Word Work Bingo

Via Twitter PrimaryPete was asking about activities and games to support spelling.  Word Work Bingo is a not a new concept, if you have a look around Pinterest there are lots of versions of this.  For this one I have rearranged other versions with some of my students favourite spelling tasks like Pyramid Writing, Rainbow Writing, Sign Language Words and the Word Search.

But the form of Word Work Bingo, is a new(ish) format in my class and my students seem to really be enjoying using it.  They work through the tasks and colour in an activity as they go.  Over and above this we also use buddy time and spellingcity to work on words (words and meanings to be able to use the words properly!)  

These form the basis of Working With Words as 1 part of the Daily 5 activities we use.

Click here to download a version of this Word Work Bingo

Click here to download the Code

Click here to download the Word Search Template

With SpellingCity I create a Google Docs spreadsheet that has each groups words for the term.  I can add to them each week but students can view their words from home, school or wherever.  At the bottom you'll see a Spellingcity link.  This links to their individual list where they can click on it and head off to SpellingCity to complete activities based on their words.  It also allows any extra games or activities I come across to be placed at the bottom for kids to come back to.

Using the Google spreadsheet acts as a nice way to collate all the information for each access both by my students and I.

Conversations and Collaborations

Educamps.
A fairly common word now in New Zealand education, but one that doesn't lose any of it's stamina as the years go by.  This year saw my 5th year of attending Educamps and I love them.  It's such an awesome chance to catch up with amazing tweeps, bloggers and educators from around New Zealand.

Christchurch - Burnside High
This year I travelled to Christchurch for their first educamp run by Pauline and Anne.  It was great to be surrounded by a new set of faces and people.  They are such strong educators who have been pushing through some pretty hard times.  It was hard to be in the centre of town and see the devastation that has occurred in Christchurch.  Being there was so much more than seeing it on the nightly news.  But the educators that were in the room were passionate, keen and had a great sense of humour.  The conversations that went on ranged from BYOD, Daily 5 through to iPads and mobile technologies.  It was great to finally get to meet awesome edutweeps like Judykmck who has helped me a lot with Daily 5/CAFE understanding and ideas through her sharing.  Paulinehendog and many others!  I had the chance to take along a educamp newbie from Christchurch Aimee and converted her to the educamp way.  She's already looked to sign up her husband and a few others for padcamp in a few weeks time!  Find out more and see some more pics about eduCamp Chch here in a post from Anne.


Auckland - Stonefields School
I arrived a bit late and educamp was in full swing.  A packed room, in fact so packed that the participants were listening from the outside of the room.  It started with a full on smackdown with a list of people to share that got bigger as people were standing up to present.  From here we broke off into each of the different areas.  It was nice to have a chance to have a look around Stonefields and see a new school.  Some nice spaces and areas and a fabulous play area for the kids.  We had a great bounce on the bouncey floor in the playground at the end of the day (who said they were made for kids!)

There was another huge array of conversations of offer in Auckland.  BYOD, iPads, Daily 5, Minecraft... just to name a small array of topics.  For more information check out the shared Google Doc that gets created at each eduCamp to help capture the day.

I had the chance to be involved in another great round of discussion about Daily 5 and CAFE with a bunch of teachers who are already using it and those that are keen to use it.  It was great to talk to some other teachers who had been implementing it in their class and look at how they adapt and change elements to work for them.  This year Daily 5 has unfolded into different parts in my class and the CAFE element has as well.  I've been able to pick the best of the best from last year and am using it to suit the students I have in front of me.  One of the great things I love about the management and set up of Daily 5.

The day was another great chance to network and catch up with another round of fabulous bloggers and edutweeps.  I had a chance to meet some new ones too and form some new twitter connections.  One of the best things about this day is the people.  There is something powerful about being in a room full of passionate and keen educators and being a part of those conversations.  So, if you are interested... or just curious... check out the educamp wiki to see when the next one near you is happening!

