Daily 5 Reading Rotation

The end of Term 1 so time to reflect on my Reading programme and think about any changes that are needed.

What went well: 

• the class love Daily 5 and the structure of the rotation where they know where they are going and what is happening next
• they enjoy the variety of activities - the iPad-Padlet photo & caption, Steps, Listening Post, Handwriting/ Publishing or spelling and guided reading with T
• activities are independent and children are encouraged to problem solve or ask a friend to help 
• my planning is much more in depth and follows the Reading progressions made by the Curriculum taem last year
• I am coming to terms with teaching children reading at the lower colour levels after usually starting at Orange or Turquoise most years previously
• the children are learning that it's okay to revisit a text and to discuss and interpret the story so that a book can last a few days
• I am keeping up with Running Records for children who are 6 for 6 year netts and for those due for National Standards anniversary reports (ie turning 7)

Changes/Next Steps:

• I need to try to fit in at least 4 reading groups or rotations most days as time goes so quickly and distractions happen so that some days I only get through 3 groups
• it took a while to establish routines! how to Listen on the listening post, how to EEKK and silent read/Read to self, setting up Steps, and showing how to use Padlet
• L&A observations/feedback and suggestions from Toni in the last week before the end of term mean that I will trial having the children read a text before they come to a guided reading session - I will need to show them how to record their attempts at "tricky" words
• this will hopefully make more productive use of Teacher time
• I will use the Gerald Duffy skill/strategy checklist that Toni gave us as a basis for my planning
• I will make sure that the children who have not been "producing the goods" on their Padlet page are monitored more closely and are made more accountable - having a buddy peer assess their work
• I will change the Padlet writing activity in a couple of weeks to recording fluency reading using Audioboo - reading a text or poem - then listening to it and giving feedback to themselves or a buddy

Padlet - Term 1 2014

This has turned out to be the most successful app for the beginning of the year for my Year 2 class. It is so versatile and has enthused and motivated the children into taking photos, videos and writing and then sharing their learning with their parents.

As an introduction to Padlet we had class pages where we all wrote on the same page.
Now:

everyone in the class has their own Padlet page 

each page is uploaded to the class blog -  http://www.chelseabachelors.blogspot.co.nz/

it is then able to be accessed from home as well - several children have taken off with this and have added photos and captions of themselves at home

writing on their Padlet page has become part of the Daily 5 reading rotation 

writing on their Padlet page has become part of the writing rotation

children choose what they want to write about - choose or take their own photo, write their own title and write their own sentence/caption

Storyboard or Storyjumper

Last year I had the children writing collaboratively using a website called Storyjumper. They wrote little books using characters provided. However the characters they tended to choose had very limited story lines and plots. I found another website where they had a lot more choice - settings, characters, text styles etc. 
Again I offered it during the Daily 5 reading rotation and called it Buddy Writing. It was very popular, however the end product of a 6 - 10 page book was a long time coming for some. There were too many distractions and too much choice - lots of discussion and collaborating. They boys especially spent much of their time choosing characters, talking through ideas and making changes rather than actually writing. 
2014 - offer it as a before school collaborative activity?

Kidblog - sharing an individual child's work online

http://kidblog.org/Space10sBlog/

Half way through the year I was having doubts about our class Wikispace pages. I was always fixing errors with the children's posts. They found it hard to remember to write posts chronologically and I would find their writing in all sorts of mixed up places on their page. Uploading photos and leaving comments was messy too. I feel wikispaces is probably suited to children older than my 6-7 year olds. Kidblog seems to be a cross between Blogger and Wikispaces, allowing a teacher to set up individual pages for each child in a class while still having control over each page. (Using Blogger meant having individual email accounts which seemed too big a step for Year 2s.) Writing posts was more organised and leaving comments was a lot easier.

2014 - Using Skitch with Evernote

Problem: The only concern I have had with online writing has been how to show first drafts and further editing by the writer or feedback from me as part of the writing process! 

Solution: Use Evernote and Skitch together. By taking an image of their first draft and adding notes in Skitch seems an ideal way to overcome this problem - it sounds as if it will work - 2014 we'll see?

