Use old photo albums in the classroom

I will admit I find it difficult to throw things away because I always think I will find a use for them in the classroom. Well I am happy to say that I do actually have a reason this time. I found this old slide in photo album (non-adhesive) that I am using as reading assessment. I wrote the words on post it notes which helps to stop the paper from sliding about.

Recount Writing - Word Wall

This is what is up on the wall all the time during our recount writing session. The colours of the text reflect our learning of Functional Grammar and the language used is familiar.  

The words under the headings are just written on scrap bits of paper and are added to as students need them. We do also use dictionaries and students are free to search for their required word or have-a-go. Once they have found it, we add it to the wall. 

We have spent a lot of time focusing on the adding of circumstances, 'when' and 'who with?'. My students at the beginning of the year may have been able to write 'I went to the park' (after we spent a long time getting them out of using the word 'go'). I started by asking when they did this e.g. On the weekend, On Saturday, On Sunday, Last night to name a few. I asked them to write this at the beginning of the sentence, though at the end still would have worked well. After we had achieved this successfully we started talking about who we went somewhere with, or who we played with and so on. 

Our next step might be to concentrate on a different circumstance or change the sentence structure around. 

Obviously the verbs/processes are in past tense in order to the fulfil the recount writing genre requirements, but this same type of writing prompts could be used with other genres. I have my paper on the wall with blu-tac, and this makes it easy to change papers. You could also put plastic sleeves on the wall and slide the paper out when writing a different genre. 

Domino Maths

We've been practising subitising using dice and then revising our addition skills by adding the numbers together. Today we simply changed it up a bit by using dominoes.

Wombat Description

I wanted my students to become 'wombat experts', to learn everything we could about wombats, with end goals of being able to first confidently and accurately talk about wombats and to write an Information Report about them. Keeping these in mind, all the learning we had achieved was to keep us interested in wombats, always looking at new videos, finding new books, looking at photos of wombats and discussing wombats. I wanted my students to be as successful as they could be, and so I tried hard to keep learning exciting and I wanted to arm them with the skills they needed. 

One step before writing an Information Report was writing a Description. Before they could write a description, they needed to know the names of wombat body parts and think of descriptive words they may use when writing their own Descriptions. We printed off a photograph of a wombat and set to work. Students were then able to use this as resource when writing independently.