Long live Educamps!

Just a couple of the reasons I go to eduCamp - amazing educators!

Anne K, Fiona Grant and I

Reading Interview

This year I am teaching a Year 5/6 class which I am extremely excited about!  We have had 4 days together so far and I am amazed at the conversations, ideas and thoughts that have come out of our lessons.  We definitely hit the ground running.

One of the things I asked them to do for me last week was to complete a Reading Interview form.  This was so I could begin to piece together my readers as individuals but also as a class.   The idea came through via another post on my pinterest board and unfortunately I can't find the link back to it, but I shall update this once I find it!

I asked the kids to complete it while I read out each question and explained a bit more - if kids felt confident with the task they were to continue on with the questions by themselves.  This was a great way to structure it as my more confident students continued onwards without having to wait for others.

On reading the completed interviews I have learnt so many valuable things about my students as readers already:

• I have a large chunk of boys who love car books!
• The majority of my class are in to comedy books
• A lot of them do not like to read poetry
• The like to read outside in the shade or inside where it is quiet
• I have quite a few that don't read in their spare time
• Most are worried about reading aloud due to what they think people will say/do or think about their reading

This is just the start of a wealth of interesting and informative information that allows me to build up a picture of my readers.

I can use this information to inform how I approach their independent choices as part of reading time.  I'm going to need to do a lot of work in a range of genres this year to expand my students knowledge outside of their favourite genre.

I think I also really need to take on the outside world during silent reading and head out onto the field or under the trees or in our pod area for a few sessions during the week!

Here is a link to the Reading Interview and you are welcome to use it!

Retelling a Fairy Tale

This afternoon our school (Summerland) ran some iPad workshops at The Learning Network in West Auckland.  There was a fantastic group that was a full house of 80 people, all ready to share and listen to what we have been doing this year.  Our principal, Luke Sumich, started the session off with some really thoughtful words... what are you doing with these iPads and why? Where are you going with making sure that learning and your learners are at the heart of what you are doing?  From there we broke off into 4 sessions.  We offered an Art session using Art Rage and Live sketch, Storytelling, Apps for Numeracy, Tools for Teachers and a retelling workshop, which I ran.

Retelling using Draw Free and Puppet Pals

This session was based around the reading strategy called 'Retelling'.  This is one of the CAFE strategies that we have worked on in our class.  The students spent time reading a fairy tale then using the 'Retell Rope' and chart to retell their story to their partner.  A 'Retell Rope' is a rope that has 8 knots down it - one for each area that they need to include in their retell.  It provides a kinesthetic hook for them to hang their retelling information on.

From here we moved into using the iPads to retell their fairy tale.  Over 2 sessions the students were in groups of 2-4 students, they decided on the fairy tale they wanted to retell.  From there the students decided the characters or items they needed to draw and they created these in Draw Free.  The important thing here is that each character is saved to the photo album, so that Puppet Pals is able to access the image.  Once the students completed their character drawings they would head into Puppet Pals and get ready to record.  It's rather easy to import the characters into Puppet Pals through the 'Add Actors' button on the Actors page.  The important thing to note here is that if you have the free version it will allow you to import it but then you won't be able to use it!  So if you want to be able to import your own photos or pictures you need to make sure you have the directors pass.  But it's definitely worth the $4.19 you will pay for the app!

The students select their actors and background and it brings you to the 'stage'.  Here you will have a white rectangle in the middle with your characters and background.  Everything that is inside the white rectangle is what will be recorded, so it's important to remember that if you have an actor outside the white box they won't be in your final video!  Once you are ready to go you can press the red circle to record - on the newer version it lets you pause your recording which is handy.  But the kids basically have 1 take to complete the recording - tough but handy from a teaching perspective as the kids tend to not keeping going back and touching up little things; it sets the bar high!

While recording the students can move their characters around inside the white box and speak.  The movement and audio will all be recorded!

