Showing posts with label School. Show all posts

Buried Treasure

This is a fairly familiar game for most Early Years Teachers and one that is very popular with the children. The focus here is to sound out, read, sort in to real and fake words and discuss meaning of words. This is a very useful game in Year One leading up to the Phonics Screening Test and a discrete way of introducing those fake words.

Personally and excellent resource is PhonicsPlay which has a different game for each of the sounds meaning you don't always have to be thinking of words with today's sound. This particular game is free on Phonics Play but subscription is only £12 and I highly recommend. Below is a flash video of the game :) Enjoy!

Alternatively, you can download from Twinkl a custom version of the game that a group of children can work on or be set up as an independent activity.

Or to be even more impressive, get into character, grab a few resources and dress up as a pirate and get the children involved for some role play!

Tag : blog , Children , Classroom , ICT , Interactive , Jolly Phonics , Letters , Letters and Sounds , literacy , Mr Thorne , NQT , Parents , Phonics , PhonicsPlay , School , Sounds , Technology , Twinkl , Twitter , Year One

Beginnings: How To Teach Phonics

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Here is quite a useful early strategy I have found from another blog. Definitely worth a look, some excellent resources and ideas!

The blog can be found here and the article here. Fantastic work tamarind!

The following describes how I am teaching my boy phonics at home.

1. Arrange the at, an, ap, at in a row.

2. Teach the child how to read each of the 2 letter words. Then mix up the words :

I say a word "at", then ask my boy to pick up the correct word for me. I continue to say one word at a time until he picks up all the cards.

2. Then give the child one word, for example, "cat". Teach him to read the word, c - at, cat. Read this web page Make a word : AT to learn how to teach.

3. Then ask him to put the word "cat" in the same column as "at", as shown in this photo.

4. Then give him another word, for example, "fan". Teach him to read f - an, fan. Read this web page Make a Word : AN to learn how to teach.

5. Then ask him to put in the same column as "an".

6. As the child becomes more confident, give him a word, and let him put in the correct position without helping him.

7. You can mix up the words. Then say a word, like "can" and ask him to pick up the correct word. Continue until he picks up all the words. In this way, you can make sure that he is really paying attention and learning.

Tag : 2013 , Actions , blog , Classroom , Introduction , Jolly Phonics , Letters and Sounds , Mr Thorne , NQT , Parent , Phonics , School , Sounds , Teacher , Year One

Triptico

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Some ICT resources for the masses!

This has been a recent discovery of mine and very time saving in the classroom. From previous experience it takes time making lollipop selectors, setting random groups, setting a group tally. Well this app, for your computer does it all with very little setup.

"A simple desktop app, packed full of innovative resources to enable you to quickly create engaging interactive learning." Triptico

One of my favourites in this app is the student selector, which with a swipe of the screen selects a random child. Very effective in a plenary to select a random piece of work! Also pretty helpful is the circle timer (does what it says on the tin), group scoring app and student group selector which quickly splits your class into groupings of your choosing! Very useful app from a fellow teacher, top work!

It is completely free to download the Triptico Plus app from this site. Many of the resources on the app are completely free for everybody to use, but there are some which are 'bonus resources' for Triptico Plus subscribers. Also you don't have to register! :)

Tag : 2013 , App , Children , class , Classroom , ICT , Interactive , New , Parents , School , Software , Video , website , Whiteboard , Year One

Phonics Sounds

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A useful video clip showing the correct pronunciation of phonemes from DfE.

Tag : blog , Classroom , Government , Letters and Sounds , Parents , Phonics , School , Teacher , Training , Video

Purple Mash

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Back Again!

Decided after the light of the BETT Learning Technology Event at the weekend I want to make you all aware of a piece of cloud software I have loved using in the classroom.

Became aware of this software a few years back as an individual CD-ROM through 2Simple To Create A Story which I have used in a Year One class to create a class story. Now this and much much more has been put online as a cloud software meaning schools can purchase for around £600 and access a wealth of applications which will cost much more on CD-ROM. Lets face it, its the way most ICT is heading nowadays!

"2simple was started in 2000 by teachers and IT professionals with a common mission: to make software that really helped children learn. Their software is simple, easy to use and relevant.

Their first program, the Infant Video Toolkit, was written specifically to help children from the ages of 4 to 7 develop basic core computer skills. The suite of six programs contains simple painting, publishing, counting, graphing, direction and branching database programs that are now used in schools across the UK as well as internationally. Since the release of the Infant Video Toolkit they have created many more programs based on the same principles."

From 2 Simple Software

I recommend this software to anyone and I am looking into fundraising in order to purchase for our school. I particularly love the 2 Publish app, very good for basic computer skills in typing, mouse control and paint.

My only downside is that the font can sometimes be confusing with the Arial font - the 'a' bringing the most confusion as we tend to write it differently.

All in all an excellent piece of software!!

