Professional Practice - Year 4's

This unit focused on the early explorers who came to the coast of Australia in the 1700's and 1800's. The unit started with the students brainstorming everything they knew about early explorers. These brainstorms were placed up on the display board in the classroom. The students also began a word wall so that they could write up all the words that were new to them along with their definitions. (the words are a little hard to read on the window)

 After being introduced to early explorers the students undertook a research project which saw them investigate particular explorers. They completed this task in groups. After a few lessons of research and note taking they began working on their Report. These reports have also been put up in the classroom for everyone to see.

 To conclude the unit on early explorers students were given a post-it note. On their post-it note they had to write their name and one thing that they learnt about an explorer. This had to be about an explorer the students did not research themselves. They were given five minutes to read the different reports. Then they wrote on their post-it note and stuck it up on the sticky note board. I collected these after the class.

 A lot of students wrote about the work they were doing in history in their Friday Diary. They would often approach me telling me things they had read or learnt at home about different explorers. It was great to see the students take ownership and pride in their work. The class was always noisy during history but everyone was engaging so it was worth it. 

 

I created a word cloud to conclude the unit the class has been studying on Early Explorers. I took the words from the Early Explorers brainstorm and the word wall to create this. I also used words from the student’s sticky notes reflections. This activity involved students writing down one thing that they learnt from someone else's Early Explorers report onto a sticky note and placing it on the sticky note board. These three areas provided lots of interesting words for our word cloud.

I used an anchor shape because it linked in nicely with the work we have been doing. I also printed three word clouds using the same words as there were different words highlighted in each word cloud. This looks great up on the classroom wall.

"Iron Man" by Ted Hughes

Integrating Literacy with Maths and Art

 

Here are a few examples of the work that was completed during our lessons on "Iron Man."

PLOT GRAPH:

We constructed a Plot Graph and then the students made their own in their  workbooks. I then had several students draw their graphs onto the class graph. As a class we discussed the results of the graph and what they meant. The students than wrote a sentences or two onto their graph to summarize the results.


IRON MAN PREDICTIONS:

After reading the first chapter of Iron Man, students wrote what they predicted would happen in the novel and why they thought this. I also had them write down if they would be disappointed if something happened or didn't happen in the book and what this might be. After completing the book the students then went back and reviewed their prediction and wrote if they were correct or not.

DRAWING IRON MAN:

As a class we read the first two pages of the novel. We then reviewed how the author described Iron Man. The students then drew a picture of Iron Man and label his different parts using the language used by the author.

IRON MAN COMIC:

After reading each chapter the students drew the main events in a comic. They used the technique of Omneopodea, which is what the author uses through out the novel.



IRON MAN VENN DIAGRAM:

The students constructed a Venn diagram to compare and contrast the main characters in "Iron Man"

 

 More literacy lessons I conducted on prac...

This is the way I like to construct my Phonics lessons. As an extra activity students can draw pictures of their words they come up with, or my favourite, create a silly sentence using one word from each grapheme box.

 

One Grammar lesson I did in the class was working on making more interesting sentences.

Science and Literacy

I split my science lesson into two parts, one part was interactive and the other was silent individual work. First the students interacted using a game on BBC2 which explores materials and their properties. The students used their show me boards to predict what would happen with each material.

In the second half I had the students write a story about a paper classroom. In this story they were required to write about the positives and negatives of a classroom being made out of paper. After their first drafts, the students edited their work and then produced a good copy. They included a picture of their story and their work is displayed in a plastic display folder. This allows all the students to read each others work, encourages accountability and provides students with a purpose for their writing.