I have found the range of number talk activities very beneficial, having the opportunity to practice before I share with the students has enabled me to gain confidence and ensure I know what I am doing.  I am looking forward to using the number strings that have an entry, helper, and challenge problem that enables all students to achieve success and have opportunities to learn at a more advanced level with their peer support. The Number Strings can be implemented across all the strands.

I will be creating some display-guided questions to use with the students so they can use them during their number talk conversations.

I have previously talked about the importance of introducing maths vocabulary with a range of examples.  I will continue introducing, modeling, and prompting the students to use the correct vocabulary. Having the vocabulary easily accessible is important, glued in books and displayed on the walls.

Fractions and Decimals as Operators

Throughout this professional development, I have been the learner and I realize the importance of reading and fully understanding the questions and learning opportunities.  Having the opportunity to explore all the digital tools has been fantastic.  I have been using a lot more digital tools in connection with a range of hands-on learning resources in my maths programme.  The students have been really engaged with the learning tools.

I loved the measurement library bookshelf, and any opportunity to share my love of books so students can form connections with mathematics, a creative way to introduce a new strand, vocabulary, and a concept both in the classroom and everyday contexts.

Initially, I found the maths tasks board extremely busy however I realize that these maths board examples have to cater to a range of learning needs and years from 4- 8.  As the professional development has progressed I have found the variety of number talks, teaching and consolidation/maintenance a valuable re

What did I learn that increased my understanding of the kaupapa and pedagogy of the Manaiakalani Mathematics Programme?

It is important to remember that my students have a lot of language and experiences that they bring from their culture – English, Tongan, Spanish, Cambodian, Polish, and Malayalam to name a few in my classroom.  All of the students need to learn the maths language, symbols, and texts.

Technology has progressed from initially (in my school days) having the teacher stand in front of the class talking and displaying learning models on the blackboard to progressing to a calculator however we were not allowed to use it to solve maths problems.

Thank goodness both teacher and learners have not only the teacher modelling, instructing, and encouraging discussion and participation there is a huge variety of digital tools to use and enhance learning. Using a range of digital technologies and gives lots of opportunities to bring in the language.

I do need to ensure when using digital tools to make sure I take the time to show the students how to use their devices  

I learned that you can go into the special characters (I knew about the special characters) and search maths symbols/fractions/decimals, and write the equation/maths problem in the URL search and it will show you how to do it. That its going to be so much easier and quicker!

Throughout the day I have learned a lot more maths vocabulary, I wish I had such in-depth professional development during my teacher training.  I like the table with the new vocabulary that has the definition, explanation, and symbol displayed.  I have and will continue to share this at the beginning of a new strand/curriculum area.  I have given individual copies of these tables for quick reference to all my learners.  Its always beneficial to revisit the importance of the equal symbol, I loved the image of the scales to show the importance of balance of quantities of either side – the operation/problem and the sum are the same =.

The equal sign represents a balance – important to develop early in maths

The equal sign means that the two sides should balance. E.g. 8=5+3.

      Whole and Rational

There were two focuses for day four – Maths Content and How to Teach it.

Manaiakalani Kaupapa and Shared Pedagogy – Presenter Dorothy Burt

Dorothy emphasized the following –

R- Recognizing Effective practice, she used Manaiakalani’s Pillars of Practise

• NZ Curriculum
• Local curriculum and how we as a school community interpret the curriculum.
• Ministry of Education
• Informed by research both internationally and Manaikalani.

A – Amplify our practice by using and harnessing our digital technologies.

The ability to access and use digital technologies has transformed the way we learn and offers new opportunities and experiences.

T – Turbocharge – effective practice using worksheets, Maths Wizz, Mathematics, and Math Fact Lab.

Remember it is important to track student’s progress – TRACKING IS KEY!  

The digital technologies need to be aligned to the learning needs of your learners NOT a fill-in.

It’s always a valuable learning opportunity to listen to Dorothy about Manaiakalani’s kaupapa and pedagogy.

Maths Talk Number – Presenter Donna Yates

I learned the importance of establishing ground rules to ensure all learners are included in a safe learning environment and are supported to share their maths knowledge using high-quality talk.

Donna discussed the importance of establishing and revisiting the group rules for talking.  Assigning specific roles to support and encourage participation with all learners is advantageous.

Donna shared that talk is critical with the focus on increasing high-quality talk. Talk Moves is an excellent approach to ensure all learners actively participate and talk.

