I met with my tutor teacher today to discuss my first attempt at planning - for this school at least. A few things that came out of the discussion:
1) Unpack the WALTs in the first lessons with a small group. They need to know why they are doing something and this allows me to revisit those ideas in future lessons with the same WALT.
2) Adding detail to tumble activities for Maths, as well as other information such as levels, etc.
3) Adding in materials used and resources that plans come from.
We also discussed spelling lessons and general tidying up of the planning template. Since this week is all over the place, we talked about how Art, PE and Discovery time would fit in in the future.
Monday, July 30, 2012
Classroom Observations
Y4/5 Classroom
Observed a spelling mini-lesson as well as a writing lesson (the latter of which I helped plan). The spelling lesson focused on writing verbs in the past tense after being given a present tense verb. The writing lesson was on editing marked work. Will work on building similar activities into the spelling lessons, since past tense was a big focus on our recount writing this week. It was also instructive to see a lesson I had made the flipchart for being taught be another teacher.
Returned later to this classroom to view a guided reading group. The teacher had a very well laid-out modelling book, with lots of things ready for the children to do.
Y5/6 Classroom
Observed a guided reading group. The teacher was teaching how to ask questions before, during and after reading. It was clear that she had already taught this. She used the modeling book to refer to previous lessons and remind children of what had been done. She had children writing on photocopies of the page they were reading, having them write down questions before, during and after. When the children were writing, she briefly walked around the room to check on the progress of the other students.
Returned to this classroom to watch two small maths groups. Both lessons were on using tidy numbers to solve addition problems, however, the size of the numbers used was different. Before the lesson, I was able to see some headwork (she asked the children addition questions and they used the number fans to show their answers) and a warmup (she discussed a division problem on the board with them, as well as the vocabulary associated with division). Both of the small groups started off their mini-lesson by working on instantaneous recall of number bonds to 10 and 20 using dice. Then she looked back at previous work and discussed their WALT. She worked with the whole group but was assessing them individually and had all of them doing the problems on their own. A lot of the things I'd saw I'd like to put into practice as soon as possible. It was the first time I'd seen number fans used in that way and will be getting all of my maths materials out so that are accessible and ready to use.
Y5/6 Classroom
I observed a guided reading group. This teacher also only spent the time on one or two pages. She was teaching the children to focus on interesting words. She discussed success criteria with the children beforehand so that they knew what they needed to do to be successful.
Y3/4 Classroom
I was only briefly in this classroom but saw a lot. The students were working on using "but" and "because" to join sentences. Wandering around the room I saw a lot of high-quality work. The teacher then brought the whole class to the mat and had three pieces of work he discussed with the aid of a visualizer. He discussed what he liked about each piece so the children would know what he was looking for. He also had a nice way of having the other children give praise to those children. Back in the UK I remember using a variety of things and it's probably time I started using them again.
Observed a spelling mini-lesson as well as a writing lesson (the latter of which I helped plan). The spelling lesson focused on writing verbs in the past tense after being given a present tense verb. The writing lesson was on editing marked work. Will work on building similar activities into the spelling lessons, since past tense was a big focus on our recount writing this week. It was also instructive to see a lesson I had made the flipchart for being taught be another teacher.
Returned later to this classroom to view a guided reading group. The teacher had a very well laid-out modelling book, with lots of things ready for the children to do.
Y5/6 Classroom
Observed a guided reading group. The teacher was teaching how to ask questions before, during and after reading. It was clear that she had already taught this. She used the modeling book to refer to previous lessons and remind children of what had been done. She had children writing on photocopies of the page they were reading, having them write down questions before, during and after. When the children were writing, she briefly walked around the room to check on the progress of the other students.
Returned to this classroom to watch two small maths groups. Both lessons were on using tidy numbers to solve addition problems, however, the size of the numbers used was different. Before the lesson, I was able to see some headwork (she asked the children addition questions and they used the number fans to show their answers) and a warmup (she discussed a division problem on the board with them, as well as the vocabulary associated with division). Both of the small groups started off their mini-lesson by working on instantaneous recall of number bonds to 10 and 20 using dice. Then she looked back at previous work and discussed their WALT. She worked with the whole group but was assessing them individually and had all of them doing the problems on their own. A lot of the things I'd saw I'd like to put into practice as soon as possible. It was the first time I'd seen number fans used in that way and will be getting all of my maths materials out so that are accessible and ready to use.
Y5/6 Classroom
I observed a guided reading group. This teacher also only spent the time on one or two pages. She was teaching the children to focus on interesting words. She discussed success criteria with the children beforehand so that they knew what they needed to do to be successful.
Y3/4 Classroom
I was only briefly in this classroom but saw a lot. The students were working on using "but" and "because" to join sentences. Wandering around the room I saw a lot of high-quality work. The teacher then brought the whole class to the mat and had three pieces of work he discussed with the aid of a visualizer. He discussed what he liked about each piece so the children would know what he was looking for. He also had a nice way of having the other children give praise to those children. Back in the UK I remember using a variety of things and it's probably time I started using them again.
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