At the beginning of this academic year, I attended a fabulous workshop on Personalisation and Learner Agency with Bek Galloway. It has had a profound impact on my classroom practise and I'm working slowly and steadily to implement many of her ideas and pedagogies with my Year 2 learners. The key words there are 'slowly and … Continue reading Time to make a choice
Reviving Role Play
I've mentioned before my love for all things drama, and role play is a big part of that. You can wander into any Early Year’s classroom and find a buzzing shop, or home corner, or cafe. Yet somehow this vanishes as soon as a learner leaves kindergarten. And this year, I've made it my mission … Continue reading Reviving Role Play
We Are Scientists
I love it when our How the World Works units come up in the PYP. The learners absolutely adore the opportunity to explore the world around them through a scientific lens. And with the upcoming changes to the PYP structure, allowing more stand-alone inquiries, I can't wait to see all the thoughts and wonderings they … Continue reading We Are Scientists
Say It Again: Ideas for Retelling
All educators in early years education spend a lot of time working on getting children to re-tell stories. There are so many language developments linked to this simple activity - "story-related comprehension and expressive vocabulary as well as nonstory-related receptive language and early literacy development" (Dunst et al., 2012). However, it can feel a bit … Continue reading Say It Again: Ideas for Retelling
Hansel and Gretel – what else is hiding in the woods?
I'm still playing around with maps at the moment, and am enjoying seeing how my learners are getting into this way of organising their thoughts. For this writing project, we once again started with a whole group collaboration. After reading the story of Hansel and Gretel, I saw a perfect opportunity to use the map … Continue reading Hansel and Gretel – what else is hiding in the woods?
The Three Little Pigs – an immersive learning experience
Through my connections to ISTA, I've been most fortunate to attend workshops led by Dr Debra Kidd. I always look forward to these as I adore her ideas for using drama as pedagogy in the Primary classroom. Recently, I heard her speak about spatial memory, and how we can use maps to immerse children in … Continue reading The Three Little Pigs – an immersive learning experience
Blast Off!
As I mentioned in my previous post, I love drama. So when I was given the opportunity to host an ISTA (International Schools Theatre Association) Festival, I jumped at the chance! In fact, I jumped in deeper than most and offered to host two - the Lower Primary and Primary Festivals. After some thought, I … Continue reading Blast Off!