I learned the value of using Choral counting to deepen the learners’ knowledge and understanding of the metric number system. This warm-up activity allows the students to see patterns, place value, and develop mathematical thinking.  I will be sharing this warm-up activity with my colleagues and implementing this warm-up with my mathematics groups.

Donna shared Choral counting, a wonderful warm-up activity where the teacher leads the children to count aloud together by a given or identified number.  The children are instructed/encouraged to see and discuss patterns and to critically think about the numbers thus deepening their understanding of the number.

Understanding Place Value – Presenter Elena Terekhina

Since Elena’s presentation, I now have a maths vocabulary sheet for every child to glue into their maths book. I previously had one in the group modelling book that they could access but having one in their books is easier for the student to use and refer back to. Elena emphasized the importance of reading and knowing the curriculum expectations of the learners by the end of year 6. Primary educators need to know what the students are expected to know by the time they leave primary school.

Manaiakalani is fantastic at sharing digital resources for both teachers and students.  I’m always keen to share these with my colleagues.

Fractions as Operators – Presenter Georgie Hamilton

Georgie shared the importance of displaying and giving follow-up learning activities with vocabulary, giving thestudents a copy or leaving the picture empty.

Sharing and having access to a wide range of interactive websites that the students use to deepen their knowledge of fractions is a valuable digital resource that I will be sharing with my students.  It was interesting and valuable learning for myself with the specific maths vocabulary to use and the misconceptions and what I should not say for example – 2 out of 3 multiplied by 24. I am not to say, “OUT OF.”

I also learned that it is important when teaching to give multiple examples/representations, researchers suggest using continuous models with a variety of quality materials.

Planning a Maths Programme

Vicki Archer opened with a presentation about making learning visible and rewindable. I reflected, on my learning journey at school, if I didn’t grasp it first or remember the strategy – tough luck! It was primarily on memory and if I was brave enough, ask the teacher for support!

Visible rewindable learning with the learning intention and success criteria clarifies students’ learning and enables the students to make connections by gaining ownership of their learning and the purpose.

Kiri Kirkpatrick shared the importance of knowing the NZ curriculum and learning progressions. I must know their prior knowledge, next learning steps, and progressions. otherwise, I am teaching blind!  It’s essential to keep referring to the curriculum and learning progressions both within my learning hub and schoolwide.

I need to know what the learning outcomes are for year 6 students

Planning a Maths Rich Session

Elena Terekhina presented ‘Planning a Maths Rich Session.’

This was very interesting as I wasn’t sure what the term ‘Maths Rich’ was or how you taught and managed the session. These sessions allow students to think creatively and co-operatively in different ability groups. I am excited to introduce these sessions to my students. Elena suggested introducing the Maths Rich session with the whole class and monitoring their problem-solving.

When planning…

• Think about the learners when choosing a problem
• Not too easy – not too hard
• Is it authentic and interesting
• Not every problem will be a maths-rich task.
• Plan for a Thursday
• Students need time to turn and talk
• What are the important ideas in this problem?
• What materials or equipment needed to solve this problem
• Collaborative problem-solving – is important for mixed-ability student groups

I love Manaiakalani’s philosophy of sharing resources and sites.  It’s like opening a box of Cadbury’s chocolates – which site to explore first.

Who is going to share back with the class?

It’s always a great strategy to give all students a role/job so they are all participating.

The Process of Sharing

Elena discussed the order of sharing, highlighting that I do not need to select the student with the most sophisticated problem-solving strategy.  I can commence with the students who have a lower level of strategy.

I must teach the students that they are not all going to share! Some students feel it’s their right to share first as they perceive their strategy is the best!  As Elena stated there is always another day!

An alternative method of sharing is splitting the range of the class – 

Another strategy for problem-solving is to write up the problem with the answer and the students have to select a strategy and show how they came to the answer.  I really like this strategy as there are always students who immediately just want to write the answer and not show or share how they worked it out.

Follow-up Learning -Independent

Presenter Georgie Hamilton

Tailor basic facts – working on long-term memory – e.g. timetables

Georgie’s statement below resonated with me, students do need to learn basic facts and timetables so they have instant recall!  This is how I learned!

We need to learn by rote repeated practice enables students to free up short-term memory for new information.