Evernote - Our Online Writing Books

https://www.evernote.com

Problem: How to use our 5 iPads and 6 PCs/laptops during our writing sessions? 

Solution: Evernote has become our writing book. After trialling Notes on the iPad or writing directly onto their wiki page I discovered that Evernote is much more manageable. Children can be rostered onto Evernote on the PCs and iPads and can access their pages anywhere, even from home if they wished. All children have their own page. They plan and brainstorm ideas and words, then draft their stories, edit themselves or easily peer edit and then conference with me. I can also check up from home - no messy piles of draft books around and then plan who I need to conference with the next day. Then it's easy for them to publish - copy and save with a photo or other image to their Kidblog page or wiki page to share. So half the class is writing online while the other half are using their traditional writing books. 

Click image to enlarge - Impressive writing by Raina - One of the more talented writers in the class 

2014 - Twitter

I will set up a roster so that each day the children will become responsible for remembering to tweet and share our learning. Another easy example of creating a purpose for writing that will be read by an authentic audience and for promoting "student voice" in the classroom. As well as following the Year 1 and 2 classes from Pinehill School we have found 2 other classes of 6-7 year olds in the US who are tweeting their learning on a daily basis who we will follow.

Mrs D's 1st graders      @RamblerStars

Mrs Mastin's 1st graders    @Mastin1stgrade
Pinehill Room 11    @Pinehill11
Pinehill Room 22    @Room22Superstars
Pinehill Room 8      @Pinehill_Room8 

Twitter in the Classroom @Chelseakids10

I was amazed at how enthusiastic the children became with this social media tool. There were 6 or 7 children in the class who became regular users and would constantly want to tweet the photo of their work. They created their own Twitter accounts at home and were regular followers. the Stars of the Week photos were always tweeted to the world! Thank you Thomas and Ayden for remembering each Friday. They also enjoyed seeing what the other classes we followed were doing and would often try out the apps they had used.

Audioboo and Running Records

Easy as.... With your iPhone or iPad.
Why?
Children love to hear themselves read
It's a record of "before"evidence/data
Do another one later in the year and compare and check the changes/ differences/improvements
Embed on their wiki page for parents to hear - use at Parent Interviews?

Listen to ‘Maia reading The Bigger Half’ on Audioboo

listen to ‘Thomas reading The Bags by the Gate’ on Audioboo

QR codes in the classroom

Ignite at Pinehill School - 16 April - thanks Kate and Dana
Load the QR reader app onto your iPad and iPhone 
Load the QR creator app and follow the easy steps
For voice you need to use Audioboo 
Children love to go around the room with the iPad reading the codes - labels for individual art work, labels for learning Te Reo and ..........

A message for the children to read

A Mothers Day message posted on the Bachelors Blog

Taliya's audio of her research about the Red Panda

The Daily 5 Literacy Programme

Attended Ignition13 - April 22-23 at Albany Senior High - an unconference led by Emerging Leaders NZ.

It was great to meet and be amongst other motivated and passionate teachers who wanted to share their ideas about what is happening in their classrooms.
Hence a light bulb moment!! And reading 3 books in a week
"The Book Whisperer" - see last post
 "The Daily 5" 
"The Daily Cafe"
by Gail and Joan (the 2 sisters) 

Our Class Wiki

http://chelseaschoolspace102013.wikispaces.com/

A place for the children to share their work in an authentic environment. David Kinane helped us all to set up a class wikis so children could have their own page as place to record their learning. Only 2 classes have seen the light and the benefits of  it at the moment.
I set the students in my class a holiday task - record using text and photos - something you did in the holidays -so far 6 children have added to their page. It's great - I have set it up so that I am emailed every time the wiki is changed. By monitoring it this way I can easily see who has worked on their wiki - one of the advantages of a wiki over a blog - you can also rescue anything that is deleted.
I encourage the children by commenting on their wiki post - a commitment you have to buy into when you start a wiki or blog - it's a 24 hour job - I couldn't just leave commenting on the work they had done till after the holidays!