Monday, November 4, 2013

Activboard Training

Recently we've had some activboard training.


The first was a brief seminar at a nearby school. We saw lots of things that can be quite useful, including websites and flipcharts available for free. One thing that I really liked about it was using an arrow in the way of a clock hand. It took me a while to figure it out, but it turned out to be quite easy.

The second day we had an in-house session on the activexpression devices. With those, the children can each have a device and add their input to the things on the screen. Had I still been with the older classes, I would have really enjoyed using these for basic facts practice. Perhaps as my students get a bit more confident with their adding I will be able to use those for that. I think I would like a time to use them so children can just start getting used to them - even if it means just writing their name.

Building Comprehension Strategies Chapter 4: Predicting

It seems as if I've missed a couple of chapters of this.

For our meeting this week, we've been asked to read chapter 4, all about predicting.

For the most part, this is all stuff that I've seen before, though, like much of this book, it talks about explicitly teaching predicting. Up until this point, I've discussed what a prediction is with my children, and to some extent, some of them have remembered what it means - though after having blitzed it for 3-4 weeks last term, I'm finding most have forgotten it now. The chapter talked about discussing why we predict, but also and more importantly, how to predict. It talked about discussing which clues lead children to believe what they think will happen. I.e. ask: "Why do you think that?" This may be a bit advanced for some of my students, but it can't hurt to plant the seeds in their heads.

One activity that I liked was giving the children 6 statements about what happens in the book. 3 each are true and false and the children have to discuss and decide which ones are true.

The book also discussed taking some time for children to reflect on how they are predicting, at the end. I've occasionally made some time to revisit predictions, but I think I need to make a bigger effort to do so.