It’s always super exciting each time I attend an RPI day as there is so much inspiration!
Starting with Fiona’s wonderful kaupapa and the reminders of how to set up our class sites – the 3 clicks – has made me need to go back, check and redo my own class site. Tweaking. Nothing wrong with re-visiing.
Perhaps now, I need to go to a more daily plan (having a specific task for each day), for the site, rather than an overall plan. At the moment I have been updating weekly…something that I have been more comfortable doing rather than fortnightly. Updating fortnightly may mean less mahi for me and a more thoughtful, insightful, and intriguing. Also, are my task-boards easy to navigate. Have i made the instructions and plans easy for the tamariki to understand?
The Mahi tracker has been awesome. I have used it for a few weeks now and the students all understand how to link up their work. Everyone is still getting used to it of course and there is the odd time where they accidentally delete someones or put their own link in other peoples area but thats all part of the learning isn’t it? I have been tweaking this plan a bit and making my own one so that it may be easier for the kids, less for them to explore. The one I have made up
Such an amazing amount of resources that can be used on our class sites. I need to dive deeper into the websites that I use to support my learners, and use the activities more that come with the stories. Use the independent activities to lessen the load.
Creating writing to make is look how it sounds has been part of teaching/learning for a while. I first started when I was using first chance in the classroom. Implementing it into the classroom can be difficult sometimes, but that just means that I need to make it easier for the students. perhaps start off by describing facial features of someone…this could be an activity to describe themselves or someone else in the group/class. Moving on to bigger parts like settings etc can be down the track. Prior knowledge will work into this and for some prior experience. I like the brainstorm style that we did in order to put all the ideas together into a paragraph.
Imagine and write down:
- a quiet, place or remote setting, like a church, graveyard, bush, park, other
- a time of day or night
- sound(s) you can hear
- something in the air: mist, smoke, rain, snow, wind
- a thing at the middle of the setting or place
- the name of a person at the place or scene
- what is the person doing
- a question the person is concerned about or is wondering
So much discussion can be made with description through words, but also as you showed, through picture. Create the discussion…this is a lesson by itself. The right questions can lead to some very rich thoughts, ideas, and experiences.
One thing I wanted to share is I personally did a piece of writing with my class last year. It was a very personal day for me where a friend had passed away a few years earlier. As a class we discussed how I was feeling as it was showing though so I wrote a piece to share with the class. From this, they also wrote a piece about someone that is important to them – mum, dad, sister, koro, friends, alive, passed…their choice. This was a really amazing time as the tamariki had a heart felt moment for me and what i was going through that day, but they also got to share their important people and moments of time. Unfortunately I don’t have the copies of the children’s pieces (should have taken photos), to compare with but my example is below.
This is 6 lessons in itself!
As for endings…This is definitely and area that needs to be worked on. I know that many of my tamariki do ot know how to do this as it’s not touched on closely enough…my fault!
So much to do but so excited to want to do it and pull it all together.
this is my mugshot
