Noise-o-Meter

Excellent idea created by my teaching and learning coach.

Check out her blog: http://samkenely.edublogs.org/

Reading Groups

It has taken me a while to organise my reading group in a way that runs smoothly and I think I have finally sorted it out. At the beginning of the year, many of my students were not independent learners, so if I was working with one group, many of the other students in the class struggled to complete their assigned tasks. I kept changing and modifying my lessons and tasks until I realised that it had to do with the structure of my lesson.

Our lessons run on a whole-part-whole basis that starts with a whole class focus, then has students break off into groups to complete two individual activities, and finally return to the carpet for share time. During our reading session, there is always a group working on an oral language task (especially since 94% of our students are EAL learners), another group on a computer task, next doing a follow-up task, and a guided reading session with the teacher.

Instrumental to my reading group is a task board. Each group knows exactly what task they are working on and during what part of the lesson.

Although I have always used a task board, I have found that creating book boxes for each group that includes all the materials they need for that lesson is also essential.

And the last thing that makes my reading group run smoothly are task cards. I create new task cards every week for each new activity I have planned. If a group is working on oral language, they will have the task card in their book box. So not only do I verbally explain the task to the students, they also have a card in their book box that explains the task.

Here is an example of what you would find in a book box: guided reading books/materials, task cards for the various activities, and any worksheets or handouts that go along with the activity



Deconstruction of an Information Report

In the beginning of our unit on information report writing, as a class, we deconstructed an information report on the Olympics. I wrote on the large paper and each student had their own copy to fill out as well.

The lesson prior to this was the research chart, in which students had to locate similar features and structure of five different information reports. They used their knowledge from this lesson in the deconstruction. (See post: Features of an Information Report)

*Sorry for the terrible photography!

Olympics K-W-L Chart

I thought it would be a neat idea to create a massive K-W-L chart for our integrated topic on the Olympics and the students loved it too. Each student created their own K-W-L chart and then contributed parts of their charts to our large class one.




















Also, instead of just What I know, What I want to know, and What I've learnt, we also added another column for How I am going to find out. This was a great idea because it helped students come up with a number of resources they could use in their research during this topic.

Ask the Right Question

An excellent oral language game that I've used in my reading group is called "Ask the Right Question".

Students play in a group and each person is given a card with a word and picture related to the word on the card. To get the point, students need to ask a question to their group to have students say the word on their card. Almost similar to a Jeopardy, the word on the card is the answer to their question.

For example, if the word on the card is "Olympics", the student may create the following question: "What international sporting event was held in London in 2012?"

This is an excellent game to play with all students but primarily works well with EAL students in your classroom. Many students try to simply give clues, instead of asking a question, so this game forces students to improve their questioning skills.

My students have loved playing this game although it seems like such a simple concept. It can be change for any topic or book that you are studying at the time. Vocabulary cards can then be re-used for other oral language games, such as 20 questions and charades.

Features of an Information Report

We usually start a new writing genre with a pre-test and then deconstructing a text from that genre. This unit, we did a finding out activity with the students prior to the deconstruction. It worked exceptionally well and when we began to deconstruct an information report, students were able to use the knowledge gained from this activity to help them deconstruct. This idea was given to me by my teaching and learning coach. Check out her blog here: http://samkenely.edublogs.org/

Students were placed in mixed ability groups and given a chart. There were five different information reports floating around the room that they had to analyse. Essentially, students were trying to find similarities between the texts to identify the features and structures of an information report. 

I really enjoy these types of activities, where students are finding out the information, creating links and doing their own exploring to find the answers. Rather than giving students a list of the structure and features of an information reports, students work together to create their own list. During our share time at the end of the lesson, students were able to create this list.

Integrated Unit - The Environment

Here is our massive Discovery Wall for our integrated unit on Environmental Sustainability: