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Working with small groups

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I feel so lucky to be learning so much from the kids that I teach.  Two of our students taught me new games that they had played during their art therapy time.  The first game involves drawing 6 doodles / scribbles / shapes and numbering them 1-6.  Then each person takes a turn to roll a die.  If the die lands on a 6, that person copies the doodle that is labelled '6'.  This continues until one player draws all 6 doodles on their paper.  The game seems to help students take turns and interact positively with each other while also creating a drawing in a structured way.  Another drawing game involves drawing a large circle or square (over most of the paper) and dividing it into parts. If there are 3 players, divide the shape into 3 parts. If there are 4 players, divide the shape into 4 parts. Decide how many minutes you will get to draw your first picture (1-3 minutes seems good). Then each person draws their first picture in one of the sections. Then we all swap pictures and dr
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Art Therapy

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Today, I had the opportunity to join with Maggie (an art therapist) while she worked with one of our students.  It was such a valuable and fascinating learning experience. I was a bit nervous - I didn't want to say the wrong thing! I needn't have worried.  1. Feelings scale 1-10 with colours to represent the feelings. We drew the scale together. We discussed how we were feeling at that moment. Maggie emphasised that all the emotions are ok and important. We talked about where we were sitting on the scale when we woke up in the morning. Maggie talked about what she noticed her body doing (eyes feeling heavy) when describing where she was on the scale.  2. Emotions cards. Maggie talked about emotions using cards from Inside Out 2 (the movie). She explained that, like the primary colours, base emotions can get mixed to create new emotions. For example, anxiety can be a mix of fear, anger and sadness. The base emotions are joy, anger, sadness, disgust and fear. Maggie asked our stu
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Mega Meet - Equity and Success for All

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  For the first time in my teaching career, I was part of a conference that included Primary, Intermediate and Secondary teachers from the local area. Waiting outside for the powhiri to begin, I was excited to see a lot of colleagues I knew from 12 years teaching in this area. I also had the chance to meet new people.  The powhiri was really special - listening to the speeches and singing waiata, I felt the sense of unity - he waka eke noa - we're all in this together.   To add to my excitement - Russell Bishop was the key note speaker. The focus of his work is really close to my heart - developing teaching approaches that are highly relational, while also having very high quality teaching interactions with students.  Here are some key points that I took from Russell Bishop's address...  - When students are achieving at a lower level than expected, teachers often seek to explain it by saying there is a problem with the child/family/society.  - A more constructive approach is to
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Mini Meat - Best Start Literacy

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  In Term 1, I attended a Mini Meet at Drury School to find out more about their journey with BSLA.  BSLA (Better Start Literacy Approach) is based on a structured literacy approach along with oral language, whanau engagement and comprehension.  Disclaimer: I'm not a fan of structured literacy - mostly because I believe in reading for meaning and enjoyment, not reading for decoding.  However, I find it really helpful to have a consistent plan that I can follow - and BSLA seems like a thoughtful, systematic approach that covers core learning skills.  One of the most helpful ' takeaways ' for me, was the use of high quality picture books, with multiple readings. Also, substituting some of the English words for Māori kupu... what a great way of including te reo within a familiar context.  I was impressed to hear about the equitable outcomes it was achieving across the spectrum of learners.  Recently, I heard Russel Bishop discussing the use of Balanced Literacy and Structured
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Circle Time - Peer-to-Peer Conversations

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  As part of my professional learning I am working towards this goal:  By Week 5,  try some different ways of promoting peer-to-peer conversations during 'making time' so that our students felt comfortable sharing their ideas with their peers. The early childhood resource "Talking Together" from the Ministry of Education gave me some great tips: Environment :  - Provide activities that are creative and open.  - Choose activities that connect with the students culture and experiences - Small groups are most helpful for encouraging talk - The spaces should be calm and quiet without background music  Teacher prompts:  - Listening to a child talk and then responding with, "That reminds me of a time… does it remind you of a time…. " - Story telling - listening to a child’s story, recording and retelling (possibly with prompts) with other children joining in.  "That’s an idea I hadn’t thought of George. Has anyone got a different idea?" Using puppets to
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Māori and Pacifica Giftedness

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Māori and Pacifica Giftedness  Workshop facilitated by Melissa Powell, Rosehill College  Image by  Thomas Wilken  from  Pixabay     I'm publishing this post that I wrote in September but didn't come back to.  Coming into this workshop and taking the self-evaluation I realised I knew very little about Māori and Pacifica giftedness - in-particular how giftedness is seen in these cultures.  I have this habit of projecting my understanding onto another culture and thinking it works the same way for them too!!  (Seems to be a bit of a pattern as it happens in other areas too... that's why these workshops are so important because they wake me up and help me to see through another window)  What I loved about this workshop was that it taught us about finding the strengths of our Maori and Pacifica learners and see these strengths through their eyes.  Here are some quotes from the videos we watched... ...giftedness is about leadership and generosity of spirit and wisdom... - Melind
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Circle Time - Professional Development Cycle

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 Circle Time - Professional Development Cycle  I have enjoyed meeting with Gretchen twice to discuss my professional goals for this year.  We decided that the context for my professional learning would be small-group circle times (which I help to facilitate twice a week).  I attained some baseline data by collecting an audio recording of my conversation with some of the students while they were doing their art. I was being conscious of using teacher talk moves: - repeating back what a student is saying  - giving wait time  - saying, "tell me more"  The conversation I had, mainly with M, was extremely interesting. He was discussing a number of deep topics that came from his art - an island. From this came a discussion about religion, politics and how people treat him.  This really showed me how art can open up conversations with students and allow them to talk about things that they have on their mind and topics that are important to them.  Gretchen and I discussed the recordi
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