Oral language activities

Conversation with Livvy Sheehan (other new entrant teacher) about improving students oral language.

We discussed how some of our students oral language was not strong. Some were unable to speak clearly, some cannot share their ideas. Some students comprehension is very low.

Idea:
Make Wednesday’s whanau hui into a wondering Wednesday. Ie; show a short video, share a news article or photo. Pose questions to the students to get them thinking and talking.
Sharing ideas = Think, pair, share. Doughnut circle.
Popsicle sticks = All names written on a popsicle stick. Can either make groups by drawing names out. Or that is how students are chosen to answer. Ie: instead of picking the same kids everytime.

Shape lesson on the Court

 

Shape/Geometry
This lesson we went outside and had to find shapes on the court (that I had pre-drawn). We then each had our own piece of chalk and had to practice drawing shapes.
What a fun lesson!

Generating Ideas

 In one of our writing sessions I wanted the children to extend a basic sentence "this is a cat". I wanted them to use more descriptive language, I knew that I would need to generate a discussion to give them ideas so we had a whole class discussion. I encouraged them to think of their own cat if they had one, This really helped them to make connections.
I then took a photo of our chat and put it on the screen the next day to remind them what we'd discussed so they could write their own sentence.

Ability Grouped

Children are ability grouped for writing, reading and maths.
Groups are reviewed in our own class continually. We haven't been swapping between classes Term 2 due to report writing.