Global Glitter Tribe: October Linky

Did you hear?

I'm one of the admins on the amazing Global Glitter Tribe blog! 

What does that mean?

We are a group of 13 teachers from across the globe who are dedicated to making connections and strengthening our student's understanding of being global citizens. 

Every month a different member of the Glitterarti will produce a jam-packed post full of ideas for teaching global awareness- be it how we celebrate festivals from other cultures or how we address the issue of Fair Trade, you will find a host of ideas just waiting for you to read! 

Now… along with a monthly blog post there will also be a monthly link-up for everyone to take part in! It's simple- save that months linky template, add your answers, pop it into your blog post and link back to the Global Glitter Tribe blog! Easy-peasy! 

Look- even I managed it! 

Totally inspirational 

Are you trying to develop thinking skills amongst your children? Do you want them to be aware of which thinking skills are needed for a particular situation? Are you seeking to develop self-aware and independent learners? 

I LOVE, like more than chocolate love, using De Bono's Thinking Hats in my classroom. The 'Hats' each have a specific thinking skill attached to them and by using them you can focus a child to apply the type of thinking needed for a specific task.

 To find out more about Thinking Hats and how I use them with my 6 and 7 year olds, read this post. 

Responsiveness

I appreciate that sometimes 'Hands Up' is needed but in my classroom I try to foster a more relaxed and collaborative approach to questioning where children are given time to formulate answers, not always be right or original in their thinking and develop other's ideas. 

The PPPB approach works every time! 

http://cheneyagilitytoolkit.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/pose-pause-pounce-bounce.html 

Thanks go to Teacher Toolkit for bringing this notion to my attention and I will just provide a brief overview of it for you here-

Pose- a thought provoking question relevant to the topic at hand

Pause- provide thinking time (as much as you can!) and, if you feel it is necessary, partner talking time

Pounce- NO HANDS UP!!! 'Pounce' on a child for an answer

Bounce- continue 'pouncing' on children with the aim of them elaborating on the child before them's thinking

I never confirm a child's thinking- I always ask the next child 'Do you agree?'- it is so hard not to give away your opinion through facial gestures but it does work wonderfully as a method to develop collaboration and speaking and listening.

Igniting Passionate Readers

Reading is HUGE in our school! Not just the teaching of it but fostering a love for it too!

During the first half term of every school year our class becomes 'Camp Learn-a-lot'- the children bring in sleeping bags and torches and we have a 'campfire' in class. 

After children have learnt how to choose a good fit book the next step is getting them to enjoy reading them. 

Over the 2 weeks of 'Camp Learn-a-lot' the children snuggle in their sleeping bags around the 'campfire' or in pop-up tents and use their torches to read their books. 

The novelty aspect of this really captures the children's interest and even if they are simply looking at the pictures I don't care- they are enjoying a book!  

Bridging the Gap

If you read my 'BUILDing our confidence' post a few months ago then you will know that I have given my Numeracy lessons a bit of a shake-up. 

By taking on more of a 'guided' approach 2 days a week, my children have had the opportunity to have  up to an hour and 20 minutes of 'teacher face time' on top of the quality teaching they receive the other 3 days a week. 

LEGO men are available from Glitter Meets Glue

During the session we have a 10 minute introduction, two 20 minute rotations and a 5 minute plenary. 

Children will take part in 2 of the following centres a day- 

B- Buddy Games

U- Using Hands

I- Independent Learning

L- Linking Learning

D- Diving in Deeper

It has worked wonders for our Using & Applying skills and Problem Solving skills. BUILD allows me to really focus in on what each small group needs and provide activities which will address their needs whilst pushing them further yet with the support of an adult. The Buddy Games centre has truly inspired a love of Numeracy within my children AND provided lots of opportunities to practise those crucial basic skills.

With the new emphasis on 'Mastery' in the New National Curriculum- I can see how using BUILD will develop my more able children's 'Stage Security' too! 

Enjoying Your Time

I know this seems bizarre considering I live in the drizzly north of England BUT I have loved getting home from work, making a steaming hot cuppa and sitting in my garden. Up until our recent house move, I've not had a garden to sit in so this is something of a novelty for me! Plus, unless it is my playground duty, I very rarely venture outside during the day at this time of year so the opportunity to get some fresh air and reflect on the day is priceless! 

I'm sure as the weather turns then this will stop and I'll be curling up with my cuppa on the sofa but for now- this is bliss! 

Fancy linking up? 

Hop over to Global Glitter Tribe now and get your blog on! 

Frankie Says….. Shameless Self Promo!

So… I don't often blog just about a product I've created but I really want to share this one with you as I am super duper proud of it and hey… why shouldn't I make a fuss?!

Do you like to link holidays and celebrations in meaningful ways? 

