Mornings with Hine

We are well and truly into our Incredible Years course now. As we work our way up the pyramid we are implementing and adapting individual behaviour plans. I have added many new strategies to manage my learners. I have been using Proximity praise- praising the person beside who is doing the right thing Positive forecasting- telling the students that I can see they will ... (do what I want from them) Setting up certificates and handing out more positive cards Reminding students of the desired behaviour, the treaty or that they need to do something before I ask the class to give them extra time to succeed. I feel my management has improved significantly and that I am able to stay calm, be consistent and act promptly. I have created individual incentive/ sticker charts for two children based on their current behaviours. This was what I used as a template but using their personal goals.  I liked the phrases in the poster-  You are good at... I like the way you... You have a nice......

Discussion with Cathy re levelling my readers. We talked about the fact that two of my learners are Level 13/14 plus and I need an accurate reading level for them. They are between 6 months at school and not at 1 year yet. We talked about giving them more decoding and comprehension strategies to help and to use books across the level so they are introduced to a variety of texts. With Cathy's help we choose some appropriate chapter books from the library to encourage their passion for reading. We choose some topic based readers. When I introduced the readers to the new texts I showed them how to choose a "fit" book using the five fingers rule. I got them to practice it with me to make sure they could read the book. Conversations on the go are helping me develop a greater understanding of my readers and their readiness to move levels with my running record data.

I presented at our ConnectEd cluster Professional Learning Day. I prepared my presentation to share with other learners about how to blog with  your kids so they take ownership of the class blog with you.  It was difficult to prepare as I didn't know what people would be needing to know. I began with my pepeha and then shared where our school has come from and how we set the blogs up. It led nicely into asking the participants who had blogs and where they were at with their blogs.  My presentation can be found here .   I really enjoyed presenting and hope I have inspired some more teachers to open their classes to the world of blogging and making connections with others.   I still have things I want to add and change with my class blog. I am slowly adapting my class blog to suit my learners. I'd love to add some pages and a speak text function since my learners are beginning to read. I have been following along with Anglea Lee's 20 Days to Blogtastic  for i...

During the presentation, which I attended the second half of, we watched examples of digital storytelling. One example was from a student who had an interest in horses. She used vocabulary that was specific to working with horses. The camera angles were clever and well thought out to limit the viewer from seeing her hands moving the horses. Mark then showed us an example of digital story telling that used a still image and a lot of sound. The sound was taken from the web and sequenced to tell an eery story.  My take home that I could use straight away was an experiment where we were asked to say the first thing that came to our mind when we saw some words to create smilies- as soft as for example. We all contributed words to which Mark had pre recorded, predicting our responses. He encouraged us to think deeper and share other words until finally we had interesting similes. He recommended that we do this with our story telling too. This should help us to guide the children's creati...

This week I have had the privilege of sharing my knowledge and classroom with a student teacher. For the for three weeks of her practicum she has been encouraged to observe. I asked her to observe two children and to take the time to build relationships with every child in the class. I was recently reminded of this incredible TED Talk. I can watch it over and over again. All learning requires relationships because as Rita Pierson says, "Kid's don't learn from people they don't like"

How to change laptop language to Te Reo so you can easily access vowel macros (pōtae). - Finder - Applications - Open: System Preferences - Language & Text - Input Source - Choose the Māori flag Make sure flag at the top right-hand side of your screen is a Māori flag (mine was the New Zealand flag, I clicked on it and the Māori one was underneath, so I just clicked on that). Changing the language to Te Reo just provides an easy way of accessing a pōtae, the rest of the keyboard is still English, therefore the Māori flag should always be on display. To get a pōtae on the vowels, hold ‘alt option’ down when you press the vowel key. Note: not all fonts can do the pōtae.

Curriculum Guidelines for Teaching and Learning   Te Reo Māori   in English-medium Schools: Years 1-13 I print the appropriate level each year to record the achievement objectives that I am teaching my students. I use the curriculum guidelines to highlight the areas when I cover them during each year. I use these documents in unison with He Reo tupu, He Reo Ora and our schools Māori Plan for the year. http://tereomaori.tki.org.nz/Curriculum-guidelines/Levels-1-8-Curriculum-Guidelines-for-Teaching-and-Learning-Te-Reo-Maori/Levels-1-and-2-Beginning-to-use-te-reo-Maori   or page 42 if you download the whole document. http://tereomaori.tki.org.nz/Curriculum-guidelines/Possible-learning-and-assessment-activities/Level-1

We had some PL with Jeanette from reading recovery. We began by clarifying what a seen text and unseen text is. Seen text- a text the student has already read and read in an instructional setting, such as guided reading. Unseen text- a text the student has not seen, or has seen but not attempted to read. I took a photo to help me remember the key for recording the child's behaviour. I used to tell the students to try that again frequently however I learned that it should be the last thing that I suggest. The part that I found useful was analysing a running record that I took. I gained a greater understanding about errors and whether the error was for meaning, syntax or visual. We were given a handout that I have been using since the PL to spend more time learning about taking a running record. I found the PL extremely useful. 

I have been supporting my students to know where they come from by saying their personal Pepeha. We have been learning our Pepeha since the beginning of the year. I sent home a notice informing the parents about our Pepeha and asking if parents had their own Pepeha that they want their child to learn. I recognize the importance of both knowing and sharing my own Mihi with my learners. My students have developed a culture where they share their Pepeha for the morning roll so I have been able to extend what they say as they become more confident. We are currently recording these for our class blog. I love that the children have taken ownership over saying their Pepeha. It is an awesome way to start the day. 

Reflecting on building relationships with my Māori learners and what mana means. This clip offers a lot for me to consider so I will add to this post at a later date.