Some final reflections...

Wow, 7 weeks have flown by and yet I really felt like I had become a part of the team at Hokowhitu School. To complete this blog I thought I'd put some thoughts down in regards to my philosophy on teaching.....

Building relationships with students is key. This begins by showing a genuine interest in both their learning and their lives outside of school. I especially look forward to Mondays to hear their stories from the weekend. I ask lots of questions, it's a great way to learn about what makes each individual tick, and to find out how they best respond to learning.

I believe that every student has the potential to succeed and I let them know this. I set high expectations both for the students and for myself as their teacher. I believe it is important to create a culture where students are encouraged to take risks in their learning, to develop their confidence and let their personalities shine through.

Students (and the teacher) have the right to learn (and teach) in a classroom environment that is supportive and respectful. I try to lead by example with regards to these two virtues. I aim to employ a 'firm but kind' style of classroom management. It is very important to have a high level of empathy for students but also to ensure that they are responsible members of the class.

I aim to create learning experiences that are enjoyable and challenging. I believe it is very important that contexts for learning are authentic - that students can relate to,  and use practically what they have learned in the classroom in their lives outside of school. I encourage students to be both creative and critical thinkers, and base my lessons around learning through enquiry.

To quote the great Tana Umaga, "I'm still learning eh!" - my moto both for myself and my students - lifelong learning.

Thanks Room 3 for the great teaching experience and your lovely farwell cards!



Winter Rugby Tournament

Fortunately we have been practicing and playing rugby at lunchtimes for the last few weeks, because we have just entered a school team into the Winter Tournament in Week 11. It is a 7-a-side competition and we have a squad of 12.

We'll be focusing on some simple strategies over the next couple of weeks - ensuring that all players can support the ball carrier and retain possession at rucks, and creating some plays from scrums using our big, fast runners. Good luck team!

Purerehua

Purerehua are musical instruments used by Maori to communicate, call out lizards from the bush, for ceremonies, and as rainmakers. The idea to make these came from a science experiment where we studied the sound produced when you tie a ruler to a piece of string a twirl it around. Children asked if we could make real ones.

I have created an art unit (visual art) where we will learn to make purerehua out of wood. There is a strong link to tikanga maori as we will study the traditional uses and materials used, and also examine examples of maori art design which we will incorporate into the art to decorate the purerehua.

 

 Here is a slideshow resource I made for lesson 1 of the unit. Subsequent lessons involved the completion of the artwork.

 



 

The link on the opening slide is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zL4Yq5S1gTY

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Speed

I have created a unit of mathematics on the subject of measurement for the 'Happy Feet' maths group. I wanted to include measurements that students could relate to, and with the Olympics having just concluded, I designed one of the lessons on speed. We learned to measure our running speed (using distance and time) and compare them to 100m Olympic Champion Usain Bolts!

We calculated that Usain Bolt runs at a top speed of 45kph, whereas the fastest student in Room 3 managed only 20kph! That got us thinking.... what speeds can other animals such as the cheetah run at? What about birds, or even fish? Here is what we found. Happy Feet co-wrote and presented this slideshow to the rest of the school at assembly.

Enthusiastic 3 have been investigating speed in our maths class. We thought it would be fun to compare the speeds of different animals. Here’s what we found.....

Let’s start with our old friend the tortoise. A real slowcoach, he can only travel 300 metres in 1 hour. Don’t bother sending him to the dairy for ice creams!

Chickens can’t run can they? Well yes they can, but only at modest speeds of around 15 kph. Bukerrrrrrk!!!

Yes, we are a bunch of animals. Room 3 students reached speeds of 20 kph. That’s fast enough to catch a chicken. Who needs KFC!

This is very worrying! With a top speed of 32 kph the Black Mamba snake can easily outrun, or should that be ‘outslither’ a room 3 student!

How about Olympic champion Usain Bolt? His world record time for the 100 metres is 9.58 seconds! If he gave the fastest runner in Room 3 a 50 meter head start, he’d still win a 100m race!

This is not a fishy tale! The Tuna can swim at over 75 kph. It could swim all the way to Wellington and back home in time for lunch!

The Cheetah is the fastest animal on land and can reach speeds of 113 kph! That’s fast enough to get a speeding ticket on the Wellington motorway!

Finally – the king of speed. The Peregrine Falcon makes all other animals look like slow coaches with a top speed of 349 kph. At that speed a flight down to Wellington would take only 24 minutes!
We hope you enjoyed our presentation! And remember, you may be faster than a chicken, but you are slower than a Tuna!

