Nathan Wallis - The First Thousand Days

Nathan Wallis - The First Thousand Days

Another great video explaining why the first 1000 days of a child's life are so important. Language and face time for children to decode what they need is vital. They can get this from Mum or Dad, or another committed care-giver. Day cares can give it too, if one teacher is in charge of a few children for 80% of the time, not passed around to many different people.

Nathan Wallis - The Developing Brain from 3 - 7

Last night I went to hear Nathan Wallis talk about neuroscience and brain development in children aged 3 - 6 years old. He had so many amazing things to say and was hilariously funny too!

Some things to note:

• The first 1000 years of a persons life are the most important for brain development. Face to face contact, smiling at your baby, and lots of talking help your baby to collect all the data they need for life.
• Through the years of 3 - 6 the most impt thing for children is to play, play, play.
• Chn don't need to spend time at kindy getting ready for school. That's what school is for!
• Us first born females rule the world haha! We get a lot of face to face time with our parents as there are no other children yet. Birth order importance doesn't matter if you're not the first born in terms of success.
• Male frontal lobes not really fully developed until 26 - 32. Females between 18 - 24. Average is 26. Of course, it sways either way too in terms of averages.
• We mostly measure success in children on language, not motor skills for example. One lady asked "How do you get a 5-6 year old boy to focus?" and Nathan answered that his focus was probably motor skills. If you asked him to be a transformer with his body for half an hour, he could probably focus. In reading or writing however, he might struggle with those tasks. Developmentally they might just not be ready.
• Stop expecting 5 year old boys (especially) to act like 7 year olds etc. And don't compare their development to girls, as it's not a fair comparison.
• Having children saying sorry - Often it might be a chuck away 'sorry' and doesn't really change anything. Instead asking the child "How are you going to repair this relationship?" makes them take more ownership. He also said that for a 2 year old, you'll have to do about 90% of helping them with the apology. When they're 5, you might help 70% of the time etc. Students need your help in these situations.
• Be kind to children and don't push them too hard too fast. Children will learn to walk and crawl when they are ready. By us standing them up before they are ready doesn't help them. It's the same with reading/learning etc. 

Thoughts on my future practice:

• It's really interesting seeing boys in my class who I can identify as just needing to play still, even though they are 7 and 8. I'm wondering how I could possibly incorporate more play time in for them during the day. I do let them have developmental around once a week, but am wondering where else I could fit it in. Lots of the boys in my class still love the blocks and equipment.
• It's a really hard balance in our current education system to fit in play,  as parents and the community want to see us 'teaching' and that is measured in language mostly. The National Standards should apply before Year 3, in my opinion as it is just not fair, espcecially as then students who are below hear that they are below for 2 years, which is not going to help their learning either. 

I'm a student again! Eeek!

72276 Literature and Information Resources for Children and Young People

I've just started the above course, through the Open Polytechnic - Kuratini Tuwhera. I will record my notes in this blog as part of my professional development.

Reading One: Knowledge of the Client Group

Cerny, R., Markey, P., & Williams, A. (2006). Outstanding library service to children: Putting the core competencies to work. Chicago, IL: Association for Library Service to Children, American Library Association.

• Libraries have direct links to communities, so staying in touch with local services, and up to date with other community groups helps you to best cater for your own clientele. 
• Children and YA go through different stages of development and it is important for the library to reflect those stages.
• Involving parents and engaging with them is important for families and their children as the aim is to build and encourage literacy for all. 
• Librarians generally work with the widest age bracket of all educators, from infants to the elderly.
• Change is always happening and librarians need to keep up with those changes, both in society and community, and also technology.
• Librarians also need to build relationships with educators to engage with them and their needs for the students they are working with. The aim is to make a symbiotic relationship.

Key stages of development and how that effects a library

Infancy - 0-2

Biggest stage of growth and development, egocentric and dependent on family, all experiences sensory; perfect time to start reading out loud to baby and engaging with them through tone and language. Modeling from parents huge.

Toddlers, ages 2-3

Beginning to refine physical skills and showing some independence while asserting self more, understanding more concepts like cause and effect, likes to play independently still. Library programs and reading should still involve caregiver, and books with lots of repetition, rhyme and simple stories.

