Teaching Literacy in a Play based classroom 2

Well rounded view of literacy, reading with, to, by,
Knowing how people acquire to read
Consistent approach to learning
Developmentally appropriate

Feeling confident about shared reading, guided reading?

can get caught up in the system-look at our learning literacy- thought constrativist view.
Children choosing the readers?

The children need to be active in the participation when reading
Best follow up is more reading

What is the why? Is this meeting the needs of the children for them to be successful at reading?

Still aiming for the balance, not in a rush, connecting with the children, developmentally appropriate

Writing 
Shared writing: photo of the play-
Playful writing in play
Fantasy play- imaginary fairy, wizard,
Everyone has done some writing
Supporting personal writing
Children understanding different types of writing

Modelling or Demonstration? 
Handwriting on the wall
Children to see someone write, Partnership about what we write
Guided writing: a lot of the modelling
Demonstration is not modelling

Find out what the child can do. Mark making-pick up pens/pencil?
Oral language

Cake model-foundation: oral language/how to listen/social cues/ 

Icing: letter sounds, phonics

Lots of talking and embedding- making nuero pathway
Writing is more than about a story
Can pick up a pen and mark make? so then what can we do to support developmentally?
Mana around writing, having audience, not just a story with a teacher on the jellybean table
Treasure map, photo taken,
How you approach to the problem is not just one way, but it needs to be developmentally appropriate
and wide range of way

Emphasis on developmental writing
Value this in class
Fairy story
Message that is important, having a purpose, keeping it, preserving it
Purposeful writing
Shaving foam on table/mirror
Anytime they are mark making, conversing- developmental stage

Having a wall to place their playful writing (something new, iconic)
Link to Seesaw
Process is also an important part
Did you know you were being a writer? Author?

Stand with bulldog clips
Children stand-characters

Oral Language 
Children love dinosaurs
How do we learn our first language- happens with family
Supporting children's oral language in play
Other children with knowledge are continuously modelling
Expressive language-lots of practices and listening to a good model
Loose parts- expand oral language

NZ curriculum 
Teachers need to have a good working knowledge about all aspects of the Documents.
Find the learning through the play

Supermarket flyers, clipboards, open/closed signs
Writing money
markers

Books about archery
Record measurement -purposeful

Doll house
Signs for each room?
Attic, basement?
Making a letter box

Executive Functioning Skills 
Ability to adapt to changes
Dispositions
Working memory

Supporting other teachers with ICT needs

Over the last 4 weeks, I have been creating little how to videos for teachers so that it will be really helpful for the teachers to navigate themselves during the time of online learning.
First thing I did was download Screencastify which allows me to record the desktop of my laptop. This way, I can show people how I am doing certain things on my laptop without videoing myself with a phone.
I have created videos about how to use Sunshine Classics and how to upload a video on Blogger. More helpful Seesaw videos were added as well.
I have shared this with the whole school so that the teachers can have access to it and saved it on our drive. 
I think I find myself always wanting to up skill myself and learn new things. I like to be creative and using Seesaw, I can add some creative aspects to it in terms of how I present the activities to the children and families.
I have also really enjoyed working with other teachers and communicate about how other people are doing certain things online and learn from each other. This itself has been a great professional development. I think that I feel more confident about using Google drive, Seesaw, Screencastify, Vimeo, and IMovie.
When I go back to school, I would really like to keep up the use of Seesaw with the children. Now the children have had some chances to use Seesaw and how they can communicate with me or others, I think this might encourage and extend the use of Seesaw in the classroom.

Teaching Literacy in a Junior Play-Based Classroom Webinar 1

Facilitated by Stacey 

Message about play-when they go into the classroom of play, it does look very different. Once we become confident about play, play is not a narrow field, but comes from a wide background. 

Constructivist Theory:

it is not just about teaching, new way of believing how people learn, how our brains are neurological process. 