I love activities where children have to work problems out and solve in a fun and practical way rather than always recording their work on a sheet. 

'Frankie says…' ticks that box for me! It is active and engaging- children have to use an appropriate method- for most of mine it was using objects- to workout if Frankie's statements were true or false. 

Task cards can then be sorted into a 'True' or 'False' pile using the poster cards included. 

I snagged some Frankenstine 'loot' baskets which added a WOW element to the activity- 

'Frankie says…' is currently 20% for Halloween so make sure you snag it before the month is out!

Already finished school for Half Term? No problem - get Frankie ready for next Halloween! 

How do you like to bring Halloween into your classroom? 

Is it a no, no in your school?

How to 'do' Halloween in Year 2...

Hey guys, so… if you caught my periscope this afternoon they you will know that my blogging mojo has gone missing! 

I've searched and I've struggled to find it but rather than just giving up I've decided to try and win it back! 

I've taken matters into my own hands and 'forced' myself to blog tonight! 

It is a perfect opportunity to link-up for Five for Friday  with my favourite- Doodle Bugs Teaching 

This week has all been about Halloween in my classroom! 

Even though I teach Year 2 (1st Grade) I still incorporate many areas of continuous provision more commonly found in Foundation Stage units and I am a firm believer that play is an integral part of children's development.
Whilst we have to get our half term assessments done, I always like to add in some fun too! 

 This week has proven to me just how right this approach is….

I have adored my role-play area and so have the children. I had hay-bales left over from our Farm Shop role-play so I decided to mix the 'rural' look with the Halloween theme and create a pumpkin patch! Visually, it WOWed but beyond that…. it excited! 

I split some pumpkins open using a rolling pin (very therapeutic) and let the children explore the pumpkin 'guts'- they developed their own ideas such as counting out the seeds and discovering which pumpkin had the most. 

The children also came out with great comparative language when pulling the pumpkin apart 

and it was great to be a part of.

'This piece is very rough compared to the slimy, stringy piece' said one little girl as she ripped off a piece of the pumpkin flesh!

 Messy hands, slimy pumpkin pieces and 6 year olds= fantastic! 

I also placed a lovely odd and even sorting activity made by the lovely Brittany of Tickled Pink in Primary who was my very first SLANT box partner! 

It was a great hit! 

Even though I knew there would be very little opportunity to do formal Literacy lessons this week, I wanted to look at instructional writing with the class as, although the children had produced 2 sets of instructions for BIGwrites, we hadn't formally looked at them. 

I wanted to capture the children's attention and create a sense of mystery about the lesson to fit with the Halloween theme. Sure, I could of dressed up as a witch and taught in role but I decided to use the magic of technology to hook the learning this time.

In order to set the week up and discover what the children knew about instructions already I used the 'Morfo' app to create a witch. 

You can get this app for free in the iTunes App Store 

She sent us a message asking for our help- apparently her potion wasn't working and she wasn't sure she had written her instructions correctly. We took a look at them and decided they were not a good set of instructions at all! Leading on from this, in groups the children produced 'What makes a good set of instructions?' thought showers and fed back their ideas to produce a class poster for our Working Wall. 

With the help of this poster we fixed the witches instructions and then followed them.

 This was the truly magical part! 

The instructions were simple- only 3 ingredients- corn flower, food colouring and water…. 

any guesses yet? 

Her instruction made oobleck!

 Each child got to explore the outcome and their puzzled yet fascinated faces made my day! 

I loved this lesson- it was simple, straightforward and engaging!

 All things a Monday morning lesson should be and as a bonus- I knew straight away that my kiddies are experts at instructional writing and I  didn't need to dedicate much teaching time to the features. 

Fab! 

I then added the remaining oobleck to the Pumpkin Patch in a pumpkin bucket so they could continue to explore it independently. 

This drew out even more descriptive and comparative language…

'I prefer this to the pumpkin' said one little boy…'prefer'…. I nearly fell off my chair!! 

Had I not provided this independent exploration opportunity then I would NEVER had guessed this particular little one had such a sophisticated word in his vocabulary! Sad but true! 

This week we had interviews for our new Head Teacher and as part of it my class were being taught by the candidates. 

As I knew my day would be disrupted I didn't want to get my teeth sunk too deeply into a new mathematical concept so I decided to build upon our 2 times tables practise and explore doubling and halving. 

We doubled numbers using pumpkin stickers on a mat I had made. I differentiated this activity easily using dice. As soon as I saw children were confident doubling numbers 1-6, I gave them a dice with 2 digit numbers on to try- quick, easy and effective! 

Some of my little ones are beyond using objects and are really comfortable using the partitioning method to add so I saw this as an opportunity to build on their place value knowledge and teach them how to apply it to doubling too!

