students in front of us. Making the most of every moment that we had them with us. Covid has taught us how precious this time is and the impact we can have on student learning when we are face to face with our learners.

Today I have 12 out of 16 students back at school. The classroom is the noisy happy place that we have missed so much. The anxiety evident on students' faces as they returned to school has been replaced with happy excitement to be back at school learning with their peers. It is super strange to feel the excitement of the beginning of a school year right at the end of the first term, but that is exactly how it feels. Instead of feeling exhausted and ready for the holidays, we are feeling energized and excited about all the possible learning opportunities ahead of us. 

As each student returned to school I assessed their knowledge of letter sounds, the number of high-frequency words they knew and their number knowledge. With the exception of 2 students, they knew between 0 and 10 letter sounds, between 0-5 high-frequency words with the majority not recognising any and most students had knowledge of some of the numbers to 10. Except for 2 students, the rest of the students were at the pre-writing stage of making marks on the page. So it was safe to say most of my Year 2 students were working at a new entrant level. 

My goal from day one this term was to spend Term 1 jump-starting their learning by using dose and density to accelerate the acquisition of knowledge of letter sounds and the most common high frequency words. Most of my students now know the letter sounds ad with support can write at least the first sound of words during writing. They are still finding it difficult to remember high-frequency words. I'm really happy with this as learning all the alphabet sounds in a Term full of in attendance is I feel a great accomplishment. 

A major difference I have noticed this Term is our home school partnership with whānau. Our relationship is relaxed and communication free-flowing and easy with so many different ways to communicate. We used to have to wait to come into school a couple of times a year but now we can talk anytime. 

We are working together in terms of student learning. I feel this is a direct impact of lockdown whereby we had to find many different ways to connect with whānau and became so used to working together. We gained such a greater understanding and respect for our students within their whānau (not separate from them). For the first time in my teaching carrier, I feeI truly understand the power of strong home-school partnerships.

Yes, there is no doubt, my students, our at least a year behind where they would be expected to be at their age. But moving forward from here, what will make the biggest difference for our students as we catch them up to where they should be if covid hadn't happened? We are set with an amazing challenge of accelerating our student's learning, our students are hungry for it, excited to be back at school, and ready to learn.

A snail joins Room 2's online class

Today a snail joined our online class. I took the children (my computer) out to the vegetable garden to find a snail then brought him back inside. We looked carefully at him and used lots of fabulous words to describe him. While we had the snail right there we wrote stories about him. They had something right in front of them, something tangible that they could describe. 

This was the most effective online writing session so far. The best thing was that their stories contained multiple ideas. Up until now, I was finding it difficult to get more than a sentence from them. There was so much to say about the snail e.g., his shell, how he moved, the slime, the feelers...

We put him back outside but he didn't want to go and climbed back inside the door.

He wants to be in Room 2 too!

Here is the snail and our fabulous stories. 

Collaborative Maths Planning

In response to the reflections and feedback of one of my team members, we are collaboratively picking apart the maths curriculum to create a long-term plan that works for us, and that illustrates the learning outcomes across Level 1 and Level 2 of the NZ Curriculum. 

As a leader I see growing the capital of my team as important. However the 'how' to do this can at times seem difficult when everyone is at different stages of their teaching journeys and everone has diffrent levels of understanding of the curriculum. Noticing areas that need my attention as a leader is the first step. 

Stefan wrote an amazing, honest reflection about the hugeness of the maths curriculum and how difficult it was to know what and how to teach it, covering all aspects. At a PLC course he was shown diffrent schools' long-term plans and compared them to our long-term plan... honestly pointing out that what we were using was not effective, especially for the beginning teachers within our team. 

So.... we are taking our school LTP, taking the parts that we need to and as a team creating a plan that will work for us. 

Today we started with just one aspect, probability.

We looked at the Achievement Objectives from the Curriculm, the Elaborations, NZ maths plans, thought about our own understandings and broke down the specifics of teaching probability to our junior students. Doing this collaboratively over a google meet meant we were challenging each other, questioning each other and coming to a shared understanding. 

By the end of the session our brains hurt but the outcome was amazing. We all know what we will be teaching at each level, the shared language we will use and how to scafold learning to meet our students needs across the junior school. 

