My Teaching Resources

"I looked outside the window and saw… "

This is fun way to learn about alliteration. No resources are needed and can be done sitting on the mat or while the children are at their desks. It is intended for Year 5 children and above. This game can be done in pairs and then presented to the rest of the class.

Activity Sequence:

1. Child 1 starts off by using the letter ‘a’. He/she says, "I looked outside the window and saw one awful animal.
2. Child 2 repeats "I looked outside the window and saw one" and says an adjective + noun starting with the letter ‘b’. For example "I looked outside the window and saw two brown bananas. Notice that the number also changes.
3. Repeat the process until the class get to the end of the alphabet. If a child cannot use a letter of the alphabet, carry on to the next child.

Alternative:

You can play this game as a memory game. Instead of the next player just saying his/her letter, they must repeat the previous response. For example:

Child 1: "I looked outside the window and saw one awful animal."

Child 2: "I looked outside the window and saw one awful animal and two brown bananas."

Child 3: "I looked outside the window and saw one awful animal and two brown bananas and three caring cats."

The goal is to see how far the class can get through the alphabet before someone misses, either by forgetting to repeat previous responses, or by not being able to name two words for his/her letter of the alphabet.

If someone misses, the next player begins again with the next letter of the alphabet. For example if a child misses the letter ‘i’ the next child would start with ‘j’. If the children want a challenge instead of starting at the next letter, start at the beginning of the alphabet again.

1

2

3

4

5

"Find the Word"

The purpose of this game is for children to learn about letter order in words.

Resources:

• Pencil and paper for each player
• A book

Game Sequence:

1. Turn to a page in the book that has quiet a lot of text. Each player writes a word from that page on their piece of paper, and hides it from the other player.
2. Each player has turns at asking questions and try to guess the word. Questions can only be answered with ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Questions can be about what the word looks like, the meaning of the word, or how many syllables there are.

For example if the word was happy…

Does your word have an ‘a’?

Is the word an adjective?

Has it got 2 syllables?

Does it begin with an ‘h’?

Is your word ‘happy’?

Players are allowed to take notes if they wish. A player can keep asking questions as long as the answer is ‘yes’. As soon as an answer is ‘no’ the other player begins their turn and the process is repeated.

3. The first player to correctly guess the other player’s word wins the round. The winner is the game is the first person to reach three points. The players look at a new page each time a game is finished.

This game would make a great time filler just before a break, but the whole class has to guess the teacher’s word.

"The Startling Puzzle"

This activity is intended for intermediate children but can be done with Year 5/6. It makes a great independent fast-finisher activity.

Resources:

None, all the teacher needs to do is write the word ‘startling’ on the board.

Teaching Sequence:

Tell the children by taking one letter at a time they can change the word ‘startling’ into 8 other words. Once a letter has been removed it cannot be replaced. The remaining letters in their same order must spell a word.

Answer:

Startling >> starling >> staring >> string >> sing >> sin >> in >>.

Extension:

Ask the children if they can create their own puzzle. It is probably easier to work backwards, for example:

A >> an >> tan >> Stan >> stand >> stands >> strands

Afterwards let the children solve each other puzzles.

"Silly Missing Blanks"

This type of writing is great for the younger children. Nouns, adjectives, and verbs can be taught explicitly to older children. Children love making funny stories!

Instructions:

Write a piece of text on the whiteboard (use below’s one as a guideline). The children then have to fill in the gaps using nouns, adjectives, verbs and miscellaneous words.

