Finding my Feet.

We have been back at school almost three weeks.  Twelve days to be exact as each of the weeks has been four days.  Tomorrow we are off to the Waikane Pools as a school. That surely counts as a four day week!

I believe the class is settling down.  I think I have almost 'let go' last year's class and begun to enjoy the ones I am with!  I only have 25 of them.  I think that makes a difference, I would imagine that 30 going towards 35 would take be a challenge for me, so 25 is a very nice number.  I am still trying to catch up with commenting and responding to student writing.  This week we had a visit from ERO (Education Review Office) and while it is an advantage to have it completed, it did leave me feeling like I just couldn't catch up with all I wanted to achieve.

In the last three weeks I have been able to manage to have Daily Five or in our case Daily Three up and running. We have now reached the point where  students are making choices each day and it is running smoothly.  I still have not settled into conferencing or taking groups. Rather I am roaming and checking in with students.  At present they are in goal setting mode, and when they choose writing some of them are writing goals.  I am spending some time chatting with them about the goals if they are choosing to write them during Literacy time.  It may be another week before I start conferring or working with groups.  Although testing will loom in Week 6 at the beginning of March and disrupt some of them momentum.

We have opted to introduce BYOD this year.  We had a rocky start as the wireless network was not up and running.  However Norcom now have this  operational and about 5 or 6 of the class are bringing in their own devices.  This is great as it supplements the computers we have as a class.  One student is working on her iPod touch.  In fact she produced a really great video last week that took a session of planning and a session of videoing and then editing.  Simone took her own photos, personally I just love the one she snapped of Kapiti Island. It is one of my favourite views.

While we didn't really make iPod touches  an option, I can see that the latest one takes very clear photos and has possibilities.  I noticed today the owner of the iPod had borrowed another student's wireless keyboard, and was working with it and the iPod touch.

We are working with Google Docs and I think this will work well.  We have Teacher Dashboard set up, I am still exploring this, and as the year goes by hope to incorporate this more and more into my interaction with students.

This week as I mentioned above, we had ERO in our school.  They were very pleasant and professional gentlemen.  However I think the one that came into my room was somewhat nonplussed.  I was showing my class how to put an image on their blog and to do that correctly using creative commons.  Somewhere along the line I mentioned digital citizenship.  Later at a meeting I attended he asked where did the idea of digital citizenship come from, was it a word I coined!

Later that evening I decided I had misheard.  This morning I checked with the other staff member who had been at the meeting.  She confirmed that what I thought I had heard was what she heard too!  I can only say I am still struggling to comprehend this. Even though I have only been to one elearning conference in my life - Ulearn 11, I would have thought that ERO would surely be keeping up with this aspect of ICT?  I am still thinking I misunderstood.  Surely!

Is Daily Five for Ten to Thirteen Year Olds?

A question that I hear sometimes asked is: "Does Daily Five work with older students, for example in New Zealand at the intermediate level - Year 7 and
 8?  Eleven to thirteen year olds.

In my opinion Daily Five is highly suited to working with this age. I have only been using it now since mid 2011, and I would never go back to any other way of organising my literacy.

• It gives students choice and they love that.
• It encourages them to be independent and take some responsibility for their learning.
• Students spend time reading and writing, rather than prepared sheets etc by the teacher.
• The teacher is able to conference one on one with students or..
• Work with a group with no interference
• The engagement of students is mostly 100% all of the time. 
• It enables flexible grouping.

So if you wanted to implement it in your class where might you begin?

• Obtain and read the book The Daily Five by Gail Boushey and Joan Moser.  This step is essential.  Read it and assimilate it.  The process of setting it up is important, expect about your first month to be given over to this.  Do this part well and you are set up for a great year.

• Obtain and read their book The Cafe Book, Engaging all Students In Daily Literacy Assessment and Instruction.  Daily Five is really only the organisational structure, Cafe relates to the literacy teaching - they complement each other.

