Bits & Bobs

My blog has been dormant for a very long time...very long..but I'm feeling a bit inspired this eve and so here I am!

Writing...moving them on, targets, writing... moving them on, targets...each child is different, each class is different. What do you do?

If you're anything like me then you change things all the time to vary, suit, try to close gaps...etc etc For quite a while I've used a tick list for each child for their individual targets . Each child has 6 targets, varying in what they need to achieve and a word count target. Lately I got to thinking about using Wordle instead, a simpler, less to look at target system for each child. Each child has a laminated Wordle on which are their targets, I really enjoyed making them and even tried to 'colour match' to some children! I then, as always, asked the children for feedback. What do you think? Do you like the new way? Will it help you learn? Will it help you achieve your targets? Why?

They look something like this!













They love it! They write, then I give them ENOUGH time to check targets. They write the target in their books and they say if they have achieved it. At the moment it's smiley faces etc.. I might change this but it seems to me that at the moment it's ok as every child 'marks' themselves as they feel.

So - they write, then underneath is this;

3 different kinds of punctuation  ! , ? ( ie they write the different kinds down)

3 different connectives in the middle  because, but, however

Joining :-)

..and so on

I then mark and make a comment next to each one. At the end I total them. If they achieve 6/6 then they get 2 individual reward points ( magic marks), if they achieve 5/6 then it's 1 magic mark.

After every piece of target writing I give out Writers of the Week certificates, this can be for pretty much anything, achieving a certain target, achieving all targets..etc

I love how it's working and so do my class!

Wow, I survived Bett! After a very easy journey I arrived at Bett and walked in...HUGE...where do I start, what to look at first? There seemed to be no maps left so I wandered without a plan....much the best way mebbe.

The best thing for me was a brilliant seminar given by Victoria Crivelli on Friday afternoon, she's a Senior Specialist Teacher in Dyslexia and ICT Learning Support in Worcestershire. She really made me think about how it is to be a dyslexic child. Do I do enough I found myself thinking? Some of the things she talked about require no special software... using sassoon infants font, spacing out the lines, using a coloured background - anything but white - putting sound clips into my ppts so a dyslexic child can hear the text as well as see it, use the IWB spotlight more or use the screenshade tool...etc etc - Simple things that we could all do. She also used a coloured reading ruler on the IWB, I think it must be this one here but maybe you know of something elsewhere, if you do please leave a comment and let me know!

Her demonstrations of Claroread and Clicker 5 were also thought provoking as was her data about how these have impacted on the standards - and interest in learning - in her experience. There was an amazing 'live scribe pen' - found here - that records as it writes using pixellated paper...wow!

I also loved the presentation given by Tim Rylands along with Simon Widdowson  and Kevin McLaughlin.
It was a joy to watch people present with such enthusiasm and passion for what they do. Their work using Epic Citadel was fantastic!

Mouse Mischief is a new tool from Microsoft that looks both fun and exciting! It was demonstrated on their stand by Dan Roberts and his colleague Stuart Ball  with a 'live' demo at the end. Basically it can help you to make your ppts more interactive...I shall try this very soon!

Philip Armstrong from the wonderful 2Simple (what a buzz there was around their stall!) gave us a brilliantly clear demo of Purplemash and their extended version of this....thank you.

The teachmeet on Friday evening was also buzzing, around 250 people attended which was slightly scarey as I'd put my name down to present. So many wonderful presentations with new ideas for me to take away and think about as well as much wit and humour - especially from Dughall McCormick and Zoe Ross! My name didn't come up to present in the end which was slightly disappointing as I'd 'geared myself up' to go for it...always another teachmeet though!

It was great to put faces to so many tweeters, many I had met before but there were also lots of new ones...great to meet you all, thank you for all the new ideas and roll on next year!

Today I'm going to Bett..my first visit and I'm quite excited! I'm planning on being there this afternoon, Friday and maybe Saturday morning. I only booked to go last week so am way behind on deciding on seminars, figuring out where stands I want to visit are and trying to find the the teachmeet takeover stands and meeting a few fellow twitterers... I'm wondering if it's a bit late in the day to sign up for that but I'd love to talk about how our school is getting into blogging!

On Friday there's one seminar in particular I'm hoping to go to if there is a space, it's the Music transforms children’s lives: Lambeth’s “In Harmony” Project delivers online benefits given by Brenden LePage. I'd also love to go to Tim Rylands seminar but am geussing that will be full but I shall try!

I decided to be brave a sign up to do a 7 minute presentation at the teachmeet on Friday evening all about taking the mystery away from musical terminology and giving people a few ideas as to how they can achieve this with their class...It'll be just me, a bit of audience participation and a pair of claves...nothing whizzy or technical which does feel a bit 'old fashioned' amongst all the technology and amazing teachers who use it so brilliantly..but hey, I bit of 'old fashioned' is a good thing in my book!

So..fingers crossed there are no train delays and see you there!

   It's been a long while since my last blog post here but I have been busy sorting out blogs elsewhere...namely for our school and my class! In September, John Sutton set up a whole school blogging system for us - found here -  and it's been work in progress getting everyone going and sorted. Last week with our school being closed for 4 days due to snow and ice, they really came into their own when each class had work set for them on their own class blogs.

   I love my class blog, I think of it as one of the best tools in my teacher toolkit and it's about to get even better! We've started off slowly as bloggers in Year 3 in that so far it's just been a showcase for work and a tool for me. My class are motivated by having their work showcased online - from writers of the week, to data handling to various art projects -  they love showing their parents, their parents love seeing their work and have left comments to say so. It's enabled me to give them a choice of how to do their PAL (homework) in that we also use the amazing Purplemash from 2 Simple and the choice is either to to their work in their PAL books or on one of the templates within Purplemash. I can then download their work from PM and upload it to our blog. It's given my class the chance to be more creative and expressive about how they do their work - if you look at our blog you'll see many wonderful examples!

   How else do I use our class blog? Well...

• As spelling support - we have a spellings page, a group uses this daily in reading as part of a carousel.
• As maths support - we have a maths page, used both at school and at home.
• For research - it's easy to make a page for topic research that enables my class to reach the sites I want them to access very simply and quickly.
• We have a page that helps parents to understand the methods we use for calculating.
• We have an e-safety page for a constant reminder of the importance of being safe online.
• We've currently got a 'Christmas Fun' page that'll change to a 'normal fun' page in the New Year, with some sites suggested by the children in my class.
• We have a science page which changes with each different topic we do.
• We have a revolver map - this almost teaches the children where in the world continents and countries are without any specific teaching...they love this globe.

  The next stage is to make my class 'users' of their blog. This will allow them to login and write a post - always approved by me first before publishing. I told them about it this week and there was much excitement so I'm going to try to get that all sorted before Christmas. When they become users I'm planning on taking them on a global blogging journey to class blogs around the world to help them understand why we blog. Again it'll be a constant reminder of e-safety when they learn to leave comments on other blogs and in their own blog posts....

  So - we're looking forward to taking blogging a stage further and becoming more global, watch this blog!