Noun – A name of a person, place or thing. For example, cat, James, New Zealand

Verb – An action word. For example, skip, swim, walk

Adjectives – A describing word. For example, ugly, bumpy, blue

Michellaneous – It can be any word at all. For example mouth, eight, red

A (Misc) followed me Home

Nouns	Adjectives	Verbs	Miscellaneous
nest tree car haystack cake bush puddle hat hole tree house airplane	weird shiny boring crazy fuzzy fun silly slimy smelly hairy goofy	scream dance waddle laugh skip bounce sing growl jump bark screech	penguin tiger horse snake monkey goldfish worm dinasaur rabbit ladybug rabbit

I had just left my (adjective) piano lesson and was walking home when a giant (misc) jumped out of a/an (noun). It was as big as a (misc) and it started to (verb). Wow! What a (adjective) (misc)! I started to walk home and it began to (verb) as it followed right behind me. When I got home, my mum started to (verb) and said, "Where did you get that (adjective) creature!". "He followed me home" I said. "He would make a really (adjective) pet. Can I keep him please?" Can you belieave she said yes. Now he sleeps in a big (noun) in my backyard and we do everything together!

You could find text from a poem or short story and take out certains nouns, verbs, and adjectives. Changing these words will totally change the meaning of the story!

1

2

3

4

5

"Thought Waves"

Resources:

• Possibly paper and pencil
• A list of key words, e.g. grass, house, ocean etc.

Game Sequence:

1. Organise the class into two teams. Straight down the middle of the class when they are at their desks is probably the easiest.
2. Introduce a word to the class such as ‘glass’ The children in Team A may begin raising their hands and calling out related words, such as: green, mower, blades, lawn etc. For each acceptable word one point is awarded.
3. Once Team A cannot think of any more related words, a new word is given to Team B and the process is repeated. Keep the game moving quickly. Establish a rule that if know one called out a word in 10 seconds a new word will be given to the opposite team.

Variation:

This game could also be played in groups (it would be ideal if the children were in groups of 5-6). Each group has a piece of paper and when the teacher calls a keyword all team members must record as many words as possible. Give each team a one minute time limit. Once the time limit is over each team reads out their words and their score recorded on the whiteboard. Children love having an element of competition!

"The Spelling Game"

This activity is appropriate for lower primary children and up. It is for two or more players.

Resources:

• A die
• Pencil and paper for each player
• Letter cards (make small cards using two of the following letters: n, o, p, r, s, t, u, v, w, y, etc)

Teaching Sequence:

Shuffle the letter cards and place them face down in the middle. The first player turns over the top card and places it down to reveal the first letter of the round. Roll the dice, this number gives the letter’s place in the word. For example:

It is a race to correctly write down a word that meets the criteria. A possible word could be ‘stopped’. The children could use spelling lists or a dictionary to help them.

The first player who makes a word scores a point for that round. The person to win 5 points wins.

Alternative:

This game could be played as whole class or in grouping competing against each other.

1

2

3

4

5

"The Teacher’s Cat"

The purpose of this game is for children to practice using adjectives. This is a great time filler as no resources are needed! It can be played with children Year 3 and up.

Teaching Sequence:

1. Share the purpose of the game with the children. Share with the children that "we will take turns describing my cat, using adjectives beginning with ‘a’. For example the first child might say ‘The teacher’s cat is an annoying cat’. The second child could say "The teacher’s cat is an arrogant cat". The children continue around in the circle using adjectives beginning with ‘a’.
2. If a child cannot think of an adjective or they repeat one that has already been said, they must sit down and they are out until the game is finished. The rest of the class begin again but use adjectives starting with ‘b’. The aim of the game is to be the last person standing.

Variation:

Instead of describing a cat the class could describe another thing. The teacher could record each of the adjectives on a separate piece of poster paper for each letter and display these on the wall. It would be a fantastic tool during writing time!!!

"Mystery Words"

This activity is appropriate for middle-aged primary children and up. It makes a great fill in activity and could be played in pairs, small groups or as a class.

Resources:

Paper and pencil

Teaching Sequence:

The teacher thinks of a mystery object, for example a pencil. The teacher then provides three clues:

1. The category it belongs to
2. Its Beginning sound
3. The number of syllables it has

For example, for the word pencil, the teacher might say:

1. It is a piece of stationary
2. It starts with a ‘b’ sound
3. It has two syllables (you can clap it out)

The children have to guess what the mystery object is. After modelling this process to the children, organise the children into pairs or small groups to play the game. Each player who guesses the object correctly wins one point. The first person to 10 points (or whatever you decide) wins.