It was worthwhile reflecting on what is a confident maths teacher, having the opportunity to reflect and share in a group was a valuable experience. The following statements resounded with me…

• enjoyment
• knowledge and understanding of our local curriculum
• knowledge of maths curriculum and progressions
• competency or a willingness to research and learn before teaching
• know my learners and celebrate their strengths

This was reinforced when I had to view the survey about my mathematic knowledge, there were a couple of challenging problems. However, I would become proficient with a willingness to learn and practice the strategies.

I love that Manaiakalani shares tools I can share with my students so they can access their learning or share what they are learning.

Keeping Track of Data

Keeping track of learners’ data was very interesting, I have used the PAT assessment tool however not until this year with my syndicate as I was previously a year one teacher.  I found utilising the teacher’s workbook and putting the PAT and Eastle onto my workbook very workable. Having the data and my planning on one spreadsheet is easier and more sustainable. There was a lot of learning and exploration with the PAT assessment, looking at item reports and identifying the gaps and next learning steps.

Assessment Capable Learner

Revisiting learning intentions and success criteria was familiar, I always need to revisit these targeted goals and criteria for clarity and to ensure I have written these specifically for the learners’ learning needs.  One statement that resounded with me was to commence the success criteria                                            with a verb.

The question do we give time for students’ reflection, initially my response was yes… however I need to use the tracking in the teacher worksheet to monitor and ensure I am keeping track. This will be easier to access and monitor than recording in the group’s modelling book.

Pulling it Altogether

It is essential to have student’s attitudes, abilities, and how they learn. It is difficult to plan and implement an effective programme without taking time to know your learners. It would be interesting to do the survey with the teachers at my school to ascertain their attitudes towards mathematics and learning.

Initially, when viewing the slide with the students learning for the week the layout was very busy. My wondering is why do need to have my teacher’s notes visible? I would need to adapt this slide to the learning needs of my students.

The Profile of a Good Mathematician

The profile of a good mathematician, I had to reflect and think about these words – I immediately thought of mastery of bas 10. However, there is much more to a profile –

•  forming connections
•  creativity
• sharing the maths learning
• taking risks and not being afraid to make mistakes – this is growing the muscles in our brain
• interpreting and evaluating
• authentic earning and discovery

An area that I need to grow is giving my learners opportunities to share what they have learned in a range of presentations. Giving learning opportunities to share enables the learning to be consolidated through practice and allows peers to learn skills and form new connections.

The surveyed responses from Year 5 and 6 students about how they best learned surprised me.

This is my superhero. Her name is Pohutukawa Girl. Her superpower is that she can turn into a tree to disguise herself, and shoot Pohutukawa blossoms from her fingers.

Family: Mother, Hinemoana; Father, Tangaroa; Sister, Lucky.

Transportation: Flying, swimming, walking, sand-gliding

Sidekick – Rata Boy

World: Tokomaru Bay

Weapons: Wooden splinter from her bodice: they shoot out when she is in danger

Nemisis – The Blight

Weakness: Chainsaws

Today in our Cybersmart lesson we were thinking about online gaming and how to be cybersmart when we are playing these games.

We watched a video of 2 girls playing a game together and what they did to make it fun and friendly. We also talked about what the 2 girls did when something went wrong. They used the in-app buttons to “block” and “decline” others.

We created a video in Canva and included a frame about a game we like to play, the rules we have at home about gaming and something we can do to keep games fun and friendly.

Here is Gus’ mahi…

gus gaming

Saeoh has recenly joined our class. She is from Korea. We translated our mahi in Canva to Korean so she could read the activity and complete it. Here is her work so far…

Saoeh (Korean)

Today in our Cybersmart lesson we were thinking about online gaming and how to be cybersmart when we are playing these games.

We watched a video of 2 girls playing a game together and what they did to make it fun and friendly. We also talked about what the 2 girls did when something went wrong. They used the in-app buttons to “block” and “decline” others.

We created a video in Canva and included a frame about a game we like to play, the rules we have at home about gaming and something we can do to keep games fun and friendly.

Here is Gus’ mahi…

gus gaming

Saeoh has recenly joined our class. She is from Korea. We translated our mahi in Canva to Korean so she could read the activity and complete it. Here is her work so far…

Saoeh (Korean)

Today in our Cybersmart lesson we were thinking about online gaming and how to be cybersmart when we are playing these games.