Once the kids have recorded you can then save and export them.  Once you have tapped 'export' in Puppet Pals it will export it into your Photo Album.  If you don't do this, you will only be able to watch your movie inside the Puppet Pals app.  When it let's you know that it's exported you can easily plug it into your computer and download it to your computer through iPhoto.  Check out my students very first Puppet Pal retellings on our class blog here!

There are many different ways that you could use Puppet Pals.  

Some of the ways you could use it are:

• Students that didn't want to speak in front of the class - take a photo, add the student into Puppet Pals and get them to talk
• Sharing their learning - what did I learn, numeracy strategies, reading strategies etc
• End of topic to explain their learning and knowledge from the topic
• Photos from trips as backgrounds and students can recount events that happened on the trip

There are so many ways you could use it!

The following link (click here or on the photo) will take you to a how to sheet that you are welcome to download and use in your classroom to help you get on your way.  Link back to any work you complete or ideas you have and leave a comment to let us know how you get on! 

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B_I4f6vGYHk5ODdhNzc5NTktNjA2NC00MjZjLTlhYTUtYWZmNTEwYjgyYjg1

Daily 5

Daily 5 is simply...

Work on Words

Read to Self

Read to Someone

Listen to Reading

Work on Writing

I'll explain more about the key areas in the blog post but first I want to explain about the process that got me interested in and using the Daily 5 model in my class.  I've found over many years that I've not been entirely happy with my Reading programme and the things that were happening as part of it.  I've had some definite successes throughout the years but nothing that has sit in that 'good place' alongside my philosophy for what I want.  This year I felt really unhappy with the written content of my "Reading" programme and that this was becoming the main way they would respond to books.  I can't think of the last time I sat down and wrote a bunch of information or answered questions after I read a book. But I CAN think of many times where I will talk about the book - retell it, share events, get excited and talk about all the aspects of the book with other people.  I was seeing students who were not that keen on reading as it meant written tasks afterwards.  I don't ever want to discourage a student from the joys of reading just because of the written tasks.  So along came several days, hours and minutes rigorously searching the internet and talking to people via twitter about what they were doing and why?  Some great conversations and I thank all those that answered questions and sent through examples of Reading setups and planning!

Daily 5 kept coming through on several searches and when it was combined with the idea of the CAFE model, this is when I saw that it was something that would fit in with my classroom and the kids I had in front of me this year.  So I spent many more hours searching through a range of websites and blog posts before I jumped onto Book Depository and ordered the books; 

The Daily Five and The CAFE Book.

The books are fantastic, practical and easy to read.  They explain where/how the programme was developed from, how to implement it and also how flexible and adaptable it can be.  This is one of the main things I love about the programme - it's structured but flexible in allowing you to change and alter what you want. There are people who are using the programme across the world from NE classes through to Year 7/8 - for more information check out the weekly Daily 5 chat (#d5chat on twitter).

So, onto the basics.  Daily 5 is an independent management system where the students take part in 5 daily activities.  In our class we do 3 of the activities a day - this is based on the time that we have.  The 3 activities are based around spelling, reading, listening to reading and writing.  Students have anchor charts that help to remind them what they are expected to be doing during each activity.  This is created with the kids and is what I come back to when the kids are off task.

The students come in at the start of the day and set about self selecting the tasks that they want to complete.  They each have 3 names in 3 different colours (1 colour for each rotation).  There are 3 rotations and they must select a different task for each one.  There is a number next to each activity which lets them know how many students can be on that activity in each rotation.

At the end of the session the kids complete a checklist that helps them keep track of what they have completed for the day/week and what they need to do.  It helps me identify those kids that will avoid certain activities and give them ideas/feedback and to spend some time with them to help them get under way!

A quick overview of each activity:

Read to Self

This is about independent reading.  

Finding a quiet space to read to themselves aloud or in their head.  

Read to Someone

This is about reading in a pair or three. 