After the children have played you could ask the children to share some clues about their mystery object (the children in that group can’t answer of course!

"Heads and Tails"

No materials are needed for this game and it could be played as a whole class or individually. This game is appropriate for middle primary and older.

Choose a child in the class to name any word. The person sitting next to them will name a word beginning with the last letter of the word just called out. This process repeats around the room. Here is an example of what the game might look like:

Child 1:Blue

Child 2: Elephant

Child 3: Television

Child 4: Neck

Child 5: Knowledge

Variation:

The teacher could time this game and record the number of words called out on the whiteboard using a tally chart. If this was to be an individual word game the teacher writes a word of the board and the children have to write as many words as they can in a time limit (for example 3 minutes).

1

2

3

4

5

"In Between"

The purpose of this game is for children to practice putting letters in alphabetical order. This game could be for two or more players. It is appropriate for children in lower middle school.

Resources:

• Letter cards (a range of different letters on small cards, e.g. d, j, i, m).
• Pencil and paper for each player.

Game Sequence:

1. Shuffle the cards and deal each player two cards.
2. Each player must write all the letters that come between those letters in the alphabet. For example if ‘b’ and ‘i’ are dealt, the player writes ‘c, d, e, f, g, h’.
3. One point is scored for each letter than is written. If there are no letters that comes between two dealt cards, the player gets zero points. Cards are returned back to the pile and re-shuffled for another round.
4. The game continues for a certain number of rounds (the teacher sets this at the start). The player with the most points wins. As an alternative the player who reaches a certain amount of points wins.

"The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Again"

This activity is appropriate for middle-aged primary children and up. It makes a great fill in activity

Resources:

Paper and pencil

Teaching Sequence:

1. Write on the white board "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog". Explain to the children that it is a very well known sentence and uses every letter of the alphabet at least once.
2. To make this activity easier, ask the children to write all the letters of the alphabet down the margin of the page. Challenge the children to create a sentence that uses every letter of the sentence at least once. Encourage the children do use their imagination. Those children who finish must try to create another one.
3. Each of the children share their sentences with the class. The winner is the person who writes the shortest sentence fewest letters) containing all letters of the alphabet. All words must be spelt correctly.

An Example:

Quickly pack my box with five dozen green jugs.

The weather man quickly predicted extra heavy fog and drizzle before Jack’s vacation.

Alternative:

1. Instead of making this a whole-class activity, it could be a free-time or fast finisher activity. Children could work independently and read their sentence aloud at a specified time in the day, for example just before lunch.
2. If you wanted to make this a longer lesson, the children could publish their sentence onto paper and draw an illustration, border, etc.

1

2

3

4

5

This is an example of a two week oral language programme for Intermediate-aged children. It was based on an integrated literacy approach around the theme of the book of ‘The Burnt Stick’.

Week One

Strand: Oral Language –Listening

Level: 4 (Year 7/8)

Achievement Objectives: Interpersonal Listening – Students should listen to and interact with others to clarify understanding of narrative, information, ideas and opinions, and to contribute to discussion, in one-to-one, small group and class discussion.

Read Aloud: “The Burnt Stick” by Anthony Hill

Focus – Identity

Links to other curriculum areas: Listening

Links to others strands: Listening, writing, viewing

Approaches:

Teacher-directed

Modeling

Joint construction

Group work

Learning Activities

Lesson One

The class has a discussion – “what makes a good film?” e.g. good sound/visual effects, humor. Children discuss as a class the features of a film that makes it exciting to watch.

Children watch the film named “A Snail’s Pace” and brainstorm in small groups all the features they observed that helped convey e.g. high/low camera angles, fast blurred background –sharp close up.

Children report back to the class the techniques they observed that they thought helped create meaning.

Introduction of film techniques (visuals) to the class directed by the teacher.

