Here’s a portfolio of the work and provision I have in place for my boys, loud and quiet, to access mark making and role play.
Early Years
Foundation Stage children leading learning in Education for Sustainability
Since starting my NQT year in September I have been passionate about discussing and debating ‘big ideas’ with young children, and exploring effective ways to give the youngest of minds a voice. One of my successful examples is the learning I have facilitated through Education for Sustainability. I put my ideas together alongside Debbie Bradley (Senior Lecturer and Primary Geography Leader at Nottingham Trent University) and Peter Bevington (Year 4 teacher, Nottingham). As a team we presented our teaching ideas at the Geography Association Conference in April 2011. I then presented my work at TeachMeet Midlands in May 2011. Thank you for everyone’s support and interest in my work, I feel it’s time to share this work on my blog.
My first experience of teaching sustainability came about in the first week of the Autumn Term 2. I had planned and resourced a week of work on Autumn Poetry, where children would extend their vocabularly to describe Autumn changes. To kick start this week, we wrapped up warm and went for a muddy walk along ‘Our Special Lane’.
Whilst walking the lane, the children noticed the litter and began to talk about how messy it was. The further we walked, the worse the problem became and the more emotionally charged the children were! By the time we got back to the classroom, they only wanted to talk about litter and blame the big children for it!
Changing Spaces: Improving Continuous Provision Areas in Foundation 2
Over the Spring Term I began researching classroom organisation and looking for other ways to use the areas in my classroom. I had observed children’s activities during their choosing time and found that the library was one of the places few children visited during a session. I also noticed that the children would role play whatever their imagination wanted, rather than stick to the theme we had set in there that week or term; post office, kitchen, DIY store, construction site…
What could I do to enhance play? What could I do make sure children access the spaces with more energy?
Games Based Learning: Using X Box Kinect to Support Play in Foundation Stage 2 #gbl
My reflections on using Kinectimals and the X Box Kinect in Foundation 2 was originally published on Tom Barrett’s blog, but I thought I would publish it to my own blog now that it’s up and running. Be sure to check out the discussions about this post of Tom Barrett’s blog though. I have added a few extra points in this post though and included some extra footage. Enjoy.
If you haven’t come across Kinectimals or the X Box Kinect before, then have a look at the official trailer for the game here. Gameplay works without a controller, there is a camera attached to the X Box which detects your movements and the animals in the game respond to them.
My blog follows on neatly from the themes discussed by Tom Barrett in his work with Nintendo Wii’s Endless Ocean. I took on the challenge of introducing Games Based Learning to my Reception class, and to myself! I used an X Box Kinect because game play without a controller seemed ideal for Foundation Stage children. After a 2 – 3 week project on animal homes using Kinectimals as a stimulus, I have reflected on the impact that Games Based Learning had on children’s enquiry. My reflection is structured around four themes; organisation, planning, supported play and Kinect sensitivity. I hope that the successes, difficulties and solutions I found help with any Games Based Learning planning in your classroom.
Enhancing Foundation Stage Assessment with Technology
After Reception’s assessment was moderated in June, September gave an opportunity for the Foundation Team to give our assessment strategies a make over.
Amongst the staff we decided that photographic evidence provides excellent opportunities for assessment. The problem we found was the management and recalling of the hundreds of photographs we would be taking each week.
I began to investigate hardware and software options.
Messy Maps: A Foundation Stage Response
In the Winter issue of Primary Geography, the ‘Messy Maps’ feature was of particular interest. The article explained that using classroom objects to represent places or features of a locality is successful for teaching representation on maps. Children use 1 object to represent 1 place or feature. This takes the emphasis away from using Lego to build houses, and towards using single blocks to show single houses, for example. Classroom examples in the article took a Key Stage 2 focus, so I considered ways to use this concept with my Reception class, and as our Spring Term topic was ‘Homes’, there was a great opportunity to use maps with 4 and 5 year olds.
Quick Response Codes (QR Codes) in the Foundation Stage
QR Codes work like barcodes that webcams and mobile phone cameras recognise. They read the code and take the user to a website within a few clicks.
QuickMark is a software that I have used with webcams. When QuickMark recognises a QR Code, it displays the URL and users double click the link to open the website.
At my school, children in Key Stage 2 have been successfully accessing the internet using QR Codes. Instead of taking the device to the QR Code, Tom Barrett reversed this and let children take the QR Code to the device that read them; in his case a NetBook or laptop.
Enabling Environments 