Yay for collaboration, and a fabulous team.... so much more powerful than if one person was to write the longterm plan and give it to the team to follow as we have done in the past!

Teaching During Lockdown; Ubiquitous Learning

During the lockdown, our students are learning in multiple ways. Some are learning independently, some with limited resources, some with help from whānau, and everyone at different times of the day.

This highlights the need for learning to be ubiquitous. 

Here are some ways I have adapted my teaching practice during this time to make sure children can access their learning anywhere at any time.

1. Making instructional videos. This is a fun way to create lessons that you would normally do in the classroom at home. Using materials takes the new abstract concepts easier to understand.

2. Using Jam Board and Screen Castify to make recordings of lessons, massive thanks to Matua Stefan for introducing us to this tool. Lessons like the one bellow allow you to make a visual representation as you explain concepts to your students.

Jam board has been such a great tool this lockdown. Having students talk to the Jamboard and explain their thinking as you record it is interactive and allows you make valuable formative assessment of where your students are at. You begin hearing things that would get missed within the busy classroom environment.

We have been using Jam board for online phonics lessons. We use the stickies to put the phonemes together in words or change the phoneses within a word to make new words.

3. Using Screen Castify to record shared reading books. This idea was gifted to me my colleage Whea Lee and I don't know why we hadn't thought of this last lockdown! It is always hard to get students to read texts at their level at home but how easy is it for them to follow along to a story read by the teacher. The teacher can use this opportunity to teach concepts about print and decoding strategies. They may not be reading the text independantly but hopefully they will be looking at the words and taking in some of those key concepts modeled.

4. Language Experience Videos gift students new vocabulary which is learnt in context, sentence structures and a range of new experiences. For these videos I have tried to slow my speech down and repeat language multiple times so that students hear it more than once. I have also explained some of the new vocabulary used.

These videos may not be the most well crafted but they hopefully do the trick and help my students connect to their learning. I hope this has inspired you to get creating and given you some new ideas for online learning during lockdown.

Changes to my Practice During Lockdown

 

Suddenly we find ourselves in lockdown again.

This poses the question 'how can I continue to develop student's foundational skills during distance learning?'

What aspects of my teaching had I changed during class and how could I keep this practice going through lockdown?.

• Building memory; As much of junior early learning has an aspect of rote learning and repetition, I had been focusing on memory games and that would hopefully transfer to remembering letter sounds, sight words, basic facts. I have integrated memory games into their reading program such as playing memory with sight words at school and then tried to create similar experiences at home using an Engage game 'Card Memory and connecting it to the text Hannah's Game.

• Incorporating teaching of direction language into my daily program; the top slide shows another aspect of developing foundation skills, which is developing an understanding of directional/positional words. Experimenting with different ways to connect with students during lockdown I have found that videos of me doing activities is the most effective way of engaging students. They love seeing their teacher and seeing they can't read yet, seeing and hearing the 'how to's' allows them to easily access their learning tasks. This activity not only tells and shows directional language, they then have to use it to create a race themselves.

• Development of gross motor skills, balance, and stability, hand-eye coordination; at school my students love doing exercise circuits after they have finished their writing. We also incorporate fine motor skill activities into our daily program as some students haven't the muscle strength and control needed to write with a pencil or cut with scissors. We talk about what skill the exercise is teaching them. I know this is best not to teach skills in isolation (vs within a context such as a game) but my students love it and it works for this particular group of students. Therefore to take this into their homes I again set them the challenge of creating their own exercise circuit 'boot camp' for them and their whānau. Instead of reinventing the wheel, I used resources that were already available as well as videos I made myself. I also gave students a yoga video to do as they love doing yoga at school.

Some resources I have incorporated onto my site are:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X655B4ISakg

https://www.tvnz.co.nz/shows/home-learning-tv/episodes/sage-5-8-e148

Sport Auckland Health and PE resource

 

As well as some homemade videos by me... nothing fancy and slightly cringy but the students love them.

• The last aspect is something I have carried over from my inquiry last year which is 'say, and do' language experiences. Using Dr Jannie Van Hees's technique of reusing and recycling vocabulary, say and do language experience activities related to a context outside of their daily worlds. This teaches them new vocabulary in context. 