• Although not a daily five book I would also highly recommend The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller, to teachers of older students. This will really fire up your own enthusiasm for children's literature and enhance your Daily Five literacy.

• Prepare and begin. Don't be overwhelmed, it may seem difficult but it really is okay once you get going.

In the beginning I taught all five aspects of Daily Five - Reading to Self, Reading to Others, Listening, Writing and Working with Words. As 2011 passed I realised that actually for older students not all five are needed. So for 2012 I have Read to Self, Writing and Working with Words.  However this does not cut out the option of listening; some students might opt in their read to self time - to listen.  As we generally have students at different levels of reading - read to others might be appropriate too as a choice.  The great thing is Daily Five is flexible.

On a good day I do three rounds and it goes like this:

• A ten minute teaching time with the whole class - in the beginning this is about process and practice of the structure of Daily Five. Later this will become input around Reading or Writing or Vocabulary.
• A breakout, where students make a choice of what they are going to do - caution this comes after you have established Reading, Writing and Words work individually.
• During the breakout time I meet individuals and conference reading around reading and writing - or take a group for a short while.
• Another ten minute gathering time - more input from the teacher.
• Another breakout
• Another ten minute input time.
• Another breakout
• Share time.

With older students breakout time is usually 25 - 30  minutes for me.  It just depends on the day.

Now not every day is a good day! (I define a good day as heaps of time for literacy!) Sometimes we only have one round or two rounds on other days.  I warn students at the beginning: today we have .... rounds. Then they can make their choice accordingly.

The two sisters Daily Five website is another place to visit.  I have a subscription to it because I find all the answers to my questions there!  I started out with a three month sub to see if it would be useful to me first. It was! Excellent video that models so many aspects.  If you don't subscribe at least sign up for the newsletter as it is great value.

Follow or/and join in with the Daily Five chat on Twitter. It goes under the hash #d5chat.  In New Zealand the chat time is on the 1st and 3rd Saturday at 1pm.  That is Friday evening in the States.

If you have a question, as you decide whether it is for you - don't hesitate to ask.

Daily Five 6 Weeks In.

We have now almost completed six weeks in our new school year and Daily Five is up and running.  We have Read to Self, Writing, Working with Words and Listening all operating.  I haven't reintroduced Read to Someone and may not this term.

I have managed to organise my conferring a little better this year. Signalling who I am going to see listed on the whiteboard has been helpful.  I am note keeping using Evernote.  I have given up using the table form I set up at the beginning of the year as it moves around too much.  So I just keep a plain page - dating each conference and adding notes. Each student has a notebook and I have a Reading Conference page for each.  It is working well, I find it suits me better to jot down a few words as I work using pencil and paper and then I  spend 5 minutes at the end of a session putting them into Evernote.  I keep watching out for the Penseive app from the Two Sisters!

I have also introduced the students to writing a letter response to me about their reading.  I have assigned them a day on which to hand these up.  As yet they are in their initial stages and still need encouragement to share their thinking. I am finding it a challenge to make the time to reply to each.  I think it will take us awhile to develop this aspect.  I was just thinking I need to model it again and wondering where I will steal the time to do so.  Then I remembered a book review I read yesterday on Zita the Space Girl that I think might suffice for now.

CAFE has been introduced and we are exploring expanding vocabulary.  I am finding that students are needing some strong encouragement in this area.  Having noted the Vocab board in the Two Sisters newsletter a few weeks ago I have set up a similar board.  We worked on a word taken from the book I am reading aloud.  We had some fun today using it in our oral vocabulary.  I have just read an article in the March Reading Teacher on vocabulary which has been helpful.  I have heaps more that I can read so I must explore this area more.  I want the students to grow their interest in words while they are working independently.

A video of our session today.  As we walked down to the local library we only managed one session today. The visit to the library once a fortnight gives us access to some wonderful books and we thoroughly enjoy going there.  I was able to take out Zita the Spacegirl to add to my reading pile.

You will notice we have a long narrow room with spaces that work well. Love it.