We watched a video of 2 girls playing a game together and what they did to make it fun and friendly. We also talked about what the 2 girls did when something went wrong. They used the in-app buttons to “block” and “decline” others.

We created a video in Canva and included a frame about a game we like to play, the rules we have at home about gaming and something we can do to keep games fun and friendly.

Here is Gus’ mahi…

gus gaming

Saeoh has recenly joined our class. She is from Korea. We translated our mahi in Canva to Korean so she could read the activity and complete it. Here is her work so far…

Saoeh (Korean)

Do you play online Games? Do you have any rules at home about playing them? Do you think carefully about what happens online when you are playing games?

These are all questions we thought about today in our Cybersmart lesson. We watched a video about playing games online and about the strategies the players used when something went wrong or they didn’t like what was happening. What would you do if something went wrong in a game?

We made a list:

• block them
• report them to the website owner
• tell our parents
• tell our teacher
• take a screenshot
• email the screenshot to our parents or our teacher
• check the privacy settings on the game

We created a video about how we can level up our online safety. We will need to complete these next week.

Here is Sam’s work so far…

Sam pro gameing

Today in our Science lesson we were learning about ecosystems. Do you know what an ecosystem is?

We talked about animals living with other animals in an environment to survive. They need each other to live.

Today we built an ecosystem in our class. We are building one for a sea monkey. What is a sea monkey?

Firstly we had to draw a sea monkey in our books. Here are our drawings.

Next we created our Sea Monkey Ecosystem in a jar…

Firstly we put water into the jar. Next we poured some water purifier into the water. And we have to leave it for 24 hours. George says the water purifier will make it clean. We made the environment today. On Thursday we will carry on creating our ecosystem.

Today we were talking about how to edit images online to change them. We talked about protecting our online identity by editing images of ourselves. We used Lunapic to make a collage of a selfie. We explored all the different styles, took a screenshot and inserted it onto these slides.

Today we were talking about the Earth’s crust and the tectonic plates on it. We looked at the globe jigsaws and talked about the 2 types of tectonic plates and the ways they move.

Then we did an experiment.

We had a container and put 750ml of water in it. We had to find out how many ways we could make waves but not spill a drop of water on the table.

We found lots of ways…

• move the container
• move the table
• blow on the water
• stamping our feet

Which way do you think made the biggest waves?

We got some jellybeans and a teddy bear and dropped them into the water and watched what happened to the water.

Today in our Cybersmart lesson we were thinking about Media, what it is, where we see it and what we use.

Then we used Canva and created a video about the media we use. We had to search for icons or images. We added them and thought about animating them so they move and catch our eye. We added a background that fits and doesn’t take over the design. And we also added audio.

Here is some of our mahi. Do you use some of the media we do? Which one do you use the most?

Gabriella’s mahi

Hargun’s mahi

Today in our Cybersmart lesson we were thinking about Media, what it is, where we see it and what we use. Then we used Canva and created a video about the media we use. We had to search for icons or images. We added them and thought about animating them so they move and catch our eye. Some of use inserted a photo of us and turned it into a silhouette by adjusting the brightness and contrast. We added a background that fits and doesn’t take over the design. We had to rename our project and share it into a folder so our tecaher can see our work.

We will complete these next week by adding audio then downloading it and posting it on our blog.

Here is Hannah’s work so far…

Today we started our Science learning about earthquakes. Firstly we were learning about our planet and the layers it is made up of.

We looked at the layers of Earth with a model made of plasticine. The different colours show the layers. The Earth’s crust is sand on the outside because it is really thin.

We explored the layers using some special globe jigsaws. We are using resources from The House of Science. Schools can borrow the resources from The House of Science.

We did some shared writing together about what we learned this morning.

Did you know that there are 4 layers on Planet Earth? Do you know what they are called? Read our story below to find out.

Eclipse was busy reading in her cosy place during reading today.

Where do you like to sit or lie to read?

Listen to Eclipse read some of her book.

We have been learning about Moas this term. We read books earlier and we created a painting of a Moa that is the real size of one. You can see our painting here.

Today we did an online quiz in Blooket. We played it 2 ways.

The first way was all together as a class. Speed and accuracy gained points. Here is our result.

Ka pai tō mahi Shanvi!

Then we played it in Homework mode. We played individually but still competed against the class. We had to level up by answering questions correctly and completing stages.

Here is the leaderboard at the end of today. Oh look! Shanvi is at the top again! Ka mau te wehi!