Importance of mood

Today was brilliant! We started the day focused and motivated. The kids and I played "I Spy" before the bell and it just set a positive mood for the day. I thought about the days that I arrive a little tired because we had a bad night at home with the toddler and how much it might reflect on the overall mood of the day. Yes! There are days when on matter what you do and no matter how positive you are at the beginning of the day it seems to not matter, they are not the norm. Usually, the state of the mind of the teacher is reflected in the students. It seems like common sense when you think about it really, but it is so hard to pick up your feet when there are other things going on.
Today has proven to me that starting the day with a smile can do wonders for how your students work for the rest of the day. They were a reflection of me and they wanted to please. The writing I got out of them today was fantastic. One of my boys, who usually produces a sentence or two at writing time, wrote a whole two pages of organised recount. I was so proud of him. One of my reluctant readers today was the star of the group at sounding out tricky words. I was proud of her too. They weren't the only ones that blew me out of the water today. I danced the victory dance more than once today.
I endeavour to start tomorrow with a smile too and I implore the rest of you to do the same.

Expectations!

Once again I am forced to think about expectations. I wasn't sure what to expect from a Year 1 class when I started. Naturally, some of the work that I set was too hard and other work was too easy. I had to adjust my expectations to fit what the children were able to do. I was, however, reluctant to make the hard tasks too easy. I want to keep my expectations high. I find that at times, we lower our expectations too much. I have always believed that when adults expect more, then children rise to the challenge. Not everyone gets there the same way. They all have a slightly different way of achieving what is set, but they always end up doing better than they, themselves, expected.
In my second week in my new class, I didn't let one of the girls hand in a sentence for writing. I told her that she was capable of much more, that she was doing such a fabulous job of sounding out and that I thought she could complete her story to describe one of our class activities. She walked away, looking a little sulky, but when she returned she had completely described our class activity. On another occasion, I had a young gentleman completely change his attitude to reading. He was reluctant to start with, and would happily wait for others to read out the tricky words for him. In three short weeks, he has become my star reader!
I realise that the children were probably trying their luck with their new teacher. But imagine if I had lowered my expectations to what they were saying they could or couldn't do? What would I be getting from these children? I think by keeping my expectations high, but also praising the children for their efforts I am able to achieve much better results that I first thought. Becuase at the end of the day, all they really want to know is that they have done a good job and that we are proud of them.

Back to it!

Well, it's official! I'm back in the classroom after taking time off with my little madam. Today was my first day back at school in a class that will be shared between me and a colleague. I will be in the class from Monday until Wednesday, which seems like a perfect compromise for our little family.
I will be in a year 1 class (this is the youngest I have ever taught) and I'm looking forward to the challenges ahead. Starting at a new school is exciting because I have never taught outside of Point View. It is a strange experience not only, start at a new school, but also at a new school. There are so many routines and procedures to get my head around. My first port of call is to establish routines in my classroom. I will be doing things slightly differently to the previous teacher so the children will take some time to adjust. As always my aim is to create independent people so I would like to start putting systems in place where these children can start to take some ownership of their learning and their choices. I believe that even from a young age, children are capable of being independent, we just don't give them enough credit.
So watch this space. I will be bringing more news of my adventures this term.

Writing Feedback

This year I started marking the kids writing books the way that I had seen other teachers mark in their rooms.   After a while, I found that it didn't work for me as it wasn't giving enough ownership to the children.  When conferencing with the children I found that they were waiting for me to give them all the answers. They didn't have any responsibility for the errors they had made and were not in charge of making changes.  After rereading, "The Writing Book" by Sheena Cameron, I decided to try the wish and tick system again.   This way of conferencing takes longer but instead of correcting all the mistakes for the children I instead write some things they need to check themselves.  A wish and a tick. One thing they need to fix and one thing I think they did well.  Sometimes, depending on the child, there might be more than one tick or more than one wish.  The wishes and ticks are added only after the children has had a go at correcting their surface features first (once again pushing the, "this is your writing and you're in charge of it," point).  The wishes are always related to our learning goal for the day or to the child's specific goal.  It took a while for the children to get used to this system.  Some still wait for me to fix everything but they are getting there.  For the children who at times have trouble seeing their errors or finding them, I will use a highlighter to show that there is something wrong there that they could fix.  I think the best thing about marking this way was seeing the pride in my kids after they managed to fix an error all by themselves.  Here are some pictures of books to show how I mark.  

