Hi everyone, it's Casey from Little Lifelong Learners and today I would like to share some goal setting inspiration with you all!

Setting goals in the primary years classroom enables both students and teachers to have a mutual understanding of expectations and a clear direction for classroom learning. With continued modelling, guidance and feedback, students are able to monitor their own progress throughout a learning activity and take ownership of their own learning. 

In my own classroom, I have implemented a writing goal chart. Each student has their own post-it note which can be moved once a student has reached their goal and sets a new one. They also have a little goal booklet in their book box where I write their writing goal. Each writing lesson, the students place their booklet on their desk to remind them of their goal.

You might be interested in these wonderful Reading and Writing Goal Reminder Slips from Miss Jacob's Little Learners too! 

 I also have some Key Learning Area Goal Setting Posters up in the classroom. I sometimes use these to write our goals on for the entire week and sometimes I use them at the beginning of a lesson to make our learning intentions clear. These are available in my TPT store.

 

Early Years with Sheri has goal charts displayed in her classroom as well. The yellow cards are for Writing Goals and green are for Maths Goals. The Expression, Fluency, Comprehension, Focus, Decoding and Vocabulary cards are for Reading and remind students of their personal goals.

I hope you've gotten some useful ideas for setting goals in your classroom! I would love to read some of your ideas in the comments.

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Casey

Hello everyone, Stephanie from Fishing for Education here with some fun ways to help with your students fluency in maths (addition, subtraction, multiplication, & division).


At my school we are asked to have our students be tested on their maths fluency each term.  They focus on all four operations each term, and my students definitely don't like the boring task of answer facts on a worksheet.  I do have them practise on a worksheet from time to time, but I implement more fluency games to continue the practise.

Whenever my students are finished early with work they can work on maths games, and I have a wide variety for the students to choose from.  Here are some that my students enjoy and find easy to follow!

Flashcards & Whiteboards

One of the games we do is practise our multiplication facts using flashcards, but we use them as a game! Flip a card and answer.  If you get it correct you keep it, if incorrect you put it back.  Most cards wins! 

My students took it a step further and made sure to build arrays based on the flashcard!  They're definitely getting better at multiplication with the daily practise.

Fraction War

We also make sure we recognise and understand fractions regularly because it is a difficult concept to grasp.  I've made these cards and the students play Fraction War!  They each flip a card and the player that has the greater fraction keeps the cards.  If you come across equivalent fractions, you go another round until there's a winner.  (Winner gets the whole bundle!)   

Fluency Dice

This is probably the best $20 I've spent!  We've used these for addition, subtraction, multiplication and adding/multiplying multiple numbers!  My students came up with a more active game where they make a small tower on the floor near a wall and toss a dice to knock some down.  They then add all the dice that fell to see who finds the sum first.  I love how they come up with their own games.

Playing Cards

Playing cards are the easiest, and affordable, way to incorporate regular games in math.  I had an old maths curriculum that had a game called TOP IT!  We did this game with addition, subtraction and multiplication.  

1. Player 1 flips two cards and adds, subtracts or multiplies them.
2. Player 2 picks the next two cards and does the same.
3. Player with the higher answer keeps the cards.
4. Player with the most cards at the end wins!
5. If you get the same answer, you do another round.

Typical games can easily be made into maths fluency games!  What games do you play in your class?

Some great resources on TPT:

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Unknown

Paula from Paula's Place back to share with you how I plan an Inquiry Unit. 

On Sunday I posted the 'Why' should we use a theme or Inquiry approach and this will give you more information about how I do things. 

I use this model and the Taking Action is the big idea - this is where we need to get to with a well thought out path and direction for student learning. 

This model can be found on many websites and I am not sure who the original author is. 

So to demonstrate how I use this model this unit on Gold in Australia is an example. 

Before I plan any unit of work - even an Inquiry - I look at the Curriculum, school planing documents, curriculum audits and reporting requirements. 

This way I don't miss parts of the curriculum and have my eye on the ball for other things we need to cover. 

Then I start with - How can we use any learning to make a difference?

This helps to build the BIG IDEA - use student driven questions and student devised ways to present new learning. 

Then I pull in the Key Understandings which will help drive the teaching and/or independent leaning to help create individual questions for research. Skill development helps me to asses in other areas ie ICT, Personal Learning, Thinking Skills, Communication, English and Maths if they fit. 

This is where I gather information on what my kids know. 

We record our current knowledge, what we want to know. 

Then the Inquiry Model Process begins. 

Tuning In

Finding Out

Sorting Out

Then as a grade we brainstorm possible Inquiry Questions, as I know what the curriculum needs are I can help guide the questions and direction so that they are covered as well as what motivates each student. 

Going Further 

and 

Making Conclusions happen here

The taking action is our conclusion. 

Some kids will help along the way and I have tasks for them to assist in a modified version of an inquiry. Some kids are just not ready for an independent Inquiry Model yet.

Click here to see more detail for this Gold Unit. 

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Paula’s Place

Spring is here and it is my favourite season!

These photos are from our Botanical Gardens in Ballarat and they are amazing at this time of the year.

Do you teach to themes?

Hi, I'm Paula from Paula's Place and this is how I love to teach.

How high a profile do you give the arrival of a new season? 

With many of our schools either on holidays or returning to school tomorrow planning is a high priority for us all. 

We spend so much of our time planning those just right tasks that will support and challenge our learners and make learning and teaching engaging and embedded in what we do. 

Why teach to a theme?

When learning has interesting content, our kids are more engaged.

Any theme or unit is more than asking children to sing a few songs, draw pictures or work on worksheets.

A great unit has tasks that will engage children and lead to observations and inquiry.

I use themes to teach because they create excitement, hold attention spans, provide new vocabulary and teach new skills. A great theme encourages learning new content, sharing what we learn, investigating what we don’t know and form questions about what we what to explore. 

I am a huge fan of Inquiry Planning and whether you follow a subscribed method or not - the engagement is much higher and retention of information is higher. 

A very basic way to plan is the e5 model or use other inquiry process models. I will blog more about the planing aspect latter in the week. 

   

These packs will help you with your planning and create that great theme all based around Spring - click on the images to see more details. 

     

These are two freebies for you to use. 

   

Happy spring!

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Paula’s Place