 

 

Sound and Writing

I have created a unit of work that combines literacy (procedural writing) and science (investigations into sound). I felt that learning to write instructions would be more authentic if students actually devised the tasks themselves!

To hook the students into the investigation of sound I did a simple demonstration where we covered a bowl with gladwrap and poured some pepper on the gladwrap. Students then banged an oven tray with a wooden spoon around 5-10cm from the bowl. The pepper jumped! We wondered how this happened?

Students then created string telephones using tin cans, paper cups and simliar objects. They experimented by twanging the string with different intensities, changing the length of the string and the tension on the string. Some students joined a number of string telephones together to make a 'conference call'!

Students conducted other investigations into sound such as: making instuments out of a drinking straw; twanging a ruler on the edge of a desk; holding a baloon near a stereo speaker and twirling a ruler tied to a piece of string. For each experiment students wrote up a set of instructions so that a reader could follow their procedure.

Following our investigations, students created two big ideas to summarise our findings:

  

 

We also created instructions to guide us in our procedural writing:

 





Dance

Room 3 are dancing to 'Don't Stop me Now' by Queen as a part of the school's production later this month at the Regent Theatre. Local dance instructor Dean Mckerras has choreographed the song and taught it to the class. I am now coordianting rehersals and providing feedback to the class to fine-tune our performance.

Some key considerations are making the movements as big as possible so they are not lost on the huge stage. Also dancers need to be looking up so the crowd can all see their smiling faces! There is a section of the dance where everyone breaks into an air-guitar solo. We resarched famous guitarists like Slash from Guns 'n Roses to see how it is done. These photos are from rehersals in the school hall and outside the Regent Theatre following dress rehersal:

 

 

Connect 3 Class Championship

Connect 3 is a simple starter game for a maths lesson for 2 players. You need 2 dice, a multiplication array from 1x1 up to 6x6, and some coloured counters. Players take turns rolling the dice. They use basic facts for multiplication to find the product of the dice and place a counter on the array. The aim is to get 3 in a row.

Students learn that there is often more than one place to put a counter, for example, 2x6, 3x4, 4x3 and 6x2 all equal 12. You can displace an opponents counter if you throw dice that multiply to that number!

We found it only takes 5 minutes to play best of 3 (first to win 2 games). In no time a class championship was proposed and organised. This got students thinking about the structure of sports draws - how do we start with 28 students? (a round of 16 games where 2 players have a bye).

Here's the kind of array required for the game:

Action from the semifinals:

 





Lunchtime Rugby

I like to get outdoors into the playground during lunchtime. With my background in playing, coaching and refereeing rugby I organised for a small-sided rugby game and a bit of coaching each Tuesday and Thursday lunchtime. We have on average 12 children turning up to play - as long as they have the compulsory mouthguard and change of clothes!

We start with a game of touch and then progress to some contact games, sometimes playing a league style with 6 tackles, and sometimes a rugby union style with small rucks. I am focusing on basic skills - pass, catch, tackle, evade, supporting the ball carrier and emphasising good sportsmanship and fun. It can get quite competitve!

 

 

Mihi

I introduced myself to the class using a mihi accompanied by the slideshow below. I also created a second slideshow - a montage of all sorts of things I am interested in.  This turned out to be a great way to prompt the students to create some interesting questions for me to answer.

 

The soundtrack to the slideshow was 'In the Summertime' by Mungo Jerry. I wondered about the relevance of this song, challenging the students to think about this. I provided a few clues over the next couple of days. Yes, this was the No. 1 song on the charts the day I was born - 1 July 1970! The students had fun researching the No. 1 song on the day they were born. Have a look at this website:

http://www.thisdayinmusic.com/birthdayno1



 



 



 

 

 

 

 

Introduction

I am completing my Postgraduate Diploma in Primary Teaching through Victoria University Wellington. I thought it might be useful to create a small blog that gives the reader some insight into my teaching practice, especially as I will be looking to secure a teaching position for 2013!

Earlier this year I completed a successful Teaching Experience placement at Palmerston North Intermediate Normal School in Room 13 - a Year 7 and 8 class. My Associate Teacher was Kyle Harris. This blog reflects on my Teaching Experience placement at Hokowhitu School in Room 3 - a Year 5 and 6 class. My Associate Teacher is Lynne Handcock.