Stations and QR Codes in Room 4

Stations and QR Codes

In stations, I love, love, love using QR codes! I have created a few writing and math stations with QR codes. Since I don’t have enough iPads to go around, they must share which means a lot of collaborating! My students know they still have to work out their problems on a white board or worksheet before scanning the QR code to check their answers.

QR codes can help move routine math practice to a fun, engaging and active experience. QR codes have transformed my math class.

During the reading stations, one rotation is to read a book in our shared area. I have found “free” QR codes for online reading books. Once a week, I allow them to scan what looks like a little iPhone and it takes them to some online reading sources. They can choose to read it on their own or use headphones and it will read it aloud to them. If time permits, they sometimes can fill in a story questionnaire or draw a picture to keep them accountable for their reading.

It has been an amazing time of learning how to implement the iPads in Room 4. I feel the biggest impact the iPads have made in my classroom, is the ability to differentiate for my students. If I have a student who is really struggling in an area, I can find something or create something that can give that student extra practice during his/her station time. Everyone is so busy working on “what is best for their own learning” that students respect what each other is doing.

Christchurch Maths Craft Day 18/06/2017

Discover the maths behind craft and the craft behind maths at Christchurch’s first Maths Craft Day, Sunday June 18 in The Great Hall at The Arts Centre.

Featuring seven craft creation stations as well as public talks by mathematician crafters, the day-long celebration of maths promises to engage people of all ages. Make a Möbius strip, crochet a hyperbolic plane, build a fractal sculpture, fold an origami octahedron, and listen to talks about the connections between maths and crafts. Explore the newly opened Teece Museum at The Arts Centre and discover the ancient relationship between mathematics and craftsmanship.

Open to everyone: experts and amateurs, maths-fans and maths-phobes, the crafty and the curious. Entry to the event is free.

Room 3 & 4 Fast Words

Strategies for Sight Words

First, I make sure my students are familiar with the alphabet. Then I introduce them to sight words (and Fast Words). These are words that students should be able to recognize without having to decode. Sight word acquisition is an important part of a child’s ability to read. Once they are able to read all sight words, we motivate the children to learn and practice the words I am doing this early in the morning with the help of on of my lovely mums.

In Room 4 I am using many fun teacher strategies to help the kids to learn the sight words/fast words. In order to reach all learners, I am trying to use several strategies.

A few fun teacher strategies that I use to help students learn sight words in an exciting educational way are:

Teach with Pictures
Teach through Repetition - give kids the opportunity to read, write and draw sight words daily.
Word Wall - Create a word wall that students can reference.
Use Popcorn Words and Word Jail
Teach Words through Games - Games are a fun, hands-on way to reinforce sight words.

I try to make sight word learning fun and try and incorporate more than just one of these ideas, to ensure I reach all
student learning types.

2017 Our Class Treaty

Collaborative teaching Room 3 & 4

2017 Term 1 - Storytelling writing in Room 4

Term 1 - Storytelling writing in Room 4.

Throughout the holidays and this term, I have been thinking about formulating and changing my writing programme and making it easier and more interesting for my wee kiddies in Room 4.

Last term we had some PD with the RT lit Story Telling with RT lit Liz Swanson. I really fell in love with the 'Story Telling' idea for writing and all the children were engaged in these lessons. We had weekly PD sessions in Term 1 and gain valuable information, ideas and discussions around Story Telling.

We have decided to begin our story writing for the term with 'The Hungry Caterpillar" as the children have already done the story with Janine earlier in the term. Then we focus on an easy and engaging story 'The Gingerbread Man'. The kids love this story and were all engaged. Our TA, Sylvia did some baking with our ESOL children and shared it with both classes. Our second story 'The Magic Porridge Pot' was also very engaging for the children and they loved mapping and stepping it out. It was just amazing how all the children enjoy our writing sessions and are able to write, even though some of them are only new entrants.

School often represents a calm, caring place and home life doesn't match up, so I am aiming to focus on keeping our classroom a calm and caring place for the children and also putting our focus on our stories on the calming and caring aspects.