Here's a copy of the summary of my week, which I sent in an email:
Dear R-,
Hope you had a good trip and enjoyed the
training course as well. And more
importantly hope you managed to catch up with a few family and friends.
Thank you for your fabulously organised
planning that you left for me… made my week super easy!! But I didn’t get through anywhere near it
all, especially in numeracy!! The kids
were lovely, and I enjoyed getting to know them.
NUMERACY:
Marked the homework which was handed in on
Monday, but due to the issues with Moodle and handing out worksheets later in
the week, did not mark any homework set during the week.
Monday – as requested corrected the work
from LP47 in their MEP books, but with discussion determined that the children
had not completed the same number of questions, so gave them some time to
finish the outstanding work. Spent about
10 mins working out Q3 d) ¾ of ¾km. So
did not start lesson 48.
Tuesday – LP48 suggested using some
resources, that I couldn’t find easily – measuring jug, etc so opted to skip to
LP49 – Area/Perimeter – focus on Length and Width. Started with the factorisation exercise, and
took more than the recommended time on this.
Moved onto the perimeter and area of a cuboid, but I found that with
this, the exercise took the rest of the lesson.
They drew out cuboid nets and then worked on calculating the area and
perimeter. Had to remind many that
perimeter was around the edge only, as lots measured each side of their cuboid
net.
I drew a cuboid shape on the board and
asked them to follow on and calculate the area and perimeter using the
dimensions I provided.
Wednesday – continued with solving the
area/perimeter for my cuboid net, and then solved together on board.
Still on LP49 – then solved Activity
3. Most worked this out quite
efficiently, the size of the cupboard and table were kind of easy. Continued with Activity 4.
Thursday – discussed reading questions and
providing answers for what was asked.
This was because many children calculated the area of objects, rather
than just providing the length and width as requested. They spent quite a lot of time working out
all the parts to the question in Activity 4.
Needed to go into quite a lot of detail about scale.
Friday – completed exercises 5 and 6.
Talked about this scale too, how actually much smaller than drawn object. Compared with Activity 6 which was to
scale. Although the copies of these MEP
books seem to be smaller than the actual as most measurements came to 1mm less
than the answers provided.
LITERACY:
Monday – Looked at the website suggested,
and at the handouts provided. Children made lists of the language used on scrap
paper, and we discussed. Most didn’t
seem familiar with this kind of task, and we talked about advertising,
persuasion, writing in different tenses and which person. Many didn’t read and comprehend the Shanghi
Acrobat troupe, because it took about 10 mins of discussion for them to realise
that it wasn’t in Shanghai!!
Tuesday – used the laptops and in
pairs/threes they worked through the China Travel Guide website. Wrote in books
about the language in a particular Shanghai attraction. Many children tried to
rewrite the text rather than think about structure and language used.
Wednesday – I asked them to write a short
tourist guide type article on various locations around the school – for example
the swimming pool, the theatre, library, etc.
This is in their books. We
discussed what was important and how it should be structured and ordered. (e.g. at the swimming pool is the length of the pool and times it is open more important
that the fact that there are also toilets there.) We had some read theirs out in class and then
we discussed each one as a group.
Thursday – printed out the Jade Temple
information and we read it independently first, and then together. Analysed each paragraph.
Friday – spelling test. Was going to do auto/tele words, and then
there was a disagreement that it should be the ex words… so ended up giving
them a 20 word random spelling test.
Nobody got more than 15 right, but there were some tricky words in
there! The list in on a pile on your
desk.
ERIC –
Finished chapter 1 of Kensukes
Kingdom. Asked questions at the end of
each page and read as a class. Hard to
get them to follow along!
ART –
They did the two smaller canvasses and were
really happy with the way they turned out.
L- suggested that you just auction those and don’t worry about doing
the big one???
SCIENCE –
None of the torches in the resource box
worked, so did everything quite theoretically in both sessions. They worked on a concept map in the first
session, some were really good, and had good ideas. They listed light sources / not light sources
of objects in the class room. And
analysed the drawing provided.
In the second session, I used a SmartBoard
preso I made last year, and then they drew in their books shadow depending on
position of the sun.
TOPIC –
Talked about climate / weather and
greenhouse effect. Didn’t talk about
Kyoto Protocol, and didn’t start the letters.
ASSEMBLY PRACTICE –
Worked on their song and some
choreography. There is a list of
suggested props which M-, A- and S-worked on (they sat and
giggled throughout the rehearsal without contributing, or wanting bigger
parts). We had an extra session because
music was cancelled on Thursday.
I had a lovely week with your guys, on
Friday we had an author, Jan Latta, come and talk about her experiences. Great group of kids, and really enjoyed
getting to know them.
If you have any questions, let me know!!