How will I measure if this change of practice has had a positive effect on student outcomes? 

I will use whānau voice, student voice, and work samples to measure student outcomes. I will hopefully see student work samples and have feedback from my students on their return to school. Through talking to whānau, I have learned that students are using the site and videos and are engaged and motivated by them. They understand the learning tasks and are completing them. It will be interesting to see if the learning they are doing at home, transfers to learning in the classroom when back at school. 

Monitoring evidence, sharing, and interrogation

Share/Describe: I have been recording the changes to my practice on a target student tracking sheet. This is also a space to record the implications and reflections of my changed practice on student outcomes. This allows me to keep a running record of my changes to practice as they happen and then look back and reflect on how effective these changes have been. 

The example below is taken from the tracking sheet. This example is my record of incorporating physical activities, that help develop foundation skills, into my daily program. 

Changes to Practice:	Reflections/Implications
Term 2-3 2021 Incorporation of gross motor skill activities that target aspects of developmental skills such as balance, eye tracking, stability, hand-eye coordination, were incorporated into our in-class program with activities set up in class, in the hallway, and just outside the classroom. This is done through circuits, games, and equipment is set up for students to do as a follow-up to writing.  This also allows me to take smaller groups for writing while the other students were engaged and developing foundation skills that they may not otherwise have had the opportunity to do. Having a learning assistant working with one of the groups allowed more targeted teaching to take place with both groups. Many of the games/activities were taken from PMP and Sport Auckland. Although it is suggested we incorporate skills into games, they enjoy both playing little games using the skill as well as just practicing the skill in an isolated fashion, eg balancing along a beam and skipping with a rope. I guess this comes down to setting personal goals for themselves. The skill they are developing and how it transferred into different areas is talked about. Week 4 Term 2 We have begun yoga once a week to help with body awareness, well-being and self-regulation. They LOVE it and work really hard to do it well. Week 7 Term 2 I have attached the yoga video link to the class site so they can do it at home during lockdown.	Date: 7/9/21 My students enjoyed the activities and seemed to challenge themselves and each other in little competitions.  The management of having circuits going while I took writing meant that both groups learning needs were being met in different ways. They are transferring the skill such as balancing, into different areas of the curriculum. They talk about ‘balance’ and challenge themselves to balance in different ways throughout the day. I’m seeing noticeable changes in student's core strength and ability to sit on the mat and in a chair to write. Fine motor skills of holding a pencil and writing have improved. They love to skip and will skip at any given opportunity. Also having the equipment such as balance boards set up in the room means they just jump on and start balancing at all times of the day in a really natural unplanned way.
Literature Link :  PMP Sport New Zealand PLC sessions with James Mcintyre; Sport Auckland

Explain: I have made many tweaks along the way and have used the tracking sheet to record these changes. With foundation skills being such a huge area to develop at one time I have taken the little and often approach. Putting the foundation skills I'm focusing on into my daily routine running alongside more traditional Year One curriculum areas such as writing and guided reading and maths as well as integrating them through games in these areas that involve movement. I am not taking away from the normal practice I hopefully strengthen it by having foundation skills being taught and developed alongside these programs. I keep having to ensure all students are challenged by the activities because there is such a range of developmental levels within the juniours and students master the skills quite quickly. Also, I have added choice by having inquiry stations set up within the same time so students can explore concepts and oral language introduced through inquiry. These times have been where I have seen the most engagement, oral language take place and independent learning happen. It takes it from being a circuit set up, where students move through like little robots, to an activity you can choose alongside other provocations that help them explore in their own way skills they need to develop. 

As the skills I'm focusing on developing are vast, ranging from teaching oral language, concepts, and phonological awareness to gross and fine motor skills and self-regulation skills it is a juggling act fitting them into your daily program. Recognising your student's needs at that time helps with this as it focuses your attention on those areas that might make the most impact. 

Learnings from Te Whāriki

He puraora i ruia mai Rangiåtea e kore e ngaro.

A Seed sown in Rangiātea will never be lost.

