Week+7+Term+3

It is time to collect a school wide sample of personal recounts. With that in mind we headed outside to fly the parachutes we made on Friday. With strong gusts and a clear blue sky, the conditions were perfect. The parachutes quickly filled with air and tugged at their hands to be freed. When the children let them go they took off to squeals of delight. Time and time the children let those parachutes go and raced after them.
 * == Week 7 Term 3 == ||
 * Monday

Two of the parachutes took off in a sudden gust of wind and disappeared much to the delight of the children. That initial delight quickly turned to despair as they realised that their precious parachutes were gone forever as they became nothing more than a speck on the skyline !

We came back inside and did a 'vocabulary dump' before we did our usual oral planner and videoing of each other. || || The children continued to write their personal recount about yesterdays experience. Shared experiences are so rich for the language they can share with each other. ||  || I attended the Lead teacher day - our cluster finished at the end of last year but with the support of our schools, as lead teachers we continue to meet once a term.These sessions are always stimulating and I always come away thinking that their is so much more to explore ||   ||
 * Tuesday
 * Wednesday
 * Thursday

The children have been working on their images for their next narrative as well as rehearsing their texts for recording tomorrow. Friday has become our regular publishing slot. We have a lot to publish tomorrow - so will attempt to get some started before school.

We have had a few hits from America of late which makes a nice change as most of our hits have been from "us". We had a comment left from a student from Glendale College in USA and went on line to see where the college was.





It has been much harder to grow an audience than I thought. I know that at the unconference I attended earlier in the year Dorothy Burt talked about making links with other classes - leaving comments on their blogs, and in doing so leaving your own blog address in a hope that they will in turn view your blog. This is something I haven't really explored and I wish I had. My new goal is to do just that - finding classroom blogs, leaving comments and see what happens. ||

I have started a blog list on our blog in a hope to connect with other children in other settings. || This morning we viewed the two blogs - room 8's and Little Voices, Little Scholars. The children were so interested to view the work of others - it was if as I could see them making the connections as they sat in front of me. As we viewed Jennifer's recount of the Cinderella they remarked " they are writing stories and putting them on the blog and we are too." Jennifer is a year 2 just like us.
 * Friday



Together we constructed a comment to leave on Jennifer's work - this was interesting in itself - as they wanted to ask Jennifer a question - seeking further clarification as well as comment on how great her picture was. This reflected their growing awareness of how you can comment on a blog.

The children were totally engaged as we viewed Jennifer's work and that of Room's eight's trip to MOTAT and time just disappeared as they looked and commented on what they saw.

Four children from our buddy class arrived with their class laptops to assist us in writing comments on the blog - They were for me a welcomed sight - with our class computers being constantly used for drawing illustrations we haven't had much time for commenting on our blog during class time. For just on half an hour they worked with children ( withdrawing them one at a time) to write a comment on the blog. They were supportive of the developing literacy skills of the children in the class.

As the room 10 children left - they asked if they could come again!! My reply was simple "of course" These children are such a valuable resource and have rekindled the interest in writing comments on the blog. || || • Shared experiences provide an important platform in which to explore the rich vocabulary children can bring to describe an event. • Viewing other class blogs enabled the children to make connections with what other learners are doing in different settings. • Children from our buddy class are great motivators and teachers. • Joy Allcock said the following as she referred to the teaching of spelling - "Have the courage to think differently and change the outcome for your students" It struck a cord with me in that having the courage to think differently only comes when one reflects on ones own practice - teacher inquiry is built upon such reflections. ||
 * As the week draws to a close – I ponder and acknowledge the following