Lesson Two

The children fold up a piece of A3 paper so there are eight equal boxes and explain to the children that this will be a storyboard

Review the short film – in small groups the children will do a quick sketch of eight significant parts of the film and write what made it effective. Review techniques from Lesson One. More play than one if necessary.

As a class, discuss and talk each group put in each of their eight boxes. “What were the most effective? What sort of mood did this create?”

Skills:

Interpersonal Listening – listen to and interact with others as a whole group, small group and one-to-one.

Co-operating in small groups.

Reporting back to the class using effective oral skills e.g. slow pace, clarity, tone.

Organising material effectively and supporting each other.

Processing information as a group and selecting relevant points to share to the class.

Processes:

Children working in small groups on a given activity.

Children given specific group roles to ensure everyone is actively participating and co-operating e.g. recorder, reporter, encourager, time manager, material collector.

Allowing each member to report back at least one point from the ideas gathered to encourage children to use their oral skills in front of an audience.

Introduction of specific film terms, (e.g. setting, plot, sound effects, cinematography) as a form of modeling – children are given examples from the teacher (a brief term such as ‘introduction’) that they can extend from.

The children are given the opportunity to work as a group, and to collaborate knowledge and ideas orally and to recall back these ideas as a group/individually

• Teacher records ideas onto whiteboard.
• Teacher introduces the features of them film such as colour/mood, music/sound effects, symbols, setting and characterization etc.
• Ideas are put into sub-categories on the board, e.g. sound =noisy traffic, fast cars, lettuce crunch

The teacher and students create this by a joint construction

Learning Intention: The children will become familiar with various film techniques to prepare for the film study of “The Rabbit-proof Fence”

Specific Objective: The children will be encouraged to talk coherently in small groups about their previous knowledge, ideas of film and to share this knowledge through speaking as a whole group.

Week Two

Strand: Oral Language –Listening

Level: 4 (Year 7/8)

Achievement Objectives: Interpersonal Listening – Students should listen to and interact with others to clarify understanding of narrative, information, ideas and opinions, and to contribute to discussion, in one-to-one, small group and class discussion.

Read Aloud: “The Burnt Stick” by Anthony Hill

Focus: Identity

Links to other curriculum areas: Listening

Links to others strands: Listening, writing, viewing

Approaches:

• Small group discussion
• Whole class discussion
• Teacher directed

Lesson Three

Recap from lesson one + two

Class discussion on how visual techniques are visual techniques can determine whether a film is well excellent/poor e.g. boring sound effects, not good use of lighting

Class discussion on “what is a film review?” e.g. people who review a film for a profession before the movie is previewed

Analysis of a film in small groups “The Rabbit-proof Fence”

Discuss the similarities between the novels “The Burnt Stick” and “The Rabbit-proof Fence”.

Myths and Legends

Level:

Four (Year 7/8)

Achievement Objective:

Poetic Writing – Write on a variety of topics, shaping, editing, and reworking texts in a range of genres, and using vocabulary and conventions, such as spelling and sentence structure, appropriate to the genre.

Links to other curriculum areas

• Social studies
• Culture studies
• Maori

Teaching Approaches

• Scaffolding
• Teacher directed
• Modeling

Skills:

• Work collaboratively in pairs to construct a brainstorm of ideas
• Identify language features
• Identify different sorts of characters
• The children will use the writing process
• The children will assess another child’s work

Processes:

• Discuss features of a narrative (myth) on whiteboard
• Discuss criteria and expectations
• Brainstorm ideas for a myth in pairs
• The teacher will write children’s ideas on a poster that will be displayed
• The children will brainstorm their ideas for their own myth before writing
• The children will use the writing process
• The children will assess another child’s work according to a previously discussed criteria

Learning Activities:

Lesson One

Model/discuss with class the features of a narrative e.g. introduction, setting. Brainstorm this on the whiteboard.

Explain purpose to write an individual myth is so that at the end the teacher can bind them to make a book of myths.