Classroom Setting Up - Week One.

I have a new determination to be a little more organised with the way my classroom has items organised.  I want to do this for ease of access for myself and my students.  So at the end of week one of year we are on the way to being organised and clutter free!

As we have no personal desk space, this year I have a bucket for each student.  They can name it and carry it wherever they need to go.  They have the option of removing the handles if they want.  These were inexpensive - $2.18 each from Mitre 10.

In it they have the books they are reading, their reading notebooks and writing notebooks, pencil cases and headphones.
So far they are proving to be a very good option.

I also found exactly the same buckets but in colour at Briscoes, on sale they worked out at $1.75.
 Each of these contains exercise books for such things as Maths, Religious Education, etc.

I have containers marked with pencils, sharpeners, scissors, pens, plasters, rulers.

The students have most of these themselves but every teacher knows that sometimes they don't!

Also it is where I dip into when I need things. So we share.

Notice student bucket being used!

Here the students have decided what genre books are in the green container.  They are making a label for it and adding stickers to the front covers so that they can easily return the books to the bin when they have finished reading it.
It took us longer than I thought, however many hands make light work and it saved me a few hours.

We only have a small class library, however this will slowly be added to as time goes by.

We also access books from home, the school library, the local Kapiti library once a fortnight and the National School Library Service provides us with 30 books at a time.






All in all I am very pleased with my decluttering!  I am working at present on my desk space, which is a small desk for my computer and a small table.  I want to sort that a little more so that I can readily access what I need. Perhaps a few nails in the wall coming up?!

Its Monday, What are you Reading?

 We have returned to a new school year here in New Zealand and while the time allotted to reading has dwindled I still managed to read two books and finish an audio.  Every little counts and as my goal is generally one children's book a week I am very pleased.
Hop on over and join in at the Mentor Text Blog.

I am continuing to read the Newbery books that I can lay my hands on.  This is the 2007 award winner.  I enjoyed it, although I wouldn't personally buy it for the class library.  If a student wanted to read it they can access it from the local library as I did using my smart card. 

This was my second book of the week, the 2000 Newbery award winner.  This was the first Newbery book so far that I really liked.  Bud was an endearing character and I wanted to pick up the book any spare moment I had so I read it very quickly.  I chose it because I have The Mighty Miss Malone lined up ready to read in the near future.

This one is a young adult book and the first one in a trilogy.  I listened on audio and well.... I actually loved it.  It was a big stretch for me as a reader as I hadn't ventured into anything dystopian. I will be eagerly anticipating the second in the trilogy which I think comes out in May.








This coming week I hope to read Our Only May Amelia by Jennifer Holm and possibly Breadcrumbs by Anne Ursu.

Newbery Award Challenge.

I have decided to take part in the following challenge being run by some teacher/librarians in the USA.  One of my goals is to read more children's literature so this is just one of the ways that I can work towards that.  The challenge is to read all the Newbery winners over the years.

The challenge can take a year or a decade, so that suits me as I don't want to limit myself to just these books. You can read about the challenge over on the blog MrSchu reads.

Read the Book before the Movie.

Today I finished the book War Horse by Michael Morpurgo. I have had it sitting on my table to read for a couple of months.  One of my goals has been to read more books that my students are reading or might read. I have been aiming for one a week.  With the holidays I want to increase that a little more.

It was a wonderful and touching story. It explored the relationship between horse and master, horse and horse.  Morpurgo tells the story through the eyes of the horse in a way that reminds me of Black Beauty.  It is a story of strong bonds, friendship, loyalty, commitment and kindness. And the futility and mindlessness of war. The main backdrop is World War 1.  I loved it and found I needed to reach for the tissues a few times.

As I placed the book on my Goodreads page I noticed people talking about the movie that is due to come out.  What a coincidence.  I bought this book because I thought it would appeal to the boys in my class. Now I know after reading it,it may appeal to the girls as well.  I do regret not reading it earlier so that they might read it before the movie comes out.  It is due out in the USA this month, and if online sources are correct it is due to come out in New Zealand on January 12th 2012.  I hope it carries the essence of the book.  Get the book out of your library, read it and then go see the movie!  You can also get it on Kindle, but this is one you will want to share.