Preschool, ages 4-5

Highly developed language skills and is playful with language too, enjoys sequencing, rhyme, silly stories, beginning to understand bigger world than just family and home; At library can sit for longer periods of time and do simple activities with independence.

Primary, ages Y0-2

Beginning to think logically and learning is hands on, asking lots of questions, and personal life still dominates thinking and emotions; At library they are beginning to enjoy reading themselves and have a more developed sense of humour and of bigger concepts.

Middle grades, Y3 & 4

More independent academics and complex reasoning, while having mind opened to new concepts, enjoys collecting and hobbies, becoming own person more with sense of individuality, and influenced by outside friends more than family.

Preadolescents, Y5 - 8

Beginning puberty, can reason and research and find information and make up own mind about thoughts and opinions, starting to become self conscious and challenging authority, but still needs family, becoming more socially aware of others and self. At library developing new needs from books, possibly books about popular culture and friendships/relationships.

Adolescents Y9 - 13

Final spurt of brain development, lots of hormonal changes and physical changes more or less done, often seen as a child in an adults body, but ready to act as an adult, while also displaying toddler tendencies. Will need own space in library away from what might be seen as 'children's' sections, and will need to be treated as adults from library staff.

Thoughts/implications for my own practice

• I have been thinking about how best to change up the non-fiction as it seems to be such an under-utilised section of the library, due to the amount of books, and the disarray of the dewey decimal system. This course has already had some conversations about how to group non-fiction differently, and the networking meeting I went to the other day suggested different ideas too. I will keep thinking about this, as I am thinking of separating out a junior non-fiction area to make it more accessible to the junior children.
• It's a good reminder about child development as we are moving into a new space, so I will keep these thoughts in mind when we are creating our new library space, with the needs of the different age groups.
• I like the idea of a new space for early chapter books to transition the early readers from about Year 2 into chapter books. I saw this at Waimauku Primary and was inspired. Space in the new library might be tricky, but I'll see what we can do.
• This year I have already been doing a major buy up of books with really diverse looking families to try to represent our school community more. I have purchased a few books with mixed race families, as our school is very multicultural. When we displayed our languages books and I promoted them in Whanau Time, those books were hot off the display shelves, which was encouraging. 
• I'm wondering if potentially we could open the library up one afternoon a week, so that families can come in and enjoy the library with their children after school. Hmmmmmm......

Maths PD with Linda about CoL

Monday afternoon meeting with Linda and the middle school

Warm up game

• Warm up games - roll 2 dice. Multiply and get answer, add and get answer, then work out the difference: 3 x 4 = 12, 3 + 4 = 7 so 12 minus 7 = 5. You move five up on the 100's board.
• Salute - 3 chn play. 2 put cards on their heads, 1 calls out the sum of the 2 cards. Students with cards on their heads have to guess what card they must have.
• Addition wars/subtractions wars/multiplication wars
• Subitising patterns etc. 3 tens frames and one with 4 on it. 
• Around the world - just give them the answer and they have to do the equation
• Noggle - number boggle

Probability ideas

• Counters in a bag with 3 red, 4 blue, 1 green, no yellow. What are the chances that I pull out ......
• SKUNK - write on the board
• Toy Theater probability 
• Heads and Tails game - True or false
• Heads and tails combinations with number tree
• Show brainpop jr video of combinations
• Roll the dice with a buddy - 20 times - what number comes up the most - should be 7?? Tie it into stats - up to 12. Then compare with another group.
• Check in with AWS books - statistics 

Maths PD with Linda and learnings from CoL

• Lots of discussion about data collected and making sure we have the right information on Linc Ed.
• Linda talked to us about the equals sign, and making sure chn understand that it means 'the same as'. Gave us examples on how to use in class and what to teach. 
• 8 = 8. True or false. 
• Went into introduction to algebra.
•  __ = 21 + 5.
• Have been having awesome conversations with my class about the fluidity of numbers and great class discussions. 
• The above examples have been great for warm ups and extending learning of what math symbols actually mean. 

