20% time aka Genius Hour

Student led inquiry learning time is around building up our students to be

Life Long Learners

With moving from NE/Y1 to Y3/4 I've been looking into ways in which I can motivate, inspire and encourage my students to be life long learners, and learn how to peruse their passions. 

That's where 'Genius hour' comes in.

I've signed up for a 4 part free series by A. J. Juliani to learn a little more about Genius Hour and how it might look in my classroom.

Here is a link to part one.

Part one is about WHY we need to give students a choice.

Below the video there are lots of resource links to read more - i've gone through a few of them and they all seem to align quite wonderfully to what we want our learners to be.

Click on the video link above to get to these links.

As with anything, the biggest inhibitor of this will be time.

I think i'll pop into my classroom today to see how the building project is going... or if it has started! With having more of an open plan learning environment we're going to have to work our timetables together... which I hope leaves time for Genius hour!

Here is a blog which has some awesome writing about Genius hour and implementing it.... The author also has made a great interactive notebook packet on TPT... which might be the first thing I buy off Teachers Pay Teachers!

Extend Yourself! (oopsi! Forgot to post in 2014)

Just found this in my 'drafts' - oopsi!
But liked it so much decided I would post it late anyway!

One 'saying' in Room 3 is...
'How will/can you extend yourself?'

On Tuesday during Maths I saw the first evidence of 2 girls doing just that... extending themselves!

Their group was learning about decomposing numbers, and we were using fly flips to do so,

As in the example above, all the fly flips have 5 flies on the front, and another number between 5 and 10. On the back is how many more flies you would need to make this number. 

So as in above, the question would be 5+?=7, and you can see on the reverse side that the answer is 2. 

As a group we were playing a game with the fly flips, and two of the students were always winning, so I sent them away with some fly flips and said 'extend yourself'... I turned around a bit later to see what they were doing and I couldn't believe my ears when I heard them answering in Te Reo and Samoan!

Awesome Work Girls!

They did it again at morning tea with a student filming so we have a record of their choice in extending them self. 

Have a watch of Una and Ester answering the fly flips in Te Reo and Samoan.

Fly Flips - Extend Yourself from Ruth Vercoe on Vimeo.

2015 - Bring it on!!

After having a wonderful break my mind is slowly ticking back into the classroom and thinking about what this year holds in the classroom.

This year is going to be full of lots of learning and changes.... which i'm excited about!

I'm going to be staying at Riccarton Primary, which is awesome. I've loved my 6 months here so far and can't wait to see what 2015 holds for all of us... but i'm moving up in ages, from teaching New Entrants and Year 1 students over the last 3 years, i'm taking a little jump up to Years 3 and 4... which will mean giving my program an overhaul, but that's a good thing!

The next change is my teaching environment... in a few days builders will be in my room making a hole/walk way between my classroom and the next door one... I think it will be about triple door size... but i'll have to wait and see what it actually looks like... might sneak into school and take some photos of the building in action!

This small building project will be the start of a Modern Learning Environment (MLE) which will have myself and another teacher in collaboration... which we don't fully know what it will look like just yet, but by the time the kids arrive we'll have 1.0 ready to go. 

We visited another school to begin this process and what we heard from their principal and the teachers was that it was ever evolving. Something that worked in Term 1 might not in Term 3, and an idea what was awesome somewhere else, might not have the same outcome in our environment. So as I said to begin - lot of change and learning - but i'm looking forward to it!

To get my head in the game, i'm beginning to look at some other schools and how they do it through looking at blogs and videos.

Below is one i've recently watched which (IS LONG! but...) shows perspectives from principal, teachers and parents... it's not how ours will be to begin with... but who knows what learning environments could be like in a few years time!

The 2x10 Strategy

It's a no brainer really.

Talking with a student for 2 minutes for 10 consecutive days will help grow a solid relationship with them, and it will reflect in so many areas of their learning, behavior and general person. 

I got the 2x10 strategy from reading this blog, and as any teacher talking with students is something you do on a daily basis, and I know that the more I get to know my learners, the better I will be able to teach them... but i'm not that often directly intentional with it. 

While doing kids camps, during our morning meeting each leader would name 1 or 2 kids in their small group who would be their 'focus' for the day. We would intentionally be building relationships, and while camp was only a week long, because we were thinking about it, we could build awesome relationships with the kids there. We also had to name times of the day that would be best for this relationship building... during whole group activities not so much, but maybe during a meal time or kids free time would be great :) 

As a teacher it's all that more important... while I have longer to build these relationships, the urgency isn't any less. The blog talks about having the 2x10 strategy for 'at risk' students, but I do strongly believe it's for ALL students. 

So this is going to link in the my last post about being more culturally responsive/learning about the cultures in the classroom. Maybe alter it a bit 2 students a day where I take the 2 minutes either in the morning or at the start of morning tea or lunch to just talk. Let them guide the conversation and see what excites them and what makes them, them. 

I'll have a reflect back on it when I have been doing this 'intentional' talking for a while! :) 

Bring on Term 4!

It's a New Term!

Term 4, 2014 begins... TOMORROW!!!!

Well for the kids at least, it probably begun about a month ago for me :) 

One of the things on my mind over the holidays was about being culturally responsive to ALL my students. 

I was very lucky at my last school to have a high proportion of the school being Māori, Tongan and Samoan, so I have had the chance to learn some of their culture... but even in that i've only scratched the surface. 

In my current class I have an absolutely wonderful group of students, and they are such a mix of cultures and backgrounds. Out of my 18 students I have 9 different cultures... how awesome is that!!

Last year some educators from around Canterbury had the chance to go to Samoa to experience school and Island life to better understand their students.

Here is a video about their visit...

Right at the end there is a challenge given, which I'm going to take as my challenge for this term.

Something I started at my last school (but misplaced in the move!) was a list of how to say some classroom directions and praise in the different languages represented in my room... written correctly and phonetically so I could try and learn it.

It was a great list to have, so I'm going to start it up again with the help of my parents... probably as a google doc this time so I can't misplace it!

Moments

Moments which made me smile today...

"It's ok if you don't know how to spell 'because', you can look at the board"

Said by a student while I was typing up his work and I had misspelt 'because'.

"Miss, why are you so dangerous, always holding dangerous things"

Said after I 'saved' a group from a spider and put it outside. 

Modern Learning Spaces - lets give it a try!

This morning was a wet and wooly morning. 

Wind

Rain

Hail

What better morning, to try something new!

After watching Anne's video about changing her environment into a MLE within her current room, and her students choosing where they best learn, we gave it a go this morning.

During writing the students could choose to sit where they thought they would do their best learning and work.

Here are some photos of what it looked like...

We talked at the start about where we think we learn best, and why.

We also talked about that we're just doing a trial, so we need to think about our learning and if it does help us learn better.

Here is what some students said about it...

"I chose to learn by the door because it's a bit peaceful, and no body will talk to me too much."

"I chose to do my learning on the mat, because it is very comfortable there."

"I chose to do my writing in the library corner because it's a quiet place."

"I chose to do my learning under the table, because I like it there. It's very cool writing under the table."

"I chose to do my learning in the cubby hole because it's comfy."

From the teachers side of things, their writing was no different... but I see that as a good thing. 
With the choices of who they sit with and where, there was no deterioration in their writing, and I could still see all the students showing me good writing habits (i.e. word cards, conferencing with others, etc).

It will be interesting if I see any noticeable change as we go on so...


I think we'll be trying it again tomorrow!