CE1.2: Wednesday August 31st

Today was our first morning of station rotations in English and maths class. The transitions were actually much better than I expected, and I think the students got a chance to do lots of different types of work.

English Stations

In English class this week students rotated through Lexia, guided reading, spelling test and skill builder stations.

The students have been working well on Lexia, and I am amazed to say that I haven't had any notifications to tell me that students are struggling!

In the skill builders station, students work on skills that they have already mastered in Lexia on worksheets. These are a mixture of phonics, word recognition, vocabulary and comprehension tasks. In order to move to the next level of Lexia, they need to have completed all of the skill builders from the previous level as well as the online assessment.

In guided reading groups today, the students were attempting to read a book above their level with Joy (our EAL teacher) or myself. It was a good chance to see how the students are progressing and give them some encouragement to progress upwards.

This is the first time I have tried individualized spelling tests so I wasn't sure how well it would work. However, the students had no problems using the iPads and completed the test very quickly. And every single student was able to 'level up' this week!!!

Maths Stations

This week we had a writing in words, IWB, DreamBox and maths talk stations for the students to progress through.

The writing in words station is something that we will need to practice a little more. It takes time to remember all the spellings and methods for writing out numbers.

In the IWB station, students took turns working on mental maths with the whiteboard activity 'post it'. They had to post sums into the post box with the correct answer in the fastest possible time.

DreamBox seems to be quite popular in the class now. However, looking through the evaluations, there seem to be quite a lot of students still not 100% sure on how to use it efficiently. I will be doing some small workshops at lunch from Friday, and I will try to make a couple of videos this weekend to help you at home.

Maths Talk seems to be new to most of the students in the class, and it is something that I really like to do because it is extremely important. Some of the groups did a great job today, others still need a little convincing of the value of this! Basically in maths talk, students take turns to describe the strategies that they use to do calculations. Then we try to visualize their methods and try each of them out. The idea is to let students know that there are many ways to approach maths problems, and it is important to be able to apply a variety of strategies and not rely on one. Talking about strategies also helps students visualize and see more clearly the steps that they are taking.

In today's maths talk we were discussing strategies for addition. Between the four groups, we came up with a total of 8 different strategies, including one that I had never seen before!

In the afternoon, we were able to continue working on our book writing project. Today, the students planned out what they would like in a book so that they can get some ideas for questions that they need to ask the CP students next week. We first brainstormed as a class, then we each did an individual brainstorm of ideas we would like to include in a story.

CE1.1: Tuesday August 30th

This morning we visited the National Palace Museum's Terracotta Army exhibit. I think that maybe a lot of the history was a bit difficult for the students, but we did watch a video and talk in class before the trip about the history of the 1st emperor's tomb.

I was hoping to settle into our regular schedule today, but we had to adjust a little for the outing. Normally Tuesdays will be a mix of whole class and half-class activities in maths and English in the morning, with afternoons for applying skills in project work.

This morning I introduced the students to a project that I want to start of making books for CP students. They will each write their own version of The Book With No Pictures and read/present it to the CP students. I hope this can be a fun project to get the students started with writing this year. In the first class one group brainstormed things that they think books have, then the other group categorized them into a list of things books need and want (optional).

In the afternoon we talked about place value as a class. I wanted to show the students that each column represents ten of the column to the right. Visualizing is a very important tool in maths so we worked through some problems in small groups trying to show numbers and complete sums with Cuisenaire rods. 

All of the students were able to use DreamBox and Lexia for a short time today. I think we are making great progress in both and everyone seems to be focused and motivated so far. In DreamBox, if you are using the iPad app, you will need the code:  nqjm/taipeies

Finally, a big congratulations to Clarence for completing Level 1 on Lexia!!! Clarence is new to TES this year and just starting out in English, but he is working hard on Lexia and making progress already. 

CE1.2: Monday August 29th

We were finally able to start our normal routine this week after two weeks getting the students used to the class. I was pleased to see this morning that many of the students had been working on Lexia, DreamBox and Quizlet over the weekend. Just a reminder not to go too far ahead with Lexia because there are also written assignments that need to be completed in class before students can move too far through the system.

In English class this morning, I introduced our new 'secret' project based on The Book With No Pictures. The plan is for them to write a book specifically for one student in the CP class. I would like to keep the content a secret so that the CP students get a nice surprise when we go to read the books to them. The CE1 students seem quite excited, and I hope it can be a fun way of getting them to start writing this year. The class rotated through working with Lexia and working in a small group with me brainstorming what books have. We then moved on to categorizing our brainstorm into a list of wants and needs.

After break we began talking about our new topic in maths class of place value. Although this topic is not new to the students, we will be looking in more depth than they did in CP. Some students will work up to thousands, but most of the class will be defining numbers in hundreds, tens, and units. We did a quick review together as a whole class, then split into two groups again. The students rotated between using DreamBox and working in pairs on place value challenges using Cuisenaire rods to visualize the numbers.