Simple iPad Apps and writing

Yesterday some of the teachers at school presented ideas that they learned at uLearn 2014.  Being in the junior school I decided to attend the workshop that focused on creative thinking and the use of iPads in the junior school.
One idea I tried today following our workshop was using QuickVoice App (or any other voice recording app) to record children's ideas. I decided to try this idea on some of my students who have trouble with writing. Some have trouble with verbalising their ideas and others have trouble concentrating or just forget what they were writing about.
These children used the QuickVoice app to record their story after the initial planning stage. All the children went away to a quiet space (cloak room, library corner and our outdoor area) to record their story from beginning to end. Once the children recorded their story, they started to write. The benefit that I found from doing it this way was that the children could replay their story as many times as they wanted. Some of the children who frequently forget what they were writing about finished their stories in a logical sequence because their mind didn't wander. For others it was good practice verbalising their ideas prior to writing and listening to what they sound like when they talk. They saw the gaps in their ideas without my input. The best thing for me was that these kids achieved success and they were really proud of their efforts. They were proud that they stayed on task for such a long time, they were proud that they completed their work all by themselves and they were proud that they got to be creative without having to worry too much about the recording process.
A successful day I think :)

 Planning our

Are teachers really the best teachers?

I had the pleasure of observing this in my classroom the other day.

We have been working on rereading our work and checking for errors and then correcting some of those errors independently (refer to earlier post to read about our proofreading wall). The girl on the left had recently figured out how to use a dictionary to proofread and edit her work (with great success). She has now become one of our dictionary experts. When ever the children are stuck or don't remember how to use the dictionary then she is one of our go to people.
While I was working with a group I saw these girls engage in the above learning conversation. Thinking that this is gold I quickly grabbed my phone and started filming. I would have loved to have shown more but because I was trying to be sneaky one of children didn't see my phone on the ground and sat in front of it, thus ending this impromptu filming session. What you don't see, is the girls working together to find a number of words successfully. The little expert scaffolded her buddy, taking her through step by step and then slowly handing over control to let her achieve success independently.
There are times that we teachers just can not give one on one lessons to our students even though they need them. I think having class experts in a great way to give that one on one tuition to those who need it. This approach also helps the experts become proficient at the skill they are using.
In my view it's a win, win!

Modeling Books

This year I have started using modelling books slightly differently in my classroom. I have always used them for both literacy and numeracy what is different now is that they are now an observation record as well as a modelling book. What I started doing is always bringing my post.it notes to the mat area with me. As I'm teaching I make notes on who is doing what. It can be anything from who found what difficult to who was able to figure something with ease.
I found that in a very busy classroom it is difficult to remember who did what, when and where. This has helped keep my observations in one place. I also have dated evidence of what I saw. This has also been a very useful strategy to use with my Teacher Aide. She makes notes on how her group went so I know exactly what I need to catch up on and vice versa. This helps with my end of day or end of week reflections. I know where my students need to head next. I also include a CLOZE plan for reading at the back of the book. I keep some writing progressions in the writing book and stage appropriate profile sheet in the maths books.
Here are some examples of what you would see in my class:

 Reading with WALT, SC and observation notes.

 Reading level on the inside cover of each modelling book.

 Reading modelling books

 Writing: Looking at instructional writing.

 Writing instructions together.

 Writing books including targeted writing group.

 Maths books

Wall displays

Last week I decided update one of my wall displays. I had a brilliant idea at about 5 o'clock (which soon turned into 6:30). We are making connections with New Zealand by looking at the New Zealand natural environment. I decided to make an interactive display for the children to go up to, touch and explore. Here is what I came up with:

So far the response from the children has been good.  They enjoyed reading the books, solving the Weka mazes and the New Zealand map puzzle. I am wondering though how long this will last. How often should we update our walls and displays to keep our classrooms fresh and exciting? How do we balance that with the time we have left?

