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! 

Using Thinking Hats

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? 

Of course we do…duh!!!

These questions, along with many other tricks from the AFL bag, have punctuated the majority of my teaching career thus far (and I am sure many of yours too). 

Of course, the teaching of thinking skills is by no means a new idea, many famous approaches have been around for the best part of the last century and it is often upon these long established methods we fall back upon in the classroom. 

P4C is widely loved as is the 'Building Learning Power' approach but personally I love to use Edward De Bono's 'Thinking Hats' to focus my children and develop their thinking skills in a range of situations. 

If you have never come across the thinking hats approach before then click here to visit the 'De Bono for Schools' site. 

My main reasons for loving this approach are:

1. It is visual and colour-coded

2. It makes sense!

3. The children love it

4. It is easily applicable to a wide range of classroom activities 

De Bono in a nut-shell

There are 6 main strands to thinking- Processes, Facts, Emotions, Positives, Negatives and Creativity. 

Each strand has a colour (enter the visual) which is a attached to a hat… ever heard 'Which hat am I wearing now?'(enter the making sense). Esentially, the hats focus the children's thinking to the particular strand e.g. if you are wearing the black hat then you need to focus your thinking on the negatives of a situation- 'What can go wrong? What is the problem here?'

De Bono in my classroom

Most teachers who use De Bono display hats in their classroom…I have sparkly hats which we like to wear (enter why the children love it!)

Of course, some strands are easier to teach than others so I like to introduce the hats in a 

step by step manner. 

I usually start with the white 'fact' hat and often introduce it at the start of the year through a range of activities such as 'All About Me' fact files and KWL grids at the start of our new Learning Challenge/ topic then build this skill into information seeking activities during 

Guided Reading and Literacy lessons. 

Following this I introduce the red 'emotions' hat when looking at characters and their actions in narrative texts and I also like to use the red hat during PSHE lessons. 

Once the children are comfortable with the two most familiar ways of thinking, I then introduce the green 'creative' hat. I love to use it during a P.E. lesson- YES I'M TEACHING THINKING SKILLS IN A P.E. LESSON-where the children are faced with a problem and encourage them to discuss ideas, ANY ideas, for solving it before then moving on and introducing the yellow and black hats.The children are then able to weigh up the positives and negatives of each idea and decide on the best approach to solve the problem. 

Finally, when I am confident the children are comfortable with the other strands of thinking,  I introduce the blue 'process' hat. 

I usually start off our next Learning Challenge/ topic with a 'Blue Hat Challenge' where we think about our BIG question and what we are going to need to do or learn in order to be able to answer it. 

The final step is to introduce a situation where the children must work as a group, each taking on the role of a hat with the blue hat essentially facilitating the session, bringing everything together and charing the thinking in a similar way to a Reciprocal Reading session…I'll be honest, I'm yet to have this work as I would like it to with my 6 and 7 year olds but I've not given up hope and WILL try this again this year!

The whole process usually takes a term, or sometimes 2 depending on the class so please don't think I am hailing this as a quick- fix approach to developing thinking skills, it's not! But what it is is a tool for children to latch their thinking onto and, like all tools, we have to know how to use them in 

order to be successful.

I'd love to know how you develop thinking skills in your classroom-

Do you have a blog post I should read? 

Do you use De Bono? 

Comment bellow and let me know...