I created a new resource which we loved! 'Frankie says…' contains halving statement cards- some of which are true and some are false. The children have to use an appropriate method, for many of mine it was still using objects, to discover which applied to their card and sort them. 

I bagged some bargain mini Frankenstine's head basket- 6 for £1- and the children used these to share their starting numbers between. 

I put all of these activities out during our independent learning time too- I love watching those who may have found an activity a stretch be supported by their friends in a fun and relaxed learning activity. 

As we had recapped the features of instructions I thought it was a perfect opportunity for the children to independently explore and apply their instructional writing skills in a play situation. 

I turned my writing and exploration areas into a Potions Lab- I provided the children with objects, coloured water, sand and glitter, a cauldron and writing prompts. It was a massive hit and lots of fun! 

We love Finger Gym in our school to develop fine and gross motor skills and pencil grips- our Potions Lab asked the children to pick up small objects and use circular motions to stir their mixtures- perfect Finger Gym enhancement!  

Even our daily Finger Gym sessions were given a spooktacular make over! 

Apples and salad tongs…

 Picking up spooky table confetti and collecting in mini skeleton heads…

Using tweezers to remove spiders and ants from green jelly…

Adding and removing table confetti to create our own Halloween dough….

and combining our mathematical and fine motor skills to sort spiders with tweezers in the small world! 

It has been lots of fun in school this week- all topped off with spooky snacks, creepy costumes and ghoulish dancing! 

Take a look at our Halloween decorations…

How has your week been? 

Awesome I hope!

A teachers gotta plan...

                                                 Hi friends how is your weekend going? 

One thing I know all of us teachers have in common is planning but how we go 

about it…well that's a little more unique!

My school has a set planning format for both Literacy and Numeracy on 

offer if you wish to use it and up until Christmas this year, I did. 

A few years ago (political comment coming up) the current government made some 

changes to work and pay conditions. 

Needless to say the Teacher Unions were not impressed and, along with a string of strikes, called for teachers to work to rule. Obviously each teacher's stance on this was very personal however as a school we had to make some common decisions- if one person said no to doing something then it 

meant no for all of us and in our school this ushered in the end to planning scrutinies. 

Make of this what you will but whilst I still continued to plan away to my usual standard, others relaxed somewhat and so long as they were covering the non-negotiables this wasn't a problem. 

Why then was I still typing page after page? Well… if I am being totally honest, I was afraid! Afraid that if I didn't then I would a) be told off and b) forget something! 

Neither of these things has happened but why the sudden change to the way I plan?! 

A number of years ago a fell over and broke my left wrist (Yes! I had had a couple of glasses of wine…how ever did you guess?!) and it has never felt quite the same since. 

This hasn't been much of a problem though up until the past 8 months when my right wrist has suddenly begun to ache and go stiff and the fingers sometimes get a bit numb…

all when I have been typing a lot!! 

I thought about it and the 2 occasions I spend typing the most are (surprise, surprise) when I am blogging and when I am lesson planning! 

Well…a blogger gotta blog and there is no way around using the computer for that but, whilst a teacher gotta plan there is another way…write it out! 

I noticed on Instagram that a lot of my US friends hand wrote in pretty planners rather than typing-

 I love a diary and couldn't live without my multitude of sharpies or washi-tape collection so this totally 

seemed the way forward for me! 

I did some research and fell in love with the Erin Condren planners but, oh the price! 

I needed to know if this way would work for me before I shelled out on a beautiful, but costly notebook. So I decided to buy a basic Puka Pad and section it off myself.

I included an overview of the units to be covered each week and then dedicated a page to Literacy and a page to Numeracy. I made sure I included the nonnegotiable elements at the top 

(WALT and Success Criteria)

I simply made notes for the rest of the lesson with post-its for extra detail or changes I need to make.

This has been the biggest change for me- I am a self-confessed over planner! 

Notes just felt wrong somehow but I reassured myself that, having taught the same year group, in the same school, the exact same units for the past 8 years and having kept all of those in digital, 

if not hard copy, then I would be fine! 

Should I need more detail- all I had to do was pop my pen drive in and pull up the relevant lesson plan. Of course, I have continued to formally plan on the school's planning sheets for observations but other than that I haven't looked back! 

So...

Yep I took the plunge! It was a hard choice between the Life and Teacher planner for me but having read Sailing into Second's post and watching Dairy of a Not So Wimpy Teacher's video about how they use their Teacher Planners I was sold! 

My Erin Condren Teacher Planner is on its way…I can't wait! 

If you decide this is for you or if you already have one but would like something else from her store then why not use my discount code?! 

https://www.erincondren.com/referral/invite/lauratodhunter0921

How do you choose to plan? Are you a Condren Convert? 

