Dramatic Play Centres, Inquiry Update

Picking up from my last play-based learning update, I had originally planned to go in the direction of more story-telling and small world play areas with my kids.  However, the ways in which my students have been most recently playing, has led me to go in the direction of dramatic play centres.  I have been aiming to integrate more literacy and math into these centres.

Experimenting with Dramatic Play Centres

It all began one day, when I noticed that one of my students had set up her own classroom and was using markers to write ideas on the stand-up whiteboard during play.  With several other kids joining the fold days later, I decided to set up a classroom play centre with Helen Squires.  We provided reading flashcards, mini workbooks, real teacher materials (books, worksheets, magnetic letters) and even a coffee table that they use as a desk.

In keeping with our study about the bees, I also set up a beekeeping play centre where students would be able to act out beekeeping and learn more about keeping the hive healthy.  First, they have to make sure they are protected from bee stings by putting on their gloves, jacket and hat.  Then, they have to carefully check the hive to see if there are any moths, worms or bears that might be intruding in the hive.  In doing so, they also have to look for the Queen and her eggs, as well as how many bees are alive and well.  All of this gets recorded on their very own checklist - using checkmarks and numbers or tally marks!

Complementing our beekeeping station is our Honey Store play centre, where the students can pretend shop for groceries and different sizes of honey jars (small, medium or large).  This play area has been devised in an effort to bring more math language talk in during play.  For example, students have to ask for the specific size of honey they would like - as well as use the poster to determine the cost of that size of honey ($1 for small, $2 for medium and $3 for large).  It has been cool to see kids who struggle with speaking out in class - becoming so engaged and getting right into being storekeeper!

Important Take-Aways

The most important take-aways that I have with these play centres is how easy it can be to intentionally integrate literacy and math into play / role-playing without the children even realising.  Also, I have seen the importance of taking into account their interests during play.  If I hadn't have noticed the classroom playing, I would have missed the opportunity to draw that play out of them with a set-up classroom.  There are so many opportunities during play for us to motivate and inspire more learning from within them... but it needs to be noticed.

The classroom play centre has been amazing, as the students literally do the same activities that they do in reading/writing with Helen and I.  It is so great to casually observe them flashing reading cards and writing words on the board for students to copy into books, etc.  One student came to me and showed me proudly the entire page of words she had written!  In the beekeeping centre, students have to write their name on the checklist and use their math skills to check for the healthiness of the hive.  They are also developing an awareness of our integrated inquiry topic.  I heard one student say to another: "Be careful, you don't have gloves on.... you don't want to get stung at the hive.  Come put your gloves on!"  It has also encouraged students to be more creative.  One of my students built his very own hive from recycled materials only 20 minutes after playing beekeeper... and without being prompted to!  The Honey Store has a similar effect and the kids have to use their oral language to role-play and ask for different sizes of honey... paying in the right amount to the store keeper.

What's Next?

For the rest of the term, I plan to now work on the small world play areas for those students that enjoy building or creating small worlds during play.  I also intend to visit another play-based classroom for more ideas during my PRT release day.

Final Day: Digital Fluency Intensive

Today we touched on the Ubiquitous aspect of Manaiakalani which is about our students being able to rewind their learning anytime, anywhere and at any place.  Dorothy explained that it is about giving lower decile children the same opportunities as higher decile students.  She talked about the importance of blogging and how it makes a difference in the summer learning drop off.  Students who blog at least three times per week during the summer break tend to keep up better in their studies when they return.

Zoe and Vivian from OMGTech! visited us today and reinforced the idea that technology is NOT just a tool.  They reinforced the fact that technology matters in our students' world.  Zoe explained that when our students enter the workforce, technology will be deeply embedded into their careers.  She also gave us insight into the world of ethics when it comes to technology and introduced us to the very intense world of robotics and future technologies.  We did a super cool algorithm activity where we had to start in pairs, find out who was born closer to Auckland and move accordingly to the next box (repeating it) until we ended up in a line with the closest to furthest.  Immediately I began thinking of ways I could do this in my own classroom with my littlies (e.g. birthdays, etc).

 We also learned about binary numbers and dabbled in some coding using the Hour of Code (Minecraft) and Scratch.  The Hour of Code taught us how to use blocks to code, as well as more intricate blocks like "repeat until goal" which help you think about code as sequences.  We are focusing on computational thinking this term, so these activities were super helpful with getting my ideas flowing for extra activities to do with my five year olds to teach directions, etc.

As this is the final day for the Digital Fluency Intensive, I am so grateful to have had this opportunity to learn alongside an amazing group of colleagues.  It has been a welcoming space that I looked forward to putting my "student hat on" and learning at every Friday.  My knowledge in Google applications has gone from 0 to 100 (at the level that I'm at!) and I feel much more confident using it in my work and personal life.  Thank you Dorothy and Gerhard for an engaging and inspiring nine weeks! 

Day 8: Digital Fluency Intensive

Today we touched on the Empowered part of Manaiakalani.  Dorothy led us through this Deep Dive where she explained that it is there for teachers and colleagues, as well as the students.  She talked about how Manaiakalani works to empower whanau and their children.  What really stood out to me was the discussion of 5+ a day which is about carrying on conversations with students which leads to better oral language.  This is something that I am working on daily with my kids in the classroom.  It was a great reminder to keep pressing on with that because it gives students opportunity to converse and improve their oral language.

In preparation for the Google Level 1 Exam, we also touched on Google Classroom.  I sat and wrote the exam... and passed!  It was quite an intense 3 hours and I was trying not to overthink the questions - which helped me in the end.  Dorothy's suggestion of using the "review later" button was also super helpful.  It was interesting to see how I coped under pressure to complete the tasks and it made me realise how much I have learned from attending the Digitial Fluency Intensive.  I am looking forward to making a certificate/badge for this blog and will also be thinking about eventually taking certification for Level 2.

