FUN and going back to basics

New/Old ways of filling the gaps

With my New Entrants starting school this year I soon realised that there was a big gap in their foundational skills and Oral language. This is concerning because the students need to have some alphabet letter and sound knowledge to start with reading and writing. They should be able to recognise their name and have basic number knowledge too.

With the isolation periods for most of the children the start was not perfect and they had to adapt to school all over again. We adjusted our teaching plan and focused on doing a lot of just hands on activities, which includes fine and gross motor activities, to build their phonological knowledge and number skills. Even though we didn't do a lot of structured learning as such because of numbers and teachers isolation it gave us the chance to get to know the children and their needs well enough to form a perfect plan starting Term 2. We would have filled most the gaps and hope to start a proper more structured literacy and Maths program next term.

On a Friday we have a big focus on exploring and developing each individual child's talents(choice activities). We will continue with this in Term 2.

We have two sessions:

First we focus on Fine motor skills activities. Each member of our team has to plan 1 activity e.g snack item, art activity, cutting, painting, play dough.

The next block we focus on Gross motor skills. Activities might include: big soft blocks and other items they can find to build their own obstacle course, sand pit with toys to play with, balls and hula hoops, basketball ring(small size), big duplo/lego blocks, games(What's the time Mr Wolf and extending it where the students can change some features of the game), dance parties - here they can be creative and make up their own dances to their own choice of song and puppet shows.

Each week we have a different theme: This term we have Eric Carle books and a lot of learning is coming from the stories and we are also linking it in to our Key Understandings of the year: Digital Identity - In my shoes. Here are some of the activities we are doing on a Friday:

Making spiders using currants, apples, peanut butter/honey and pretzels - Yummy!! Eric Carle - The very busy spider

Play dough - we made it in class and making ladybugs - Eric Carle - The grouchy ladybug

Our favourite : Soft blocks and having a good old race.

Being creative and using the big Legos to make a robot.

Sand pit play - we love to get a little dirty without too much mess.

Free painting - inspired by the book.

We include our School Values in every lesson we teach and the students know the expectations. We love Fridays!!

Comments

Impressive Writing Growth with The Syntax Project

I’ve seen remarkable progress in my students’ writing skills since introducing The Syntax Project . This free, accessible platform, grounded in the concept of colourful semantics, has been a game-changer for our young learners. What is Colourful Semantics? Colourful semantics is a method that breaks sentences down into parts, each represented by a different colour. For instance, the "Who" (subject) could be one colour, while "What doing" (the verb) is another. This visual approach makes sentence building more straightforward and fun for children, helping them better understand sentence structure. It’s especially useful for younger students as they get to grips with the basics of grammar and sentence creation. My Approach to Using the Syntax Project I began using the Syntax Project by focusing on oral exercises. Students first talk through sentences, identifying key parts like who is doing what, and where it’s happening. This has laid a strong foundation for understa...

The Syntax Project - NZ version that aligns with our curriculum

I found this on Facebook this morning. I am so excited to share this amazing resource with teachers This was the message by Sarah Peck on the Primary teachers page: Kia ora koutou, not sure how many of you use the Syntax Project for a sentence-level writing resource but here is the scope and sequence with NZ Year level equivalents added. All of the slideshow resources that support the scope and sequence can be found at https://ochre.org.au/ac/the-grammar-project/. You will need to register for (free) access. The materials are designed for NZ Year 0 (NE) to Year 7, however I think if you have older struggling learners that still need sentence level writing teaching, learning, review and practice then you'd potentially still get a lot out of what's on offer. The Syntax Project work has been developed by Australian teachers, for teachers, and is underpinned by work from The Writing Revolution, and the Morphology Project references William Van Cleave's work. Here is the link: ...

Handwriting - ideas how support teachers

I stumbled upon this super cool document called " Multisensory Writing: Handwriting Supports " from a pediatric occupational therapist, and it's packed with awesome ideas to help our kids with their handwriting! For all you kindergarten and new entrant teachers here in New Zealand, here's what's super important to keep in mind: Spotting Handwriting Hiccups: We're talking about all those common struggles tamariki have, like pressing too lightly or too hard with their pencil, writing huge letters or totally missing the lines, squishing words together or leaving huge gaps, and not quite getting the hang of tall vs. short letters. Easy, Hands-On Tricks: The document is full of practical tips, and a lot of them use different senses, which is brilliant! Think things like using carbon paper, sandpaper, those bendy Wikki Stix (not the same as pipe cleaners, by the way – Wikki Stix are wax-coated yarn, super safe and sticky!), or even just cool visual cues. Gettin...

Tania's Professional Learning Blog

Search This Blog