Monday 23rd September 2013
I thoroughly enjoyed my first day working with Mrs Dungworth's year one class. The children were lovely and the teacher was very supportive.
I was first set a task before the children had arrived at school, to cut out some pictures of kings using the guillotine. These would be used for numeracy later and the larger pictures for a literacy activity.
As the children came in to settle down, I heard a child P read, helping him with any complicated words and made a log of his progress in the reading progress book that each child has.
The children have been learning cursive letters and I helped some of them to write these out - the letters start on the line and curve round so that they can be joined up with other letters, also it encourages the children to fully form the letters so that they sit properly on the line and are recognisable. I helped with the more difficult letters such a 'p' and 'd' which are easily mixed up as well as 'g' and 'o' which should have two 'flicks' one where it starts on the bottom of the line and one where it would finish or join another letter if contained within a word.
I helped one child with phonics - the sounding of letters and words with these letters in so the 'oat' sound is in 'boat', 'coat' and 'moat'. The children on the carpet could chose a foam set of letters such as 'igh' which they found the word 'high' 'sigh' 'light' and 'might' and even one child found 'weigh' used these letters.
Class 1D have been making castles as part of creative art and I helped some of the children cut the turrets and cut out the windows where we poked a pencil through to make a hole and then cut out the square shape for the window. I also helped so,me children with the gluing of the round part of the tower as this was a little tricky for some children. All of the children were able to make the design of their castle independently and were very creative with decoration on their castles.
Working with another group who had a picture of a castle worksheet, I was helping them to label the names of the different parts of the castle, 'turret' 'drawbridge'' flag' 'moat' 'gate' etc. The children found this quite hard however, so I wrote the words out on a whiteboard and some children were able to copy the words of here, whilst others still had trouble writing certain letters and labelling each word with the correct part of the castle, so I am working on this for next session.
For my next task I walked around the class and checked that the children knew what was being asked of them and that they were not struggling with their work, at this point one group who was doing numeracy were looking at ways that we can get to a total of five, for example on one crown M has put pictures of three kings and on the other crown she has put two kings, whereas L has put four kings on one crown and one king on the other crown, we talked about this and how you would write the number sentence which is 3 + 2 = 5 and 4 + 1 = 5 which both make the same total.
As part of learning through play three children and myself played the board game 'snakes and ladders' which helped teach the children about turn taking, game rules, and helped with counting and number recognition in line with the children's' numeracy targets.
Wednesday 25th September 2013
I joined Mrs Jackson's year one class on the Wednesday and it was great that Mrs Jackson had some tasks for me to do with the children throughout the day. It allowed me to use the time constructively and to see what still needed to be done.
The children in 1J were very friendly and quite lively too! Mrs Jackson was very welcoming and helped me to get settled into the class.
Firstly I helped the children to get settled into the room and I got to talk to some of the parents and it was nice to meet them. I helped the children with cursive letters on their whiteboards, mostly allowing them to write each word independently, only helping where a child was struggling with a particular word or letter. The children seemed to have got to grips with a lot of the basic words such as 'and' 'to' 'they' 'go' 'when' and so on. I was mostly overseeing this activity as well as some of the parents stay for a few minutes and help their child settle in and help their child with the first activity.
Next I heard a child 'C' read, helping him with any difficult words or sounding out the words, I then recorded this progress in his reading log and in the teacher's green folder which makes a note of the children that have read and on what date.
My next task was to get quotes about what the children had learned about a king, queen, castle, knight, prince or princess which will go in speech bubbles and be displayed on the wall with the children's castles. I managed to get a quote out of most children, however I need quotes of six more children next week, some children were reluctant to tell me what they had learnt, however after a little encouragement most did. I just need to help the last six to do so!
The children have also been learning the story in line with the theme of castles; 'The Princess and the Pea' and Mrs Jackson drew symbols of each action in the story on the interactive board so the children are able to join in retelling the story. I was helping some of the children to come up with signs/actions that we could use to show parts of the story, for example one child came up with using her hands as a heart symbol on her head for the character of the true princess, the king was a crown symbol which is two straight hands about the head, the queen was the hands made into a triangle above the head, the notion of marriage was a using two fingers to shape a heart, time was pointing to a watch etc. this way the children can remember the story and retell it with actions and simple phrases. It was also helping them to remember what they have learnt about castles and who lives in them.
For creative art the children have been designing the king's knickers of which this artwork had been completed before I joined the class, and so while 1J were in assembly I was putting their colourful artwork on display up on two lines around the classroom.
As part of the next activity I was helping a child 'G' with writing certain letters and numbers on his whiteboard, for example showing him how to write an eight (8) and how to write the number sentence 4 + 4 = 8. Next I helped to write the letter Z and find a word with it in,' Z is for Zip' 'Z is for Zebra' the words were written with cursive letters - they start on the line and join other letters.
I then heard another child 'K' read and recorded this as in line with track progress recording. I was impressed with her reading and how after sounding out some of the more difficult words she was able to read them in the context of the whole sentence.
Class 1J had P.E. in the afternoon and so I helped some of the children to change for P.E. especially where a child struggled to get her top over her head and undo buttons as she had a splint on her arm. Whilst the children were doing P.E. I was able to hear another three children read to me. One was able to change his reading book and two children were fluent readers, one was able to recite what had happened in the book. I recorded their progress in their reading log book and in the teacher's green folder. Where the children get on well with a book they are encouraged to choose another out of the book box, whereas the children that struggle with a book read it again to learn some of the words and or themes in the book - helping them to be more comfortable with more difficult words and gain confidence in their reading abilities.
I helped out with some behaviour management where the children were messing about in the line and so I asked them to stand quietly and face the front of the line and to do good listening for Mrs Jackson, where children are good they get a star for good behaviour and at the end of the day I chose two children, a boy and a girl to receive a star each. I also watched for any misbehaviour in the group of children doing jobs in the corridor just outside the classroom, the children were well behaved but just needed reminding that only four children are allowed to be doing jobs at the table outside the classroom, and so I sent one child back into the classroom.
Finally just before home time I helped two children to put the reading books on top of the all the children's reading book bags, helping them to read the more difficult names of their classmates. The children did really well, mostly being able to do this independently apart from a few names, it encourages reading skills, confidence in being able to carry out a task for the teacher and also it helps the children to recognise their peers names.
I really enjoyed my first two days of placement and look forward to going back to class next week!