Te Whāriki states that teachers, educators and kaiako work in partnership with whānau to realise the hopes and high expectations whānau and iwi have for each child. The vision underpinning Te Whāriki is that children are learners are nurtured like a precious seed, instilling in them an understanding of their own importance and their belonging within society. They are "Competent and confident learners and communicators, healthy in mind, body and spirit, secure in their sense of belonging and in the knowledge that they make a valued contribution to society." 

On the day lockdown began, I had started to write this blog post looking at te Whariki as a guiding document and how this interlinks with our focus on developing a foundation program for Juniors. As I began to write I reflected on the partnership between school and whānau and had a sinking feeling that it seems to often be an aspect of our teaching that can be surface level. By this I mean students are dropped at school by whānau and go home to them at the end of the day with a wave and quick hello, how are you, but really is there true partnership happening? Is it an equal power relationship where parents feel comfortable talking openly with their child's teacher? Does the teacher understand and value the hopes and aspirations each whānau has for their child? Do we take the time and make the effort to find out? Do whānau feel comfortable within our classrooms and know and have input into the learning that happens. Do we understand and value all the learning that happens at home?

Lockdowns have taught me that true relationships between whānau and teachers are powerful and can be a massive impact on student outcomes. 

I have made a mindset shift to purposefully form true relationships with whānau. This is not on a superficial level, this is valuing the contribution whānau brings to the learning of our tamariki. It's forming relationships that are nonjudgemental no matter what the situation is at home. It's listening to them, looking at things from their point of view, and working with them to help students learn in ways that are important and right for that family. 

For at least one of my students I strongly believe that the partnership his mum and I have, has changed his world in a significant way. The walls between school and home have come down, his whānau are helping him with his learning in their own beautiful way and he comes to school proud of the learning he is doing at home. He is able to make connections between this learning and the learning happening at school and build upon these connections. Learning is ubiquitous. The progress he is making is incredible. He has progressed from working at a developmental level of a 3 1/2 year-old, to being able to write a sentence, know all alphabet sounds, and read a sentence. I could have been judgemental when I learned about the challenges he and his whānau face, I can imagine many would. I could say that I have no control over what happens at home. But I do have control over my own beliefs, judgments, and the impact these have on others. By having understanding and true relationships based on trust and respect, there is no judgment. There is a partnership with a little learner (seed) at the center who is being nurtured by those around him and given optimal opportunities to grow. 

Lockdown for our Junior Team as with other deciles one schools allows us to see inside the homes of our whānau. We make phone calls, we do check-ins, google meets. Our parents become the teachers and we are one of their resources. They let us see into their worlds. we need to do this with uttermost respect and aroha. The relationships that are formed through this time are a true asset and like the story above brings down the walls between home and school. I can't help but feel this is what that sinking feeling that I had reading Te Whāriki referred to. These are the relationships that underpin Te Whāriki and that we need to treasure in our practice as teachers. 

In my early years of teaching I had relationships with families that I felt a connection towards but can I say I had strong relationships with those families that were more difficult to connect with... no I can't say I did...and how much of that came down to my own judgments and comfortableness. Probably more than I was willing to admit. 

I think it is important I don't let these learnings as an educator slip away. I look forward to continuing to weave the Te Whāriki aspect of Partnership through our junior school beliefs and practice and our school curriculum.

A Visit To Apii Te Uki Ou

 He taonga te mokopuna, kia whāngaia, kia tipu, kia rea.

A child is a treasure, to be nurtured, to grow, to flourish.

Apii Te Uki Ou, a small school on the island of Rarotonga. A school where confident students, strong in their identity, language, and culture grow and learn in a beautiful nurturing environment. 

I was extremely lucky to visit Apii Te Uki Ou on a Manaiakalani MIT trip to the Cook Islands. 

Welcomed onto the school grounds with an official welcome, the students then performed to us and their school oozing pride and talent. 

After Kaikai (beautiful food shared with us), we partook in set cultural activities presented by the students. These included making Partau, weaving flax, drumming, and husking a coconut. The student's confidence, knowledge, and understanding of their cultural practices were amazing and made me think of those students in my class that have experienced culture and language loss since moving to New Zealand and ways in which I can help them to grow their cultural identity.

A tour of the classes in the school highlighted students' engagement, wellbeing, and holistic development in their learning. The feel of the school was beautiful.

Educational environments as special as this don't just happen by chance. They are created. 

