Saturday, March 24, 2012

Year 6 - back to my old stomping ground

One of my colleagues from the last school year went on a training course for a week... and I was so delighted to step in and cover for her all week... she left me some magnificent planning, and I was able to pull out some of my 'old' work from last year and reuse.  And I could revisit the school and catch up with some other colleagues and get to know a new group of Year 6s well, as I was with them all week.

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!!

Cheers

No comments:

Post a Comment