Children come to you with their kete of knowledge, children come to school knowing a lot about literacy. In relation to the environment, others, 

Learning through play-everything that we are doing

Group learning-less of switch and flick, but consistent approach 

Stimulate children in all areas of learning 

Aspects of many things happening- social emotional skills, academic skills, physical skills, Multi sensory

Language development: Oral language in the centre of learning/play 

Process of learning- children see themselves as learners 

Getting children to connect, how do we do this? We are internalising it and we get out of schooling differently-how constructivists think... 

Providing opportunities to do it differently 

Developmentally appropriate, practical, hands on so that they can learn

How children learn literacy 

We need to engage children in a rich way, getting children talk about the topic, listening to children 

A lot of language use happening when they are playing 

Jerome Bruner 

Scaffolding-assitence needing to build on what they already know 

Create an environment -our third teacher 

How are we creating readers and writers from their eyes? 

What children are learning? What they already know? 

Level of pressure- can affect the children's pressure 

If they dont know letter sounds, what else do they need to know? We are looking for what it is that they cant do.... 

Do they know songs? rhymes? Old Macdonalds? 

Pre writing stages - making marks, scribbles, making symbols, making letters 

What children can do independently

What books do they know? enjoy? If they speak another language, how willing are they to speak? 

Children's interests-big book? library books? browsing books? Guided books? key words on the wall? 

Responding to their interests

If they are interested in making a cafe- how are we supporting them? 

Wait for the answer for 2 seconds at least 

Play is not what the children are doing but this is what we think, how we think 

Oral language is the base of everything 

We are not taking the learning away from the children 

Constructivism: Active participation from children 

reluctant writers/readers are often our target children-get to the point where they are constructing meaning, Thier kete of knowledge that we are influencing 

Phonics learning: at the point of needs- research at Massey uni  

children not making links between phonics learning and reading and writing 

Culture of learning: continue to challenge ourselves 

How do we know how children best learn? Small groups? 

Children do it at their own pace and their time 

what's the end result of learning literacy? 

Joyfuly love reading 

Motivate to be persistent 

Chat about what is important to them 

Children learn words that matter to them 

Role play, fantasy play 

Balanced reading programme 

Reading to: Teacher in total control: support the love of reading 

Beautiful way to poking a bubble, access to a story 

Reading with: Shared reading

2 guided groups and shared reading with 2 more groups 

Reading with: Guided reading 

quality, less groups 

Reading by: personal reading 

Independent reading by children 

When are they reading for enjoyment? 

Browsing books systems 

Children to have a level of ownership 

old skill new content 

new skills old content 

Children know the content and has experiences of it Lavalava 

Collect students voice 

write down the children's voices 

Shared reading 

Finding whys 

Intentional and purposeful 

Links to the interests of children? 

Introduce it and simple, short 

Read the story first 

Guided 

Instructional 

What children's needs are, meeting their needs 

Successful literacy classroom 

let children read

not so successful worksheets/word games 

Repetition is really important 

Browsing boxes 

Dramatic play 

Links to literacy- developmentally appropriate 

Student led 

practicing real life 

Relationships 

links to what you are doing with literacy content 

Invitations and provocations 

Use loose parts 

Reading to and shared reading 

Concept of characterisation 

Pre-operational stage 

Story table with loose parts 

Children interact with them anyway they like 

Inferring and comprehension (changing the story line) this is why you do not have to have the exact set of things 

The books that children really loved listening to 

Mark making-writing 

pre learning wiring lense 

Big sheets of paper 

different materials 

Need some introduction 

Explore from a fantasy perspective 

They cant take things out, but add things in. 

                         

Make a kete of it so that it has resources already and easy to access 

Writing resources: chalk board and chalks, note pads, clipboards, little notebooks  

Reading an article about how to engage learners at home

Article by Core Education
Engaging junior learners and whānau at home

Reflection on how I am connecting to children and families online during Level 4 and 3 lockdown

What happened?
Since the pandemic has hit New Zealand, we went into lockdown for 4 weeks. Our level 4 lockdown will end in the end of next Monday, and will go into Level 3. We have been and will continue to provide online learning during level 3 too. 
It has been a very interesting experience as because this has never happened before for me, it is about setting up routines and trying new things in a creative way to connect to the children and their families. There has been some positive feedback for my online learning content. I am also very aware of how busy families are at home as parents are often working from home. 

