Sunday, 8 December 2013

The Christmas Fayre!!!

Friday 6th December 2013

I didn't go into Rivelin Primary on Wednesday, but however went in on Friday instead to help out with the Christmas fayre. The children were very excitable and had a lot of energy, looking forward to selling things on their stall and going around the school to see the other stalls and attractions.

I firstly sorted out all of IJ's gift bags for the stall, just sealing them so you couldn't see the goodies that were inside! Then I helped some children set up the stall and make the pick a stick game, which is where a person takes a stick that has one end hidden in the sand and if it has a white or purple mark on the other end then that person has won a prize! So I was helping the children bury the sticks in the sand tray. We also placed all of 1D's gift bags out for sale.

The Christmas fayre wasn't until the afternoon, there was a lot of setting up to do, and therefore the children got an extended lunch break and extra time to run around. When it was time for the fayre I was supervising the children from both classes that weren't on a stall or going around with their parents/ a TA and there was a complicated system of taking a group of children every 15 minutes to their stall going through the very busy packed halls; and also taking the other children back, whilst also working out which children were leaving with their parents (with a TA's assistance of course). It was fun supervising the children I played snakes and ladders with some of them, and did colouring with some others. I did a lot of behaviour management and making sure the children didn't get lost in the corridors or wander off into the hall.

The children were delighted to sell all of their gift bags, and this was done rather rapidly! so much so the teachers had to come up with new games for the stall which there was definitely some improvising going on! It was good fun and all money raised goes back into the school and the children on the school council decide where the money goes! The children in the whole school put a lot of effort into their enterprise and it paid off really well for them.

Thursday, 5 December 2013

Lots of Activities and Getting Ready for the Christmas Fayre!

Monday 2nd December 2013

I did heard some children read while the teacher was taking the register and sorting out what the children have for lunch.

The children have been looking at instructions and how to write these, for example 'what we need' and 'what we do' concepts of giving and following instructions. So they have been looking at how to catch a witch, and they had to come up with instructions for this, 1 child came up with putting a potion in front of her to tempt her into the trap which was a cage. Another child came up with tying her up with a rope and then the teacher went through 'what we need' and 'what we do' concepts with the children on the interactive whiteboard.

I helped some children with instructions on what planet they would like to visit and how to get there, they also had to write about what they would like to do when they get there! It was interesting that most children chose Earth instead of another planet. Anyway they had to use instructions and time connectives such as 'First', 'Next,' 'Finally' 'Then' etc and they are just starting to grasp this idea now.

In numeracy we did about subtracting using the number grid so the children can draw lines to the numbers to see how many 'to jump back' which gives them the answer.

In phonics I was helping a child with different sounds of letters. I have learned that a digraph has 2 letters like 'ow' in 'how' and a trigraph has 3 letters in it like 'igh' in 'high.' Phoneme is the sound that the letters make and grapheme is the symbol of that letter/combination of letters.
We were doing the sounds 'ay' 'ow' 'ai' 'ie' 'ea' 'igh' 'ey' 'oi' 'oy' 'ir' and confusing for the children 'I' which is a word in it's self. Some of the words that were brought up were 'might' 'destroy' 'cow' 'coin' 'money' etc.

I helped some children make some rockets throughout the day, it was a little side project to some of the other work they had been doing. I helped to make three rockets and my creative abilities seemed to get worse with each rocket, but however the children's enthusiasm for their individual rockets increased with each poorly crafted rocket - very funny! 1 child could make a rocket completely independently which was very impressive!

Finally I oversaw some children making some reindeer gift bags for the Christmas fayre on Friday. They turned out really good and we must have got to nearly 40 or so! The children were great at organising who was going to do drawing some ears when we had run out, while another child cut them out etc. so there was so,me good planning and production going on.

It would be Mrs Dungworth's final day on Tuesday, so this was the last day I would be seeing her, which is sad as she is a brilliant teacher, however the class will be having two nice teachers taking over from then on, sharing the week with half doing a few days and another doing a couple of days, so it will be interesting to see how they will teach and how it will vary from Mrs D. What will also be interesting is how they communicate with eachother about activities as they share their teaching time in the classroom.


Sunday, 1 December 2013

Thinking of an Idea and Writing an Interesting Sentence About It!

Wednesday 27th November 2013

I helped a child in the morning identifying real vs non real words, e.g. reading the word off the board and sounding it out phonetically to them so that they could decide if the word was real or not.

A teacher from another class wanted a child taking to the first aid office because she had a nose bleed so I took her there, and we got her nose seen to and a note for her parents. She was okay and the nose bleed did stop quite quickly.

I took a group of different children throughout the day and working with the child one-to-one seeing if they could come up with an interesting sentence, say it, write it and check it! So for example the child could look at a book to help them or come up with an idea off the top of their head, first they would say it to me - one child said, 'The snowman was white and cold,' so once she had said this I got her to write it on her whiteboard, using cursive letters for good writing practice. Next we checked it, looking for a capital letter at the beginning of the sentence, finger spacing between words and a full stop at the end of the sentence. The aim of the activity is to see if these children could hit the target of a 1C most are already working at this level but just need a little boost. There were some brilliant sentences written!

The children in both classes in year 1 use that of standard letters and sounds in phonics, but also use the jolly phonics actions in conjunction with the sounds.

I asked Mrs J if she thinks there is anything I could do better to assist her, particularly I was thinking about the morning when I feel a little lost when the parents are helping with the first activity before the register. Anyway she thinks I could concentrate on behaviour management of the children, especially when working in small groups. It would also be good to look at any dwindling resources e.g. could the pencils be sharpened or the superstar tickets topped up for example, and finally it is okay to get some children and work on anything I think they need to improve, e.g. it will not be stepping on the teacher's toes! So I can have that little bit more responsibility now which is good news, at least now I know what I can do that will be more effective in supporting the teacher and the children in 1J. I like to now for personal development and to set targets and see if I have reached them.

I am hoping to help 1J out next Friday with some items they need to do for the Christmas fayre, however the day clashes with college so it just depends on what is happening there too.