Room Twelveen's perspective on our collaborative journey

Writing goals

As follow up on our next steps for writing, both Fiona and I have put checklists in the children's writing books. We also have a current writing goal clearly displayed for each child in the "editing pencil".

Writing

Writing is where our collaborative learning journey started. It has continued to evolve over the last eighteen months. We feel that we have now come to a point where the balance of shared writing, and writing time allows the children to produce their best work.

We have found that by taking turns at planning, we are able to plan more in depth and engaging lessons for the children. Even more so now that we are collaborating in other areas as well. We can put more focus and time in to the areas that we are taking for the week. We have noticed that our kids are more engaged because of this.

A week of writing in Room Twelveen consists of a weekend recount on a Monday, Scaffolding writing topic and Tues - Thurs, and Free Writing on a Friday.

Scaffolding/Shared Writing

When we begin a new writing genre we take the time to expose the children to lots of different examples. We also have a display so that the children can see the set up of that type of writing.
The first couple of weeks on a genre are very prescribed to make sure they understand the expectations, and then we allow some choice with the writing.
Each day we model what writing we expect for the day. Children work on this part only, this way we can ensure that all children stay on the right track.
For example, on Tuesday we would look at an example of a report, we would write and introduction together, then children would go away and write their own introduction.
During our shared writing times we use google docs for our modelling. This way it can be shown in both rooms. We often add to the doc with children's ideas during their writing time, and these can be seen from both spaces.

Here is an example of a shared writing doc. 

Sophie and I alternate weeks for who is in charge of shared writing.


Planning and Engagement

When planning our writing we always try to have a strong hook. We find our children are much more motivated when there is an experience/video/book that goes with their writing.  We also use pinterest to gather ideas for engaging writing topics.

Fiona's writing board
Sophie's writing board

We have a shared folder in google docs where all of our writing planning goes. To begin with we use to plan our weeks together, and have now moved to planning alternate weeks.

This is our planning folder

We have also found the new Sheena Cameron book really helpful with our planning. It has lots of great ideas for engagement also.

Next Steps

After reflecting on our writing programme we feel that we now need to work on the following things:

• Making sure that we plan the overview properly, not just making the resources
• Have goal checklist inside the cover of their writing books
• Have the goal they are currently working on displayed for them to see while writing. 

Our Research/Reading

We try to implement the the strategies in practise points from this article within a writing cycle.

We also found this article helpful when looking at how we would approach our shared writing times.

The Reading Program.

Research:

After attending PD (a daily 5 workshop) as part of our cluster day at the beginning of 2015, I purchased this book as I knew it could be very effective in a year 3/4 class. The Daily 5 program is a shift away from "busy" worksheets to more engaged reading. The basis of the program is on 5 choices that the children work through:

1. Listen to reading.
2. Work on words (spelling program).
3. Work on writing.
4. Buddy reading.
5. Read to self.

The program has been used in American schools very effectively since 2006. The core belief behind the program resonates with where we want to head in  our collaborative learning space at Parkview.

"We wanted to change the atmosphere in our classrooms, and our own roles. Instead of trying to "manage" students, rushing around the room putting out fires, we wanted to create routines and procedures that fostered independent literacy behaviours that were ingrained to the point of habits". Gail Boushey The Daily 5 second edition page 7. 

The goal is to have children reading for pleasure rather than 'time-filler, keep them quiet' activity sheets.

Pinterest was another good source of resources and information and over the year both of us have collated ideas in our respective folders:
Sophie's Pinterest Daily 5 board.

    

Fiona's Pinterest Daily 5 board.

2015

Last year I implemented the program in Term 2. Due to the nature of my class I kept it teacher-directed. I introduced the Daily 5 as set group rotations. I quickly discovered that the children were doing more reading, and it was manageable. I incorporated the Step-Up essential list spelling program into the "word-work" rotation, and made a hands-on spelling station option for the third spelling day (based on Pinterest spelling ideas!). Sophie's Pinterest Spelling board.

2016

In Term 2 Fiona introduced Daily 5 to her class. At this stage we are both running it in a set rotation style with our reading groups. This is partly due to needing to keep management tight with our kids and also to share out our 6 ipAds for the "Listen to reading". Our Level 4 self-managers find the Daily 5 time the easiest part of their timetable to self manage. 

In term 3 we began shared reading together. We take turns each week to run the "Big Book of the week" and "Poem of the week" before moving into our respective spaces for our reading program.

Next steps

Ideally the Daily 5 runs as a self managed program for all of our learners. Our hope is that we can work towards this as our children learn those self-managing skills. This would mean that we would run our teacher guided reading sessions to a schedule, and all children would fill in and follow their own Daily 5 plan around those teaching sessions. 

Work on writing- we both would like to set up a more appealing writing station so that the children can be inspired to write lists, letters, cards, postcards etc. We want to motivate writing for pleasure. We will either share resources or potentially could set up one writing station for Room Twelveen.

Support

Our limited number of ipads and working headphones is a barrier. Having more would open up options for our students to "listen to reading".as well for independent research.

Level Four privileges

In Term 2 we applied for funding to purchase some rugs and cushions for our cloakroom space. We wanted to make it a more inviting space for our Level 4 children. We made it clear to the level 4 kids that we have high expectations wherever they work. Having the space carpeted and updated for Term 3 has meant that the children are using the space a lot more.

Our top level means that the children can manage their own timetable. Many are choosing to follow the class timetable. 

Next Step

Our next step is to provide more scaffolding for the kids so they can set up their activities independently...e.g. handwriting cards accessible, writing task sheets etc. 

At the moment the children use this option mostly for there reading time where they can mix up their Daily 5 rotations.

Levels System - Student Voice

Untitled from Sophie de Thier on Vimeo.

Levels System

At the beginning of 2016 Fiona and myself set up a behaviour system. This was adapted from a successful system run at Heathcote Primary. My friend at Heathcote found that the system worked well in her desk-free collaborative learning space. The purpose of the system is to encourage our learners to become self-managers. We are encouraging the children to make good choices about where they work, stay on task, and work to the best of their ability.

After having it running in both rooms, we have found that the children are responding to it really well. All children know exactly what level they are on and why they are on it. We keep it fluid in that the children move up and down levels depending on their behaviour.