In pairs the children will brainstorm ideas for their own creation myth –focus on characters e.g. misleading character, trickster character, and misunderstood character.

In their pairs, the students will report ideas back to the class to create a display chart of the different sorts of ideas for ideas/features of a narrative (the children will always be able to view this poster throughout the week).

Lesson Two

Share criteria of the myth –e.g. “has my myth got characters that play a set part?”

Individually the students will brainstorm their ideas for their own myth to write about in their book. Explain purpose – a guide for writing. The teacher will sign this off before the children start writing

Review writing process – draft, rework, proofread, teacher conference, revise and publish

Lesson Three/Four

Students work at their own pace, using the writing process – draft, rework, proofread, teacher conference, revise (peer), publish

If no children are up to having a teacher conference, the teacher will continuously roam to give individual feedback on children’s work.

Repeat lesson four until the children have published their work. Children can finish publishing in their own time if needed. At the end of the lesson, the whole class will have a sharing time. The children will assess another child’s work according to the criteria.

• Allows for a variety of learning styles and is “real" world oriented
• Risk-free environment – provides positive feedback and allow choice
• Use of higher order thinking skills and learning concepts as well as basic facts
• Utilizes hands-on approaches
• Provides for in-depth understanding
• Utilizes various modes of communication
• Students are responsible for their own learning
• Students have ownership of their learning. Projects promote meaningful learning, connecting new learning to students’ past experiences
• Learning utilizes real time data – investigating data and drawing conclusions
• The learning process is valued as well as the learning project
• Learning integrates with different curricular areas
• Teacher is a facilitator of learning
• Student self-assessment of learning is encouraged
• Students have ownership of their learning. Projects promote meaningful learning, connecting new learning to students’ past experiences
• Learning utilizes real time data – investigating data and drawing conclusions
• The learning process is valued as well as the learning project
• Learning integrates with different curricular areas
• Teacher is a facilitator of learning
• Student self-assessment of learning is encouraged

The Barriers of Project Based Learning

There are many reasons why teachers have not ‘embraced’ technology enhanced project based learning to is full potential including lack of preparation time, limited resources, lack of administrative support, and limited class time to implement PBL in the curriculum. Other reasons are tha teachers may have difficulty adjusting to a more guiding role or facilitator, and helping students to become more self-directed. These external and internal barriers have different characteristics.

• External barriers include a lack of access to things such as computers, software, planning time, workload, or administrative support, curriculum coverage
• Internal barriers relate to teacher beliefs about instructional technology, traditional methodologies, and willingness to make changes in classroom practices, professional development

External barriers are more easily recognised and readily fixed, while internal barriers require changes in teachers’ beliefs and daily teaching method.

Project-based learning (PBL) is a model for classroom activity that shifts away from the classroom practices of short, isolated, teacher-centered lessons and instead emphasizes learning activities that are long-term, interdisciplinary, student-centered, and integrated with real world issues and practices.

One immediate benefit of practicing PBL is the unique way that it can motivate students by engaging them in their own learning. PBL provides opportunities for students to pursue their own interests and questions and make decisions about how they will find answers and solve problems.

PBL also provides opportunities for interdisciplinary learning. Students apply and integrate the content of different subject areas at authentic moments in the production process, instead of in isolation or in an artificial setting.

PBL helps make learning relevant and useful to students by establishing connections to life outside the classroom, addressing real world concerns, and developing real world skills. Many of the skills learned through PBL are those desired by today’s employer, including the ability to work well with others, make thoughtful decisions, take initiative, and solve complex problems.

In the classroom, PBL provides many unique opportunities for teachers to build relationships with students. Teachers may fill the varied roles of coach, facilitator, and co-learner. Finished products, plans, drafts, and prototypes all make excellent "conversation pieces" around which teachers and students can discuss the learning that is taking place.

