The more that you read the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go-Dr Seuss

Today the lead teacher of my syndicate came into observe me take a reading lesson with a group. Now, to be watched as everyone knows can be daunting at first, but when you look at it through difference lenses and a different perspective, this was a fantastic learning opportunity for me and also a time for me to shine!

I learnt a great deal from my feedback from my syndicate leader which was very informative.
It was honestly great to get positive feedback on my group teaching session.
I choose to do my reading lesson on my highest group in reading: Mustangs. Their focus for that day was: WALT: We are learning to locate and summarise ideas by skimming and scanning.

Here is an example if my lesson plan below:

Text: What is Sleep

Mustangs:

WALT: We are learning to  locate and summarise ideas by skimming and scanning

SC: I know I can do this by:

• Identifying key words that will help me with writing my summary. 

Before reading:

1. Go through the WALT and SC with the children.
2. Explain to the children what summarising is

Teacher shows children poster on Summarising.

A summary is a shortened version of a text that contains all the main points.

Summarising is an important skill that helps us when we are researching, gathering and presenting information.

Finding key words and phrases helps us to summarise the text.

Example:: My summary is that Cheetahs are the fastest land animals in  the world and that their bodies have made adaptations to help them to go fast.

During reading:

1. Get children to read through part of the text: Why do people need sleep.
2. Get children to write down key words about why people need sleep on a post it note
3. Get children to peer share their ideas.
4. Repeat with What happens during sleep.

After reading:

Go through what children have learn today? What is something new we learn today about sleep?

What is summarising?

Follow up Activity:

Mustangs are to use the keywords that they came up with to write up a summary about what is sleep. They can choose the DLO they want to do this on: Presentation, Google drawing.

Remind children that they are to use their own words when writing their summaries.

I really thought that my reading lesson went really well, though to be honest, time is an essence. So for future lessons I need to make sure that I keep an eye on time so that I am able to fit in other reading groups during a certain time frame. As teaching, this skill grows with experience and at times, we are so engrossed in the depth of teaching that I feel the best forms of teaching happen with time and in that moment.

Feedback from my observation:

• I like the way you exposed an expert example of the meaning of summarising.
• A very good example given to students to help develop their understanding of the skill of summarising.

T gives students highlighters and asks S to highlight key words in the text - first page. Doing this with a buddy

S highlighting text with a buddy.

T gives students post it notes - S are required to write key words they have highlighted on the post it note.

• Great way to start reading - highlighting with peers as this encourages talk and critical thinking to happen - encouraging learning from each other.
• Great to see students to report back to the group and sharing their thinking with their whole group.
• It’s great to have teacher driving some of the discussion during the reading lesson and encouraging students to join in with the discussion.
• A good learning task related to sleep and the learning focus of the lesson - summarising key ideas.

Well done Kaveeta for using your group data analysis to inform the planning of this reading group. I can now see strong links between your data analysis, the learning focuses in your planning and the content of your teaching.

The structure of your lesson was done really well with a mixture of Think, Pair, Share skills and buddy reading. Students were engaged with the text and with what they were reading during the lesson.

My next steps for future group reading sessions would be:

• Develop the SC with students - Ask them how they think the WALT should be achieved (this encourages student voice and gives students ownership of learning)
• Keep referring back to the SC during the lesson - check that students are using the skills they have identified @ the beginning of the lesson (use as a check list to reiterate the learning focus)-This step I have done with my instructional writing lessons, but I need to make sure that I also do this with my reading and mathematics groups as well.

Art is the journey of a free soul...

As a Senior Syndicate, in Term 2 we have been doing Syndicate Arts as a way of making crafts for our School Market Day in Term 3. The Senior Teachers chose to do a range of different Arts and Crafts. For my Crafts I chose to do Button Crafts. I know right, it doesn't sound exciting when you hear "Button crafts" but when done correctly, it is actually very fun and you end up with a great piece of Art work.  Below I have included a screen shot of my planning for the button crafts.

Firstly, to begin with the to motivate and inspire the children in my crafts group I showed them a You Tube video on different button art creations. The children were really mesmerised by the amazing creations that they saw.

Secondly, the children were then given an opportunity to plan their creations. They were to create an outline of their images on draft paper. Once they had done that, they could then draw the outline onto canvas and then choose buttons to create their masterpiece. This used problem solving because they had to think about the sizes they chose to fit certain areas of their images to create an effective piece of Art.

The students really engaged in the crafts and really enjoyed creating their pieces of craft. They were really proud of themselves on their finished products and so was I. Below I have included my lesson plan for my craft lesson. It is based on Learn, create, share cycle. The learn part is where the children learn a certain technique such as button craft. Create is when they use their creativity and create their pieces of button Art and Share is how they choose to share their work with others such as a video explaining the process of making a button art, share on their blogs etc.

Below I have included some photos of the children with their finished crafts. 

(Siale, Ida, Cerenity)

I believe Art and Crafts is an important part of children's learning and development. 

Creating art is a fine way for children to make choices and solve problems. Every step involves making a decisions: What colour to use, how to make a line, what size to make something. With every choice the object becomes more and more their own and children are able to take ownership of what they create using their imaginations. 

Everyone has an imagination. Art takes it a step further. Through art, children create something that, until that point, was only imagined. Thus, they create visual manifestations of abstract ideas.

Art is also good for children that find other curriculum areas difficult and are able to use Art as a form of expression. It is a way that children can express their ideas, feelings and solutions that they may not be able to express verbally or through writing. 

My next steps for myself, if I was to do crafts again, would be to make sure that I have enough equipment such as buttons and glue. As I found that even though I had bought a lot of resources that was not enough, so we had to improvise and we did picture collages which turned out really nice and the children enjoyed also. 

GTS: 4, 6, 1, 2