Guest Posted November 13, 2007 Posted November 13, 2007 Hello everyone! I hope you're all having a good term! I am a Reception teacher and I was observed by my head teacher and somebody from my LEA today as I've just finished being an NQT! I did number bonds to 6 and I got the children to record the different ways of making 6 using number sentences. In my feedback they both said it wasn't appropriate for the children to be recording number sentences in the first term of reception and that really it was a year 1 objective. However, the Reception teacher I work with who has 2 years exeprience, extends her higher ability in this way and the foundation coordinator believes if the children are ready then why not get them recording number sentences. I'm a bit confused as to whether this is how I should be extending my children? I could see today that the children I was working with couldn't really cope with finding the different ways and then writing the number sentence to go illustrate this. I would rather not extend my children in this way, but then will my children be falling behind my colleague's children? Please can you help? Thanks a lot! Tash X
AnonyMouse_79 Posted November 13, 2007 Posted November 13, 2007 What a dilemma! We are often criticised for failing to extend our more able learners and when you have tried to do so, you have been told not!! However, I wouldnt be doing that this term. I doubt I would be partitioning and finding number bonds at all, although I am a great fan of a ladybird and dice or number cards to add spots to the ladybird base and I might be tempted to do this orally. If I were to record, then I think putting numbers and symbols together from cards rather than writing any of it might be possible. I think at the moment it is sufficient to count out objects to a given numeral or find the numeral to match a given set. And I would do that practically, differentiating and extending the children appropriately with the numbers given. Dont worry about letting your children down, make sure the foundations are solid and they will soon catch up and indeed may perform better later as they are more secure with what they are doing. Each and every cohort of children is different and even within the group you will have differences. Hope that helps a little. Im going to move out of eprofiles.
Guest Posted November 13, 2007 Posted November 13, 2007 The difficulty when observing someone teaching is that you need to pick out a point for improvement, so don't take it to heart. As you yourself discovered, the children struggled with this activity, so the advice of the head and advisor is probably correct. I would not worry too much about what the other teacher is doing but plan for the children you have in your class. Either she has much brighter children or she gives lots of support so they seem to know what they are doing. At this stage of the year, your reception children need lots of practical activity.
Guest Posted November 14, 2007 Posted November 14, 2007 Thank you so much for your replies! They have helped loads! Can I ask some more advice please??? We have just planned for next week and I'm a bit stuck on CLLD... We plan to do funnybones and so on Monday's whole class session we will read the children the story and in focus groups the children will use the book to retell the story in their own words using the pictures - hopefully picking out the high frequency words we have been looking at so far... then in Tuesday's whole class we have planned for the children, with their partners, to suggest where they would go to frighten people, then using their knowledge of initial sounds to scribe on whiteboards. To follow on from this, in focus groups they will create a story map of where they would go to frighten people, again labelling their pictures using their sounds. And then I'm stuck... what do you tend to do on a daily basis for CLLD whole class and focus group activities? Sorry to be so demanding! Your advice so far has been great so am lapping you up! Thanks again, Natasha
AnonyMouse_79 Posted November 18, 2007 Posted November 18, 2007 Probably write a scary story or something similar but I dont tend to be as formal as you seem to be trying to be!
Guest Posted November 19, 2007 Posted November 19, 2007 Oh, I didn't realise I was so formal... do you think I'm too formal? What do you do for CLLD? Thank you
Guest Posted December 7, 2007 Posted December 7, 2007 Hi I did Funnybones the other week as we got a free book pack through the post (wowee a rare freebee) We asked the childrn to use the car mat to make the skeletons on a journey and my TA listed the place that they visited. Then we built a car from huge box saved by our janitor and we roleplayed a 'scare journey' outdoors. Some children chose to emergent write this and some children painted with a sentence scribed. A couple of children constructed a car and took a photograph which we scribed a story onto. Some of the child choice activities were painting white on black paper and using artstraws. We used the dolls house with a black cloth to make it dark and had the smallworld area available to recreate the story. Just realised the date of this posting doh, its my first day here!
AnonyMouse_79 Posted December 7, 2007 Posted December 7, 2007 Not a problem at all Rachelle, that sounds lovely and probably illustrates what I meant by informal opposed to formal, which you have discovered I forgot to respond to! Sorry about that nmarquez. Your ideas sound lovely too but I wouldnt be working like that in first term reception, maybe I'm wrong though.
Guest Posted December 11, 2007 Posted December 11, 2007 Hi - I've just picked up on this topic. I disagree with other responses; I think it's entirely suitable for some young children to be partitioning etc at this early stage and good on our colleague for doing it! If the children weren't capable of understanding it, then she would know. I really think we undervalue the knowledge that some children (not all) bring to school and we do them a serious disservice by not building upon their capabilities from the start. It worries me intensely when I see/hear staff saying,eg, 'we do that next term'. We should be stretching our most capable children no matter what year group they're in. Sorry, had to rant!
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