There is a lot of changes in my plan and these changes are going to take time for the tamariki to settle into.
Daily Writing
- This lesson is going to be made up of a daily explicit teaching lesson about a part of grammar/sentence structure. This will be followed by independent writing time where there are rotations of activities that involve practice of the new lesson/skill learned, along with daily writing and spelling activities. Here is an example of the format:
- Pick up a Pen = free writing. I have sentence/story starters and photos they can use for inspiration.
- Spelling Shed task = based on spelling in the curriculum
- The blue cells contain activities = either digital or presented digitally, based on the WALT.
- Each session is 16 minutes long with 2 minutes transition time. Books must be handed in at the end. Writing is checked by wandering around the room, finding out if they are following their goals (which are written in the back of their writing books).
- The tamariki named their own groups which are split by super low, and then mixed ability for the rest of them. I also popped them into groups that work together, trying to avoid clashing personalities. They are also doing other options such as: Handwriting - poetry transcription and illustration, Group story writing, which has had some interesting results as the dynamics settle, and more will be added for variety.
- Handwriting is being taught explicitly each day for 10 mins or so separately. There is a big need for automaticity is needed to reduce cognitive load during writing. The brain can then be used for great content rather than trying to figure out how to produce letters on a page.
- A big focus has been checking that their sentences make sense.
- I have daily explicit teaching through Helen Walls programme of parts of sentences. For example a unit on Apex Predators - LINK.
The tamariki have taken to the plan probably better than I thought they would since it involved a big change to their routines. They seem to enjoy writing which is great.
But....
there is a big problem though, and that is the lack of prior knowledge. The requirement to do such explicit teaching of the new curriculum with so much more in it has exposed how the level required for year 4, 5 & 6 requires a lot more to be taught in the previous years. As they too have only just started this new journey, it means a few holes need to be plugged before we can move forward.