Mondays are a bit hectic in CE1 as we also have sport and music class, but I was pleased with how quickly the students settled into the routine in class time.

Don't forget we will be going to the National Palace Museum tomorrow morning!

Français Semaine 2

Cette  semaine, pour travailler nous avons découvert et écouter le CArnaval des animaux de Camille Saint Saens. Ecouter de la musique en travaillant(pas fort), favorise la concentration et la capacité d'écoute. Cela aide les enfants à se calmer et à se poser.

En classe nous faisons seulement l'écoute mais cette petite vidéo peut leur permettre de visualiser un peu plus la musique.

Durant la semaine nous avons travaillé sur la phrase à travers des jeux, de la mise en scène, pour que l'on puisse le retenir plus facilement.

En mathématiques nous sommes partis à la rencontre des polygones.

Mardi 30 août sortie au musée national du palais pour voir l'exposition Terracota warriors.

http://www.npm.gov.tw/en/Article.aspx?sNo=04007085

Venir avec son cartable et porter le tee shirt de la section française pour ceux qui en ont un.

 

DreamBox and Lexia Reading Software

Following my introduction at the parent information evening, this is a brief guide to using the software at home.

Lexia Reading Core 5

Go to www.lexiacore5.com

The first time you will need to enter my e-mail address philip.dawson@tes.tp.edu.tw

Then enter the username and password as follows

Username: the first four letters of your name  (This may include family name if your first name has only 3 letters)

Password: mrdawson

Once inside you will be able to see the activities that have been set for the student. They can choose which they work through first, but won't be able to pass to the next level until they have completed all of them and the offline work.

DreamBox Learning

Go to https://play.dreambox.com/login/nqjm/taipeies

Then enter the username and password as follows

Username: the first four letters of your name  (This may include family name if your first name has only 3 letters)

Password: mrdawson

The navigation inside DreamBox is not as clear as Lexia, but the idea is that students can explore maths. I have already set one assignment for them to complete working on place value. At the moment students are still free to explore and work on anything, but I will close that up in the next week so that they are limited to set assignments.

CE1 English Homework

This is just a short explanation about my homework expectations. I want to make it as stress-free as possible so I hope reading this will give you a clear idea of how I would like to do this.

Remember, homework can be found on the 'Homework/devoirs' tab of the blog!

Next week the students have two pieces of homework - reading and spelling. These two pieces of homework will be the same each week, but starting from week 3 there may also be additional work.

Reading

Everyone should have taken home a reading book this weekend. After reading the book, please complete the reading diary (or make a note in the yellow homework book). I will let students choose another book on Monday/Tuesday.

The 'rule of fingers' basically means that if they are reading a page and find a word they don't know, they raise one finger. If they find 5 words on a page that they don't know, that means the book is too difficult and they should make a note in the diary and choose another book. The reason for this is that if there are lots of words on a page that they don't understand, then it will be impossible for them to comprehend the text.

Spelling

This week all of the students are starting with spelling 1. On Monday/Tuesday they should have completed the practice worksheet in the yellow book and return it to me. On Wednesday/Thursday they will take their spelling test so need to be prepared. The test is a simple dictation test that they access through the class iPads. The audio files are available if you wish to use them to practice at home.

After the students complete the spelling test, if they get 8 or more correct they can move on to the next level. If they get less than 8 correct, they will take spelling 1 test again. I know this is not how they did it in CP, but I think that it is important to master skills before moving on to more difficult ones.

The spelling lists are a mix of high frequency words and phonics-based rules. We will talk about the phonics element on Monday/Tuesday, but really practice is the best preparation.

Quizlet

I know some of the students may have used Quizlet in CP. I really like it, and I think it is a great resource for learning and practicing vocabulary. All of our spelling tests are on there, and I have also uploaded key vocabulary for each of the Oxford Reading Tree books up to level 9.

This homework isn't compulsory because I know everyone likes to practice in different ways. However, I highly recommend using it at home to practice.

To access Quizlet:

www.quizlet.com

I recommend that we use the username and passwords below:

Username:  ce1yourname  e.g. ce1phil

Password: mrdawson

You will need to join our class to find all of the sets for spelling/reading. The class name is 2016 CE1. The search function is a little bit iffy, so if that doesn't work search for the user 'tesfs' and you will find my account.

CE1: The Day the Crayons Quit

This week in class, we read the book 'The Day the Crayons Quit'. The book tells the story of Duncan's crayons in a series of letters written by the crayons themselves. At the end of the book, Duncan realizes that he doesn't treat all his crayons equally and draws a new picture to make them happy.

You may have also heard that we are making some Pokeballs that will be displayed outside our classroom with the students' photos. When we deciding how to decorate the pokeballs, we talked about how they normally look (white and red) and how we could be creative in coming up with different designs. Everyone designed 6 different pokeballs, each time using different colours and ideas to make a better design. After choosing a final design, the students went on to draw their final large pokeball for display.

The pokeballs need to be laminated first, then you should see them displayed outside our classroom sometime next week!