Aha moment!

Today I decided to experiment with my class. I have found that when I work with my reluctant writers that I don't get the results that I know I can get. I have been thinking about what I'm doing wrong when I teach, how can I get them to discuss their writing in detail and to just open up to me a little. Usually what I get is my group looking back at me waiting for me to give them all the answers. This leads to a lot of waiting at time. I ask questions, I encourage, we draw pictures but they are not making the progress that I was hoping to see. These children usually do a better job when an adult is not near by. This made me think that I was the problem. Are these children feeling like I might be judging their abilities or is there just too much pressure to get things right?
This lead to today's experiment. I partnered up my reluctant writers with some of my good spellers. Rather I asked them to choose a coach out of the people on the mat. What I saw was very impressive. Some of my shy students came out of their shells. They were discussing their writing and getting some good ideas down on paper. Obviously they didn't feel as much pressure when working with their peers. I recorded two of my boys working together (the video is below). I'll give you some details about the two. They boy who is receiving help is not confident when communicating in English and at times he can be very shy with me. He didn't have any problem talking to his coach (who, as you will see, took his job very seriously). Today was the first time that I could read his story with out him reading it back to me. Most of his words were spelt correctly and it all made sense. YEY!!!!
Over all I'm happy with the result and I think all parties learned a lot from the experience. Will definitely be doing this on a regular basis.

Power of positive reinforcement

I have just read Kimberley Rivett's (@krivett1) about Celebrating Everyday! This inspired me to look at what I do in my classroom. It can be too easy to be bogged down by all the things that need to be done or focus on the kids who just don't seem to be understanding. We end up thinking, "What am I doing wrong?" These are all very important parts of teachings as we need to evaluate our approach and adjust strategies that don't suit some students.
I started thinking about what I do to let kids know that they're doing something right. As a child I remember one teacher speaking to my mum about my lack of achievement or her perception of it and how that made me feel. I remember another who never seemed to say anything positive to us kids. I vowed to try to be aware of the power of my words. One of the things that I try to do in my class is bring up the self esteem of my little ones. What I found worrying with some of my kiddies is that they have already started displaying avoidance tactics or talking themselves down when something gets tricky.
One of my tactics is to ask the children to think of something they are proud of from the day. It can be anything! I've had responses that ranged from, "I'm proud of my self because I said a compliment to a person and made them happy!" others say something along the lines of, "I wrote a longer story today!" We all need to have things we are proud of.
Many teachers get their students to give themselves a pat on the back but I also like to give the children a high five when they have done something awesome. My high fives are usually followed by, "Wow! (insert compliment here) I'm so proud of you!" Being proud of yourself is one thing but knowing that someone else has noticed and is proud of you too can really make your day.
At the moment I'm teaching my class about giving compliments to each other. I can't notice all the great things that are happening in my class so I'm trying to teach my kids to notice for me. Yesterday one of my boys came up to me and said, "Mrs Tauroa I'm really really impressed by (Name). He has been working really hard and every time I looked his way we was focused. I'm proud of him!" I thought how cool!
So those are some of the things that are happening in my room to create a positive environment. What are some things that happen in yours?

Assessment with Juniors

There is one thing I didn't anticipate when I came to the Junior syndicate. That was how very different assessment would be. Some aspects are the same such as looking at a writing sample or completing a running record. The differences I found were my analysis of the data I'm recording. After teaching Year 5 for six years I instinctively knew where my kids were: their stages, where they fit on the writing matrix etc. Now I feel really unsure. Have I made the right choice? Is this child really a 1A or are they actually a 1P. I'm getting better at evaluating some data but moderation is definitely something I will need to do a lot this year.
The other thing that I'm finding tricky is the amount of verbal testing that needs to happen. With the senior kids you could give them a test, mark it and see where each child fit. You can't do that with 6 year olds. My maths testing has taken me weeks to complete and to analyse. Same goes for reading, because giving a class of six year olds independent tasks at the beginning of the year is just not going to work.
So now my task is to work on my time management in order to keep up with the assessment that I need to do. Up wards and onwards, have writing to mark.