Finding a quiet space to read to their group and talk about their book.

Listen to Reading

This is about listening to good models of reading.

Most students do this on their iPods or the laptops.  My aim was to have the students recording stories for each other, but unfortunately we haven't gotten there yet.  It's on my list for next year for sure!

Work on Writing

Developing a love of writing - comics, newspapers, poems and more.  All the free writing that the students don't get to do in the dedicated writing sessions during the week.  This is about writing for enjoyment and fun - self selected topics and styles.

Work on Words

Spelling or Grammar. This is about teaching spelling rules and grammar.  We have worked on spelling sounds through to words like homophones/homonyms.  I select these based on needs in the classroom and set up weekly/fortnightly word lists from there.

So, this is the basic information behind Daily 5.  There are an amazing amount of websites, links and places you can go to for more in-depth information.  This is really a quick overview and I would recommend getting your hands on the books to read if you are keen on looking at implementing Daily 5 in your classroom.  Some of my favourite sites are:

The 2 Sisters

Mrs Maiolo

Delightful Daily5

Open the door to B4

Integrating Technology In The Primary Classroom

Next post will focus on what I am doing while the kids are working on the Daily 5 tasks 

- the CAFE model!

Goodbye Delicious - Hello Symbaloo!

With the change over of delicious and all the problems that have gone alongside it, it has seen me seek out new ways to share and display learning links for my students.  With the change over the kids were quick to point out that tags were missing and it was hard to find links that they knew where to find previously.

So this sent me on hours (yes, hours) long search to find something that would allow me to create several pages but also allow the students to have visuals of the links they are wanting to use.  I really wanted to switch to a more visual form of bookmarking rather than word tags after myself enjoying Pinterest - a visual bookmarking tool due to the ease of use and visual way of organising links.

I had a play around with the delicious stacks - which at first seemed very promising.  Apart from when I kept getting 500 gateway errors from them.  When stacks did work it would only allow me to stack together my first page of links but not access the other pages.  Fiddly and unfun. So, I gave up.  I moved on to trialling websites like favoritus, portaportal, sitemarks and more - all visual bookmarking sites that looked extremely good.  All of them had the same problem for me.  The lack in ability to be able to create a standalone web page that had seperate pages for my links. Painful.

Then I remembered a site that I had previously played with and put into my 'could be helpful' pile of links. Symbaloo.  It's a simple idea - you create webmixes or pages of links.  Each link is a little coloured icon that you can arrange across your webmix.  The webmix can be shared via email, kept private, shared with the world or embedded into webpages.  So this is the angle I have taken.  I am creating seperate pages for each subject and colour coding links with visuals also.  The students used it in the last 2 days of term and the votes were pretty clear - all but 4 students loved the new Symbaloo system because of the colours, images and how easy it was to find links.  The 4 students who didn't like it said that it was because they were used to delicious.  Though 1 student did say he might like Symbaloo more once 'he got used to it' - awesome!

The image from above is from my Daily 5 wiki for the students.  This is one area I have created Symbaloo link pages and it has now become the portal that they will use for links.  They can either go straight to the page or jump to it via the class blog.  You can view the website here.

The colour coding system is quite handy also.  I have a student who is new to my class from overseas and has minimal english.  The links in orange are specifically set up for her - the students were great at showing her that they were for her and the second time on the computer she seemed to understand that this was a great area for her to start.

The other thing about Symbaloo that was a bonus is that the interface works on iPads and iPod touches.  One of my students became a fantastic tester and tried it out.  Unfortunately only 2 of the above links would run on an iPod - this has meant that I've created other Symbaloo's that will contain mobile device friendly links!

The biggest drawback is the time that this takes compared to setting up links in delicious - with the delicious bookmarking paglets it is extremely easy to link and tag websites.  While Symbaloo isn't as easy to tag websites at the moment the visual elements and arrangements for the students makes it far outweigh the time it takes me to add links in!