Technology

Posted on March 31, 2017 by lisasporn

We’ve been working hard to learn how to use different forms of technology in our daily learning activities. Our school uses iPads in every classroom through embedding them into our daily classroom activities.

We’ve been experimenting with different apps in our learning, such as:

reading online in Daily 5 reading activities with Ziptales and Sunshine Online
Word Wizard for phonological spelling tasks
Chatterpix – a fun way to make pictures tell a message
Popplet – mind mapping tasks
Bee Bots for coding and programming
Book Creator – creating books to show our learning in different areas
Seesaw – to share our learning with our families
Scratch Jnr – coding
Garageband to create original music pieces
Number Pieces – looking at place value of numbers using MAB equipment
Explain Everything – creating presentations about different topics.

We’ve also got a Stickbot kit for green screen filming of stories that we create and a Little Bits kits to see how to create circuits to make wheels turn, lights go on/off, buzzers to buzz, fans to spin and lots more.

We’re about to start using Maker’s Empire to plan, design and create objects that relate to our Inquiry programme. We’ve just started designing and learning how to use the app. Stay tuned for posts about our 3D products.

What’s your favourite form of technology to use and why?

What would you like to try next?

Musical Chairs Reading

Posted on October 24, 2016 by lisasporn

Our class LOVES to read everyday and we use the Daily 5 reading menu to develop our reading skills. Today we tried a new activity! We did musical chairs reading – you play by the same rules to play musical chairs but wherever you sit down you read the books that are on that seat. This is a great opportunity to read different types of books – fiction and non fiction book, novels, short stories and picture fiction books. Lots of people added the books to their book boxes after reading them during our game. Everyone was really focussed on reading and we can’t wait to do this game again.

Daily 5 – Listen to Reading

Posted on August 16, 2016 by lisasporn

Every Tuesday we use our laptops, desktop computers and iPads to listen to different books online. Our school has subscribed to Sunshine online and Ziptales and we LOVE them! There are lots of different books to choose from and there’s lots of different levels that suit everyone’s different reading levels and interests. We also do listen to reading on other days – depending on how many devices we can use.

Here’s some photos from today’s listen to reading session:

Tell us about some of your favourite stories.

Daily 5 Reading CAFE

Posted on March 17, 2016 by lisasporn

We use the Daily 5 CAFE menu as our reading focus EVERY day when we practise our reading skills.

This week we have focussed on:

Read “good fit’ books – everyone has their own book box to manage. It has some levelled readers and books that interest us. Each reader knows most of the words in the book, they use the pictures as clues and they’re interesting to the reader.

Read with expression – we use different tones when we are reading to make our books “come alive”. We look at the text for clues that we may need to change the expression in our reading voices, e.g. bold text, larger text and a story character speaking.

Back up and re-read – Back up and reread is a strategy consistently used by proficient readers because it works so well. When meaning breaks down, going back and reading again will often help improve comprehension, especially if the rereading is done more slowly, with more intention and focus, allowing the brain to absorb the meaning of the content.

Daily 5 Book Sale

Posted on November 1, 2015 by lisasporn

We recently held a book sale in our class. We LOVE a book sale as it gives every student in our class a chance to share 1 or more books that they think we might like to read.

As a part of each student’s presentation they need to include:

the title
the name of the author
a basic retell of the story (without giving away the ending!)
the format or style of the book
and most importantly – why it might appeal to us as a reader! What will we enjoy about the book?

This time we had Riley, Bel, Coby, Oz, Lauren, Harrison, Keira and Jon present books to us. Each of them did a wonderful job – they gave very detailed insights into the books they presented. Lots of class members were looking for them in our Library during our book borrowing session that afternoon.

Great job to Riley, Bel, Coby, Oz, Lauren, Harrison, Keira and Jon for getting us all interested in some new books.

Book week Dress Up Day

Posted on August 29, 2015 by lisasporn

As a part of our Bookweek celebrations each student in our class was asked to bring along a book to share and read with a small group.

This was an exciting opportunity to share a book that each student loved and was important to them. We had quite a large variety of books brought in – picture books, novels, non fictions texts – all very special to each person.

Everyone read their books with confidence and in a clear way – we loved hearing why their books were important to them.

What are we reading today?

Posted on August 17, 2015 by lisasporn

Today as a part of our Daily 5 reading we did ‘read to self’. It’s one of our favourite reading tasks at the moment as we have lots of people in our class reading longer books or novels and they enjoy having long periods of time to really enjoy the story they’re reading.

Here’s what we were reading today.

What are some books that you like to read and tell us why. We’re always on the look out for new, interesting books to read.

Deep reading time

Posted on August 11, 2015 by lisasporn

Today we changed our partner reading session – just to keep things interesting!

We used our non0-fiction texts that relate to our inquiry unit about livings things – their needs and what our responsibilities are in looking after them.

We looked for the different features of a non fiction text:

We LOVED reading with our partners and learning so much new information about living things, plants and their needs. So many of our questions from the Wondering Wall were answered -as well as had us thinking about new questions to add.

We really enjoyed using non fiction texts for partner reading and we LOVED having a long reading session to really take time to read different texts.

Daily 5 Reading Menu

Posted on April 29, 2015 by lisasporn

As we continue to develop our reading skills we added 4 more strategies to our Daily 5 Cafe board.

We are using these skills really well every time we read:

Make a mental picture or images.
Use the pictures. Do the words and pictures match.
Back up and reread.
Predict what will happen next, use the text to confirm.

Then we added 4 new skills that we’ll be developing in whole class reading sessions, read to self, partner reading and listening to reading activities.