One Step Leads to Another!

As the New Zealand school year winds down I look back and think, another year much the same as any other.  But in fact 2011 has been a great year of professional development and change.  In January I did the Edublog's teacher blogging challenge and through that I learned about new tools and made new connections. It was well worth it. It lead to another fork in the road. Twitter!

As I did the Edublog challenge I began to realize Twitter might be something to explore. I did so a little reluctantly.  It turned out to be the best professional development ever. I can pick and choose from all the wonderful ideas that educators are sharing. It’s awe inspiring.  Twitter pointed me in the direction of  Daily 5.

Over the January break I had placed the Daily Five and Café book on my Kindle, but they sat there in my TBR pile.  As I became aware of the Daily Five chat on Twitter, I got those books upgraded to the front of the queue and read them. I was an immediate convert, and from mid-year started to implement it in my class.  While the majority of people on Twitter seem to be mainly Junior school teachers, I was inspired by them and joined in with my Year 6 – 8.  The students loved the choice of Daily Five and it wasn’t long before they were up and running.  The Daily Five Chat on Twitter each Saturday has become the one chat I like to be there for.  I have learned so many tips. The best part is being renewed and enthused by like-minded professionals who take part in this chat.

During the chat one Saturday, The Book Whisperer was mentioned. I had seen this book on Amazon, but had noted it with a maybe….sometime….   The chat again nudged me to read this book by Donalyn Miller and I found answers to some of my questions I had for my Year 6 – 8 class as I implemented Daily Five. After reading this book I made a goal to read one children’s book a week and I think I am on target.  I started a little reluctantly but find I am enjoying the books.  I also get a buzz from seeing a book I have read and given a Book Talk about being read by a number of students in the class.  They get a buzz when I read a book they recommend. I will definitely continue with this into 2012.

Donalyn Miller mentioned the book Guiding Readers and Writers by Irene Fountas and Gay Pinnell.  This is a rather large tome.  I haven’t read it all but already it has been worth the money I spent.  I did want to implement some of the ideas this term, but my plans disintegrated when my Principal had emergency surgery and I had to re order my priorities.  I intend reading it further during our summer January break so that I am ready to hit Term One next year organised to go!

After reading Daily 5 and reflecting on the spirit of the book, I turfed out students individual desks and set up tables and a few desks.  I no longer kept a teacher’s desk for myself.  Today my relief teacher asked me “How is your free range classroom working out?’’ After a few laughs at the idea of my students and I running around like hens in a paddock I responded.  “I love it.” I think the majority of my students do too. For a while they clung to their “own” space but as time went by that changed.  I don’t have any custom made furniture for them to store their belongings so that has been an issue, but it’s not serious enough for me to abandon it. 

We have a large open plan space on our school property that now functions nicely as a school hall. However at one side it has a long narrow space that was once a classroom.  One of my colleagues was bemoaning the fact that she will have the largest class next year and is housed in the smallest room.  After a few days of this, without much thought I said, “I’ll move out and you can have mine, but I am not moving into your small hole.” I actually rather like the room I am in! I decided to move into the space by the open plan, and merely informed the Principal that was where I was going. While he was still coughing and spluttering I called it a fait accompli! 

  I'm moving classroom.  So between teaching only some days  in my classroom and working in the office other days, I am also cleaning my classroom that I am moving out of, and cleaning and throwing out junk from the space that I am moving into. I am full of excitement.  I met our local Resource Teacher of Literacy today, and told her where I was going next year; she responded “That will so suit your teaching style!” She should know, she has spent many hours in my room over the last number of years.  Just quietly I am sure it will too and I am so looking forward to the possibilities.  This year was to be one of personal voice - yes that's what I said on my Voki!  Hmm, I think it's a wrap!