So what? This is the sense-making section that asks you to surface general meaning, significance, your position/view point: actions; emotions (pre-during-post)

I think for me, I have decided that I will upload a video every day to connect to students. Being able to see me will be reassuring and it can create a sense of sameness. I include today's date, karakia before starting the session, and try to make the session as fun and interactive as possible. I have uploaded various songs, reading stories, craft time, alphabet sounds, word reading and etc onto the class blog. I have found that children/families like watching song videos as I can see that there is a great number of people watching. So this also makes me think about what people are wanting to see and enjoying watching. 
When I put a task, I make sure that I show what the task looks like and what I expect from it. I engage with it showing my experiences like collecting different shapes at home to show children what I have found. I think this is really powerful for children to watch as they will develop an idea of what I expect them from but it is also nice for them to see me try the task and engage with it. I think this is really important for students to be able to connect to the teacher online. 

I am working on creating a video of children singing the same song together, having multiple videos in one screen so we can all see everyone's faces. I thought it would be a good idea as they cannot see each other for a long time. 

Although I have always taught songs and music to our children, connecting to the children through music and using creativity have become even more important for me over the last 4 weeks. 

What’s next: Things I might change… 

As we are still experiencing the lockdown and providing online learning, I will continue to provide fun and interactive online contents for the children. There has been some families who are not engaging in online learning but this is because their family lives are extremely busy and I think the teachers also need to understand that the families are trying their best. If they cannot complete a task daily, that is fine. I have said to one family, they can take a photo of their child at play. Many families are engaging with their children at home in productive and positive ways. I don't know what will change when we go back to school. I could possibly ask my children about what they liked about learning at home online, and what they didn't like. Hearing children's voices will possibly influence the way I teach when I go back to school.

Making progress in Science Levels 1-4

NMSSA -used to be called national monitoring
collaboration with NZCR and Ministry, assesses children across the country, every 4 years with a new assessment, last one was in 2017
Makes sure that this works at school, tests are self trilled, a lot of schools are involved in the process

Understanding about science- focus on scientist's work (what does scientist do? gather evidence, interpret data, use evidence and critique evidence

Investigating in science 

Communicating in science: how scientist represent their world- use particular diagram, models, food chains, food web,

Participating and contributing   when they can take action, if they look at rubbish at school, positives and negative, and think about how they can make changes? 

Rubbing rulers and picking up paper: Physical world
Data table ticks and crosses, produced data and looked at it, and what is the pattern?
counting the ticks and crosses

what made thing jump? rubbing 2 things together
What were they doing in nature of science? Investigating science- students were doing this.
gathering data
looking deeper into that

Science capabilities that we need to look at

Looking for patterns - observations and investigations  try this as regular learning opportunities 

Measurement: investigating in science? Interpret representations

Looking at the pictures-using evidence (looking at photos) 

Assessing the exploration 
Elimination the different items, testing, checking, hypothesising, building a great evidence,
Trust the scientist that has the evidence  
Plastic against rubber 
Systematic exploration 

How do you know? 
Are you sure? How sure are you? 

Looking at particular features, scientific features, looking at more features 
It fits in the palm of my hand, if you draw the outline of the shell

Measurement in terms of sophistications ( using a ruler to measure- top of the line.) 

Creating the rainbow

We want them to explore and be curious at Level 2. Not to be assessed.
Posters- rainbow diagrams with simple language

Diabetic course at the hospital

As we have a child who has a type 1 diabetes, I went to do the training at the hospital. I have had a child with Type 1 in a previous centre and have done the same course before so I was familiar with the contents but it was very refreshing to do this again and bring back the memory. I have also learnt some new things, and this time we were able to do the GlucaGen training as well.