In the school and beyond, PBL also provides opportunities for teachers to build relationships with each other and with those in the larger community. Student work-which includes documentation of the learning process as well as the students’ final projects-can be shared with other teachers, parents, mentors, and the business community who all have a stake in the students’ education.

Information literacy is partly about finding out information, partly about the need for accuracy and precision, but all about interpretation. There are a few different information literacy models that teachers could integrate into their classroom programme. For a range of these see http://ictnz.com/infolitmodels.htm.

The stages of research (Gawith, 1991) are all linked. Students will move back and forth between the different stages as they find new information and modify their research questions.

The Six Stages of the Action Research Model are: deciding, finding, using, recording, presenting, and evaluating

Stage 1: Deciding

There are a number things to consider prior to the students taking part in the research:

1. Determine what they need to know to do the research. Is the research task achievable? Do they understand they topic? How long have they got to complete it? How will they present their information?
2. Determine what they already know. Brainstorm what they already know, then sort what they know into categories and map it using a concept map.
3. Highlight key words from their map that will help them in their search for information.
4. Decide what they need to find out. List key questions they need to ask.

During this, teachers need to provide support to the students by:

• modelling and discussion,
• negotiating achieving research tasks
• providing guidelines about process, product and assessment criteria, for example, a rubric
• providing of examples of finished products and marking them as a class according to assessment (similar to an exemplar)

Stage 2: Finding

Students need to determine where to find the information they will need.

They could include:

• people in the school and community
• organisations
• school and public libraries
• print resources, including books, encyclopedias, magazines, pamphlets and newspapers
• electronic resources, including the internet, TV, radio and video
• maps, posters and charts, atlases

Teachers should provide support through:

• working with the librarian or library aide to identify and collect resources
• help students see that the library is but one source of information available to them
• demonstrate how to use resources e.g. contents, indexes
• provide time for students to become familiar with resources
• where possible, enable students to have their own copy of a resource
• give students the opportunity to review their research questions

Stage 3: Using

At this stage, students should focusing on their focus questions. They should scan to get a feel of the whole text and skim by zooming through the text quickly to spot key words from their brainstorms and mind maps.

Teachers should provide support to the students by:

• demonstrate how to read a non-fiction text
• sharing their feelings and problems with research reading
• demonstrating the skills of scanning and skimming
• Taking mini lessons on how to take notes

These sorts of skills can be integrated with the reading programme in the classroom.

Stage 4: Recording

At this stage, students should focus on what is most important and organise their information with presentation in mind. They should read through all the information before making notes in point form. They should use their focus questions and key words to help focus their notes and record only what they need to know.

Teachers should provide support through:

• using collaborative talk to help students clarify points and meaning
• helping students select information from their notes
• suggest ways of ordering information
• teaching the skills of categorising, sequencing and drafting

Stage 5: Presenting

When presenting information (in this unit it will be in the form of a rubric), the children should remember some important things:

1. Who is the audience the presentation for?
2. What do I want to say?
3. How am I going to communicate it?

Students need to think about how to present their information in ways suitable to context, purpose, topic and audience. They will need to the process of drafting and re-drafting their work, seeking the advice of the teacher and their peers while doing this.

Teachers should provide their support by:

• modelling different forms of presentation
• modelling the drafting and re-drafting of information for presentation
• using previous students’ work and real life examples  just like an exemplar
• discussing a range of presentation possibilities: booklets, posters, PowerPoint presentations, Front Page, diaries, pamphlets, instructions, essays, newspaper reports, charts, diagrams, debates, advertisements, drama, etc.
• inviting a range of people to act as an audience and encouraging the children to be a good audience

Stage 6: Evaluating

Students should reflect on their learning and performance as a researcher throughout the research process. At the end, they should evaluate what they did well and what not so well and establish skills for their next learning step. The children should also think about what they would do if they were to take their research even further.

The teacher should provide support by:

• provide guidelines for teacher assessment, form examples, sharing a rubric or analysing exemplars
• providing guidelines for peer assessment
• provide guidelines for self assessment