Making Connections to Problem Solving with Tangrams...

A small glitch with our internet connection this morning opened up a great opportunity to make the most of a teachable moment. Having been taken through the process of making my own tangram puzzle in a recent staff meeting I decided this was the perfect time to introduce this puzzle to LS1 and LS2. We had already come together as a block this morning for singing practise so decided to stay together for the learning experience, which meant we had a huge range of abilities as the students ranged from Y5 to Y8. There were no templates, no rulers, no pencils... just lots of smiling faces, blank pieces of A4 paper and lots of pairs of scissors. 

The instructions I gave were not written anywhere which gave me a great opportunity to remind everyone about the importance of listening carefully and asking questions. I made sure my instructions were explicit and found myself making folds and cutting along folded lines with my back to the class and my exemplar in the air, something far easier said than done! Along the way as each piece of the puzzle appeared I introduced the content language of 2d shapes so that each piece was referred to by the correct name and not 'this one' or 'that one'. 

Our students are really good at collaborating so without being asked I noticed my class immediately stepped up to support the younger ones. This learning experience was a very loud one as I encouraged everyone to talk to each other about what they needed to do at each step. Interestingly we only had two puzzles that needed to be remade. 

                                       

Organisation was one of the keys behind the success of the 'making' task and as we were using the content vocabulary collecting the offcuts was a breeze. Once all the pieces had been cut I asked everyone to mix up their puzzle (something quite hard to model in the air!) and put the pieces back together to make the original square. This is when the real conversation happened. There was a wealth of problem solving strategies being used so I took advantage of this and unpacked it further. 

After morning tea we all came back to take part in the 'fun' challenge component. Greg Wong took the students who had made their tangrams through the challenges of creating animals from the shapes while I helped the group who had been at puberty talks to make their tangram. Team teaching was then the order of the day with Greg explaining the history behind the puzzle and me process of problem solving. As a result we were all able to make connections not only to the content but also to the origin of the puzzle and the process of problem solving. The blog posts from both classes reflect the learning, the fun and the content language that was revisited today.

Professional Development: Overview of a balanced Reading program...

Last week Panmure Bridge School and Glen Taylor School had a fantastic professional development TOD lead by Sheena Cameron and Louise Dempsey. We explored and unpacked the modelled, shared, guided and independent reading approaches, with lots of great practical ideas shared that I am excited to introduce into to my reading program. Here is the link to my notes.

Some of the key ideas we explored:

• Explicit teaching of reading is important at all levels
• Summary, main ideas, evaluate, justify, connections, synthesising
• Must be teaching reading across the curriculum
• Becoming a proficient reader means decoding, self monitoring, critical thinking, evaluating
• Self monitoring means knowing what words mean, decoding and making meaning
• It is not ok to not understand
• Give a picture of the word to help students make connections and move to making meaning not simply decoding without understanding
• Think, talk, elaborate
• We read to students to:

• Encourage opportunities to focus and notice vocab, language or key points
• Gift the time to think about the complexities of a text - comprehension
• Modelling think alouds - what fluent reader do to make meaning
• Develop a passion for reading
• Give information
• How words join together

My Takeaways:

                                             

(Images from The Literacy Place presentation)

• Introduce 'tricky words'
• Encourage students to use sticky arrows to find the example or evidence or identify tricky words
• Introduce post its as ‘stoppers’ to avoid reading ahead in guided sessions
• Y7/8 need attention to prefix and suffix - use white boards to add suffixes and prefixes to build words from a root word (find these in the comp. book)
• Think/pair/share...think/pair/record
• Shared Reading: 
• Teacher models reading but students must be able to see the text (words)
• Exposes students to a variety of texts (their reading diet is limited due to skill level being limited)
• Encourage students to build on from each other's ideas by saying “I’d like to add to that because...”

A great way to build connections to Maths vocabulary...

Here's another game shared with us by Marie Hirst, our maths professional development provider. This game is found on the Transum site and is called 'Maths Words'. The idea is that one student stands with their back to the class while the maths word is generated. Once everyone else has seen the word the student turns around and uses the clues provided by their peers to try to work out the word in question. This is a great way for students to unpack and strengthen their connections to the vocabulary as they offer clues without actually using the word.

When I tried this with my group today it wasn't the success I had hoped. I think my students were too shy to offer clues in front of so many people. Rather than stop the game I adapted it on the spot by asking the students to get into groups of three. Once they had done that we split the roles so that one person was guessing the word and two people were giving the clues. I encouraged my students to have Maths Dictionary open to help them define the words generated and derive their clues. This was a huge success!

What I noticed is that my learners do have a good connection to content specific maths vocabulary. They enjoyed having the safety net of Maths Dictionary but tended to only use this to define new words or words they were unsure of. One size definitely does not fit all which is why it really is important to know your learners. 

I'm now looking forward to trying this activity with my more able students as I'm sure their clues will be slightly more cryptic.