Professional Converstaions: Tutor teacher meeting with Kate

Topics discussed today:

Calendar art

• It's a fundraiser
• Having the child's picture on makes an impression
• Pinterest and other teachers for ideas

Maths appraisal 

• Discussion around doing Fraction Friday or continuing with same programme.
• What does Senior Teacher want to see?
• Conversation flowed on to maths discussion in general, with sharing ideas from each others classes. Kate has been doing awesome directions and maps with her class including blindfolded obstacles course. For end of term my class will make a paper mache island following on from Dragon Brothers novel being read in class. Will use grids and scales to make and design mystery island.

Parents 

• How best to deal with one parent who insists on texting and being emotionally manipulative.
• Taken conversation back to email, as opposed to texting, and setting firm boundaries with communication. Kate talked with Jenna too. 

Election boxes

• Cool discussion about how best to teach and discuss NZ's election. Talked about having the 4 major parties and what they stand for - Greens environment, Red - social amenities, Blue - money and finances and exports etc, Black - culture and heritage. Have chn bus stop ideas on what those parties policies would be. Doing lessons from the box. Voting at the end of the week.

The beauty of the cardboard arcade

Once a year at the end of term I like to show my class the Youtube clip Caine's Arcade. It shows a 9 year old boy who's arcade went viral after being discovered by a videographer in the States. Caine's creativity and positivity is inspiring, and it feels like some good old fashioned 80's childhood inventing. For the second year in a row my class have absolutely loved the creating, and then the hosting of other classes when they came in to play the games. Two other classes were also inspired to make their own arcade games following the success of ours.

I believe it develops:

• Creativity where children only have cardboard and sellotape to make any type of game they can imagine.
• Collaboration and compromising skills as many of them worked in teams.
• Problem solving and innovation - what to do when something doesn't work they way they imagined

A cure for boredom at home in the holidays!

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Book Battle Quiz 2017

Keeping within the promotion of the library and reading I was able to take 2 teams of 4 to the West Auckland Book Battle held at Hobsonville Point Secondary School. 

I had amazing support from four parents who were able to come and support their children (and more importantly provide transport!)

I was so impressed with the students' general knowledge of books and literature. 

The students had a lot of fun participating in this event.

Team B placed 2nd! They won a box of books for the school library and a Westfield voucher for themselves. 

These students came back to school totally buzzing from the experience, and were proud to stand at Whanau Time to share about it later on in the week. 

Community Engagement Through Poetry

My class spent a lot of time perfecting their haiku poems. The focus was Word Choice, which was especially imperative with the limited syllable count in the haiku structure. 

We published them on a Poem in my Pocket template, and presented them to members of our community at the local shops.

It was awesome to see my class wanting to engage with members of the community, and being brave talking to new people. 

They read their poems to people before letting them keep their original poems. 

It was a pretty delightful experience for us all. Lovely to see all the smiles from both my students and adults. 

Math/Fraction PD

Fractions with Linda and with Bryony from Waitakere College

Discussed common misconceptions in students understanding of fractions and how to teach.

Eg. 2/5 + 4/5 = 6/10

1/2 = 0.2

1/4 is bigger than 1/2. 

Bryony reminds us that teaching that fractions are equal parts is so important for students to understand from the very beginning.

Idea:
Fold a piece of paper in half. Cut out a border from a blank piece of paper. Cut strips from the middle bit. Use to show and visualise halves, quarters etc. Can put equipment in the sets so they can see 3/4 of a set of 12 etc.

For teaching and introducing decimals go to NZ Maths and download the decimats.
NZ Maths Decimats

Bryony introduced the double number line for teaching ratios. Possibly stay away from the 1:2 ratio as students just think it's half.

Looked at Mixing Colours - Pink Book Number 7, Pg 50. Ratio's and colours.

Science PD with Ian Milne

Modelling in Room 14 - May 24 2017

"Today we are going to work scientifically as we explore and test our ideas/thinking about solid, liquids and gas."

Broke done goal to explain what’s happening. What are the most important ideas?  

Scientifically - the way we work

Plastic bag- what are we going to do with it?  He filled it with air and told them “ there’s air (gas) in here, can you feel the air in there?” (get children to feel the bag)

Hot water and plastic bottle experiment:

Energy in hot water is going to get transferred into the bottle.