Enjoy

Tag : 2 Simple , 2013 , App , BETT , Children , class , Classroom , ICT , literacy , Purple Mash , School , Software , Story , Teacher , Technology , Year One

All Things Phonics #4 Parents

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Hey

Recently we decided in school over the Christmas holidays to send home some phonic resources to parents. This included a letter explaining about what we do, a phase appropriate sound mat and a set of tricky words. I figure this is the best place to start blogging, so giving it to the world!

What is Phonics?

from www.phonicsplay.co.uk

Phase 1 - 5 Sound Mats (www.twinkl.co.uk)

Combined Phase 2 & 3 Sound Mats - Sound Mat, Letters and Sounds, DfES Letters and Sounds, Phase 2, Phase two, Phase three, Phase 3, Foundation, Literacy, Mnemonic Images

Tricky Word Bookmarks (www.twinkl.co.uk)

Phase 4 Tricky Word Bookmarks - Bookmark, Phase 4, phase four, Tricky words, writing aid, DfES Letters and Sounds, Letters and sounds, bookmark template, gift, present, reward, achievement

Enjoy

Tag : 2013 , Children , class , Classroom , ICT , Interactive , Letters and Sounds , Mr Thorne , Parents , Phonics , PhonicsPlay , School , Teacher , Twinkl , website , Year One

Avatar Ani-me!

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Hey

Just wanted to share this, been looking at these for ages and really wanted one for myself. Those folks over at Twinkl have these avatars on their blogs and now they have an Avatar Creator! YAY!

Check me out! Now go and create your own!

Will be posting a lot more over the coming weeks from the folks at Twinkl. An excellent resource site for all Key Stages!

Enjoy :)

Tag : 2013 , Avatar , Children , class , Classroom , ICT , Interactive , New , Picture , School , Teacher , Year One

End Of An Era

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Well this term has been my last as a Newly Qualified Teacher and I'm pleased to say that I have passed! YAY! It has been such a great year and a half based in two different schools and I can only praise all the staff, parents and children that I have had the pleasure of working with.

Of course there have been ups and downs throughout the year but it wouldn't be teaching without them. I feel that my biggest strength that has shone out during my time in schools is my relationships and the way children embrace my style of teaching.

Thank you to all that have helped in the past year and look forward to 2013 a new year and a fully qualified me! Happy Christmas everyone!

PS. Grandad says hello....

Tag : Children , Christmas , Classroom , Grandad , NQT , Parent , Relationships , School , Teacher , Teamwork , Year One

Christmas!

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Well Folks

Christmas is finally here again and the panic has begun. I expect most parents are doing last minute shopping and preparations for the kids big day! I can't wait for that excitement! The past few weeks have been mental as I'm sure most teachers can agree! We have been rehearsing for Carol concerts and Nativity and children have done us all proud with an excellent performance on both occasions.

I'm actually blown away by all my gifts I have received from the children! They are such a lovely bunch of kids and make it worth my while getting out of bed every morning!

Tag : Carols , Children , Christmas , class , Concert , Gifts , Nativity , School , Teacher

After The Storm...

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Today I would like to share an application that I have picked up this year that has been fantastic for behaviour management. It is called Class Dojo and best of all it is FREE!!! :)

This is a demo taken from YouTube but shows the features. I personally like it because you can set your own behaviours and children see it as a visual prompt and interactive. I have it on my Smart Board all the time. Plus name me a child that doesn't like monsters!!!

I have also found that you can incorporate the themes of Class Dojo into your everyday classroom using the monsters for name pegs, certificates and extra reward incentives. Recently the report feature has been added allowing progress to be shown to parents and senior staff. And to top it all of there is an app for your mobile so you can give praise wherever you are!!

Today's blog is brought to you by Mumford & Sons and After The Storm.

Tag : After The Storm , Behaviour , Children , Class Dojo , Classroom , Interactive , Mobile , Mumford , Negative , Parents , Positive , Reward , School , Teacher , Whiteboard

One Day Like This...

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Towards the end of the year we had a visitor in school and got to get my hands on the Olympic Torch! This is a once in a lifetime experience and everyone was really excited!

To commemorate our school did a lap of the school with all children holding hands and passing the torch around aiming to have as many people touch it as possible!

The torch was brought in by Samantha Grundy, one of the torch-bearers in Wakefield nominated for her charity work. Below is a little description from the official torch site.

"Sam has a son Daniel with Cerebral Palsy and Downes Syndrome age 10 - when he was 3 she started a charity called SNAPS (Special Needs & Parent Support) in Leeds - this went from strength to strength with her raising all the funds to run various projects, swimming lessons for children with special needs - hydrotherapy, dance classes, summer schools, speech & language workshops - Snaps now provides services to over 200 children with special needs!"

Below is some of the pictures of me I have instagrammed :)

Today's blog post is brought to you by Elbow and One Day Like This.

Tag : Bearer , Children , Experience , Grundy , Leeds , Olympics , Samantha , School , Teacher , Torch , Visitor , Wakefield