Thank you so much for your beautiful hospitality Apii Te Uki Ou You have made me reflect on cultural responsiveness, holistic models of education, and the importance of honoring cultural identity.

Using Old Telephones To Develop Oral Language

When our office received new telephones our wonderful Principal put the old ones aside for Room 2 knowing what a fantastic tool they would be for developing oral language.

T set up the experience, I did virtually nothing. All I did was put the 4 telephones on a table in pairs so that students could sit next to each other with a telephone between them and allow time for the children to explore using them when they saw them. 

What happened? 

Wow, what an amazing oral language activity;

Two of my students both with speech difficulties sat side by side. One of these students has amazing vocabulary and concept understanding, she oozes confidence and doesn't let her speech stop her from getting her message across. The other student has a lower level of vocabulary and will often sit quietly and let others share. 

Conversation 1

B- "I at the pool"

G- "What you doing there? (then corrects herself) What are you doing there? Are you swimming or something?"

B- Thinking... I dit (I did)

G- " At the school holidays I went to Granny's"

B- Copies sentence structure "At the school holidays I went to Inflatable World.

G- "I went to Gravity and it was a lot of fun and I can't even breathe when I'm jumping too fast."

B- "What?"

G- "I can't even breathe when I'm jumping"

B- "I can not breathe."

G- "Bye-bye"

Conversation 2

L-"Hi, who is this?

B- says their name

L-Stutters then says "Where do you live?"

B-" Somewhere. In the clean house."

L-Thinks... "What way does (pauses) it go to?" (meaning 'how do you get there?')

What oral language are students developing from this activity? 

Students modeling oral language for each other:

• Asking and answering questions
• Rephrasing  "I can't even breath when I'm jumping"
• Being cognitive of what they are saying, thinking about what they are saying and what they want to say to get their message across. L- Thinks... "What way does (pauses) it go to?" (meaning 'how do you get there?') It may not be correct but they are making conceted attempts
• Copying sentence structures G- " At the school holidays, I went to Granny's" B- Copies sentence structure "At the school holidays I went to Inflatable World.
• Extending their speech through listening to each other.

This is a great example of using props and role-play to facilitate oral language development. The cognitive process involved was evident and it gave an opportunity for multiple aspects of oral language to be developed in a hands-on real-life, social context.

What other props can I use for students to develop their oral language through role-playing such as this?

The Development Of Foundation Skills; Balance

Hypothesis:  If we focus on developing students' foundation skills then this will transfer to progress in reading, writing, and maths longitudinally. 

Foundation skills are the foundations we build our 'traditional' learning upon. If students miss out on acquiring these skills in the early years then how can we be expecting them to build on something that just isn't there. As time is of the essence my hypothesis is that if we can build these skills alongside key early literacy practice then the skills will transfer from one domain across to the other at an accelerated rate. Students are not missing out on those early literacy skills that don't get taught further up the school, yet they are at the same time developing the skills needed to consolidate that learning. 

These skills are 

Exploring this hypothesis  I have taken balance, a foundation skill that influences the ability to adjust movements, muscle strength, core stability, sensory awareness, and movement reactions, and created opportunities throughout each day for the students to develop this skill. 

First I did a quick assessment of students' balance standing on one leg, hopping, walking along a low beam, and their ability to sit still on the mat (core stability and strength). Some students found these activities challenging. These students also are pre-writing stage, making marks on the page yet to form letters.

Then I made a trip to Kmart to buy balance boards.  I placed these in my classroom. As soon as the students saw them they were on them. They seemed to gravitate to them throughout the day as a way to calm and center them as if they were seeking the stimulation. This reminded me of the readings I had done about play schemas. 

I also incorporated movement games and activities throughout the day that developed balance. Each time we did an activity we talked about how balance strengthens our core and helps us to do certain activities. The outcome of this is that students can now identify activities that help them to balance and choose these activities independently "Look miss I'm balancing." They seem to enjoy the challenge of seeing if they can balance in different ways.

The exciting thing is that I'm seeing it transfer into formal learning. These students can sit for longer periods on a chair or on the mat. They seem to hold a pencil easier and are beginning to form letters correctly. The latter part may not be connected to balance but there is a noticeable difference in a short period of time.