I'd love to know...

Stop, Swap & Roll Baby!

I am so EXCITED!!!!

Today I am linking up with the lovely Melissa over at Jungle Learners to tell you all about the fab product swap I have been a part of.

I was partnered with the super Ashley of Anchored in Learning fame. 

When I visited her store I was really confused because there was so much to chose from- 

click here and check it out for yourself!

I could easily have chosen loads of the general classroom resources she has on sale but I stopped myself and thought about what I would actually be teaching over the coming week.

So…as I was planning on looking closely at 2D shapes in my BUILD sessions this week I chose Ashley's 'Button Sorting Task Card Center' 

What you get

The title of the product claims it is a 'task card center' but I found it to be oh so much more! 

The pack is a comprehensive practical sorting activity which allows for open-ended discussions and gives the opportunity for an independent demonstration of understanding.

Lots of discussion about how to sort going on amongst my kiddies

The pack includes pictures of large button jars, pictures of buttons, criteria cards (including sorting by more than 1) and cutting and sticking sorting sheets.

I loved how easily the children could sort by a range of criteria using the same picture cards. Due to the fact the buttons were different shapes, colours and sizes and had different numbers of hole on them, this product could be used time and again to fit in with units on both shape and measure as well as straight forward sorting units. 

How I used it

Over the past few weeks I have restructured my normal Numeracy lessons to include B.U.I.L.D rotations on a Monday and Tuesday (read the hows and whys here).

To continue revisiting previous learning I have used the 'L' as 'Linking Learning' so children use our week's focus alongside a previous skill- this week we were investigating shape so our 'Linking Learning' activity asked them to use their sorting/ data handling skills also. 

The 'Button Task Card Center' was perfect for this!

Each group who visited the Center entered in to lengthy discussions over how they would
sort and what they would do with the items left out.
They then independently recored their sorting so I was able to reflect on their understanding later on.

Recording their sorting independently!

How you can get a copy

The super thing about the 'Stop, Swap and Roll' link up is that you don't just get to find out about a wonderful product but you also get the chance to win it! 

Follow the 'Rafflecopter' steps below to be in with a chance of winning your very own copy of Ashley's 'Button Sorting Task Card Center'

a Rafflecopter giveaway

What did I swap?

Anchored in Learning chose my 'Superhero Addition and Subtraction Games'

Head over to Anchored in Learning to find out what Ashely thought of my product and to 

enter her give-away.

Don't win? Don't worry- click here to visit my TpT store and snag it for 

50% off until Wednesday! 

Thanks for stopping by- click on the buttons below to visit lots of other lovely bloggers and enter their giveaways- stop, swap and roll baby!\

BUILDing our session

Well hello friends- sorry I've been missing all week but I've been exhausted!

If you read my post last Tuesday (click here) then you will know that I have shaken things up and introduced rotations to my Numeracy sessions. 

I have chosen to use the B.U.I.L.D. acronym to help manage the rotations and have been very impressed by the progress my children have made so far. 

So, as well as the increase in 'face time' I spoke about last week, my children have also benefited from the chance to revisit old skills and apply them in a new context and the opportunity to practise new concepts in fun ways during 'Buddy Games'. 

As this is quite a big change for my little friends I have found it important to lay down ground rules for each activity. I have been displaying them on the SMARTboard and reinforcing them just before the children go off to their first station. 

The main issue I thought we would have was children going off task as this was a problem 

when we first introduced a carousel of activities for Guided Reading.

Here are some of the rules I have chosen to include-  

So far the kiddies seem to be following the rules and I truly believe it is because the children are enjoying their learning and understand how these rules help.

To keep us all on track I have set up a rotation board using very cute figures from Glitter Meets Glue Designs to help both my team and children know who should be where-

All of my children are in a numbered group based on their general understanding and level however I have moved individual children around in sessions in response to their particular needs. 

 After about 20 minutes I call 'Wiggly Fingers' and we tidy up. Thanks to the board the children easily move onto their next activity and we are all set to go again in a matter of minutes- fab! 

As this is all new to me I've felt the need to keep planning in a similar way so to help keep track of the activities I have planned to use and of which children have visited which activity,  I have devised this simple but effective planning sheet. Once I've noted down how I will introduce the session and the activities for each area I simply highlight each letter with the corresponding colour for the group who will visit it. I've included a space for notes after each rotation which has been useful for responding to grouping the following day. 

Click on the image to download your own copy 

This week we have looked at 2D shape and extended our knowledge of polygons and symmetry. To recap the properties of 2D shapes we have loved using this fabulous resources 

from Linda Camp on TpT

It is worth every penny!!! 

How do you run your rotations? 

I'd love and appreciate any tips you have for me!