Manaiakalani Create Meeting

It was a very creative afternoon where we were able to dive into a Manaiakalani Create session with other educators at Tamaki College.  There were so many great create workshops happening and it was hard to choose which one to do!  I decided to go with the workshop where we were able to create a pewter pendant because it was something that I had never done before.  Eric Grundy and Robert Thomas led us through this session.  From melting the pewter... to letting it sit... to taking most of the 90 minute session to sand my way to smoothness - my Kiwi pewter pendant was looking pretty schnazzy by the end.  The wood smells of the tech room made me reminisce of when I was in college and it was great to, once again, step into the shoes of a learner.  Most importantly, it reminded me of the importance of getting our learners engaged and hooking them into learning with meaningful, creative projects.

Day 7: Digital Fluency Intensive

Today's session kicked off with a great reminder about teaching our kids about digital citizenship.  With the Cybersmart curriculum, Gerard emphasised the importance of focusing on positive language.  When negative language is avoided (e.g. cyberbullying, cybersafety) we equip our learners with positive language around the teaching of it:

Smart Learners / Smart Footprints / Smart Relationships

The Hapara session was very useful and I learned several things that I did not realise one could do.  It was interesting to learn that all blog posts and comments can be seen as they are linked to Blogger.  I could see all the blog posts in Team 1 and was able to quickly access and comment on one of our Y1 learners' drawn image of a bee in EE.  I also discovered quick buttons like "Share Links" which give teachers the power to help their learners that might be finding it hard to navigate their chromebooks or stay caught up.

With a focus on Devices today, we explored both chromebooks and iPads.  It was cool to experience what it feels like for the students using chromebooks.  I found it a bit harder to click buttons, etc. (perhaps just because I am so used to using a Mac these days!)  We did a Digital Dig to practice as our learners would and it was challenging to find webcams and get myself organised on it.  On the iPad, we explored the Explain Everything tool for 1:1 Learners.  I am used to using this in my own classroom but it was nice to sit and explore the lassoe tool, etc. in our training.  We were shown examples of how to use EE's for math and literacy.  I look forward to exploring these more so that my students can become more digitally affluent and ready for their learning years ahead.

Day 6: Digital Fluency Intensive

Today Dorothy discussed the Connected aspect of Manaiakalani and showed us how it has grown to include eleven clusters.  She emphasised the fact that it is the Shared Language that all schools within these clusters connect together on:  learn, create, share, connected, ubiquitous, empowered and visible.  She explained that the last four are like puzzle pieces that need to fit together in order to have maximum effectiveness.

Clarelle also visited today to do the Deep Dive with us where we spent time looking at different sites and giving feedback on what works well with the site and what did not.  When creating our own class sites, she explained the importance of getting to where one needs to be in just 3 clicks.  She also asked us to think about these key things when designing our site:

• What is the purpose of your Google site?
• What is the theme that is going to pull it all together?
• How will your learners / users be accessing the site?

We were also able to get feedback on our existing class sites, as the whole class spent time together going from one site to the next.  We used Google forms to send feedback to each person in the DFI - which was super useful.  Then, we used Google sheets to compile all our individual feedback so we could improve our sites.  Thinking forward from the feedback I received, I will plan on creating a button to link our classroom blog to the site.  Also, I realised that some permissions were not enabled which I will get to fixing right away.

For the Create time today, we were able to fix our sites or create one.  Just having the time and space to work on this has been so beneficial and I feel more confident using Google sites from the extra practise.  I chose to revamp the Inquiry Site for my space for the Term 2 focus which is "How Can We Keep the Hive Alive?"  I was able to use the banner I created in Google Draw as the header which worked out amazingly!  The site still needs work, but as I go I am keeping in mind what feedback came out of looking at other classroom sites today and the importance of...

• Clean and crisp background colours
• Buttons that are easy to read
• Colour schemes in place and not too busy or overwhelming
• Buttons linking back to the homepage / classroom blog / school website
• Accessibility and easy to click through and navigate

I plan to upload all the images and videos here for my new entrant students to explore about the bees.  This will help them have a place where they can easily rewind the content we do in class and get excited about finding ways we can keep the bees safe and alive!  

Day 5: Digital Fluency Intensive

Today we discussed Visible Sites for Learning which is really important when it comes to teaching digitally.  Dorothy emphasised the importance of whanau having access to their child's learning at all times.  She also talked about how there should be "no surprises" in learning for children... that it should be accessible, available and laid out in advance - which works to save lots of future conflict by talking about what's coming next for our students.

Clarelle Carruthers visited today and talked about MultiModal Learning which involves taking different modes of communication and giving children access to them to learn with.  She expressed that engagement starts with us and how we need to motivate our learners to want to engage with the curriculum.  It is through having choice that students are empowered, with their interests driving their learning.   

For the second part of the day, we were very busy creating Google Sites in age level groups.  Gerhard walked us through a quick sandpit in it and emphasised the importance of drafting out our Google site beforehand so that we have a clear direction of where are headed.  Using the Garden With Science curriculum resource, we drafted out a plan for a Google site.  This involved thinking of buttons we wanted on our site and the subpages/content to go along with it.  Our group first wrote down all our ideas and then colour-coded it for different headings.  Then, we drew out our own draft together for a potential site.

Following that, we created our own individual drafts which we then turned into our very own Google site which was super fun and engaging.  Looking forward to working on this site more and creating other Google sites!

https://sites.google.com/ptengland.school.nz/inquiry-rm-13/home