Modelled with children, stand up in a group and he got them to move and spread as he ‘heated’ them up.  This is the air particles getting more energy.

If we give something more energy, we make it bigger.

Plastic bottle with a balloon on top. Place the bottle in boiling hot water - balloon blows up as the air tries to escape. As it cools down, it loses some of it’s energy.

Pouring hot water into a bottle, then tip out, then put balloon on top - it will suck in.

Rocket Experiment:

Does it feel smooth? All of these people tested it. It is smooth.  Talked about property of materials (would write these down to use as vocab later on).

-made up of matter (plastic, card, paper, paint)

- What’s inside? Air

“Air is all around us, it gets into everything”

Put plastic bag over rocket.  “What is going to happen?”

If I pull it a certain way (towards me)  the plastic bag gets sucked inside the rocket.  If I push the rocket, the bag will fly off.

Today we are going to use some “stuff” to blow up some balloons.

Experiment:

Balloon

Baking soda, flour, citric acid

water

Bottle

Drew diagram.  We are going to put the white powder in the balloon and we are going to put the balloon on the bottle and when the powder and water mix, they will have a chemical reaction.

It will create a new gas.  

Can you help me figure out what powders will help get the right reaction.  We are going to work scientifically to figure it out.  

Hands on activity for children:

Equipment:

• Children in buddies
• They label the little cups with a, b, c
• Fill the larger cup half way with water.
• Use the eye dropper, practise one drop on the back of your hand.
• Put three different powders in the different little containers
• Take a little sample of power from each container and put it on the pallet
• Put a drop of water in each powder and see which one reacts.

Bring kids back to the mat and talk about which one reacts

Then tell them to mix the powder in the same amounts to see if you get a better reaction when you have two powders mixed together.

Decided on using a and b powder.  They place this into a balloon and then place balloon on top of bottle that has water in it.

Observe what happens.

Bring children together on the mat and let them discuss the experiment.

Conclude lesson by telling children about how baking soda and citric acid mixed together creates a reaction (gas).  This meant the balloon inflated.  

Library Walk Through Reflection

Developing library services: school libraries supporting learning- primary

Week 3: Developing services that support your school’s priorities

Activity: School library walk-through checklist

Take paper and pen with you to jot down a few points as you go. You might also want to take a camera.

Starting at the main entrance gate of the school, look for signposting for the different parts of the school: ·     Is the library included? ·     How easy is it to find?	No signs for the library. It is in the heart of the school though.
Is the library signposted: ·      From the entrance used by students (either externally or in the main building, depending on your school's layout)? ·      From the main entrance used by staff and visitors?	No sign posts at all.
Stop outside the library main entrance: ·      What messages does its appearance suggest? ·      How welcoming and enticing does it look to students? ·      How well does the library visually reflect the different cultures and ethnicities in your school?	Not very well at all. You can’t even really tell it is a library from outside it. We must get a sign made. Including some more culture in the library would be a good idea.
As you walk inside the library are there any visual clues that show you: ·      The library provides a variety of leisure reading options (e.g. magazines, graphic novels, series fiction, browsing books, eBooks)? ·      Help is available?	We have boxes of certain popular books – Geronimo Stilton, Choose your own Adventure, Daisy Meadows, Graphic Novels, Roald Dahl, Horrible Histories. We have a listening station that could be better promoted. We don’t have any magazines. Could look into, but not sure how many are appropriate for school age chn. We have a big library desk and librarians who wear leis if help is needed.
How much face-out display is there around your library? Not just in the actual 'displays', but around the shelves?	Top shelves for both fiction and picture books. We don’t have displays for non-fiction. We have sophisticated picture books on display, new books, and just general books. Also a listening station for books with CD’s.
Is there somewhere comfortable to relax and enjoy reading?	We have 2 couches and 2 window seats which children enjoy. Julie has made lots of big cushions. There are 4 tables for working at, and 6 high desks. I would love to add some bean bags and a few more cushions.
Does the library promote and share online what students are reading; e.g. social media and book sharing sites like Goodreads	No we don’t.
Any other comments that have come up in conversations within your group?	We could spice up our walls a bit more. One wall is blank and there is still art up from last year that needs to be replaced.