All our programmes are planned as per our school guidelines and include all important information from the NZ curriculum. This term there was a lot of repetition in our term as we really had 3 weeks before we went into lockdown and then three weeks when we came back. The break in the middle made it more challenging to get as much learning done as we wanted to. I have included planning from week 4 but we only got to do two days of this before the lockdown.
Reading and writing
We have been teaching literacy together this term and I think this has been a really positive thing for the students. When we came back from lockdown Nicole and I made the decision not to switch groups as there was only three weeks left and we wanted to get as much strong learning done as possible during those weeks. We have continued to change our groups as much as possible to cater for the progress of different students, so they are in the best group for them. We have also been using topics that are familiar to the students for writing so they can produce their best work.
Reading plans (with assessment on plan): Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4, Week 8, Week 9, Week 10
Writing: Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4, Week 8, Week 9, Week 10
Maths
We started the term with some algebra this term and we did two weeks on pattern making. We grouped the students according to the data we had from both our algebra testing and our assessment of their number skills as for some that didn’t recognise numbers still they obviously needed to work on simpler colour or object patterns.
We then started working on number in week 3 but we were also starting this routine again and working with a new teacher to welcome into our classroom space so we hadn’t really started strongly before we went into lockdown. After we came back from lockdown we started using number knowledge pathways to more strongly get an idea of exactly what they know and need to work on. They loved them as well.
Week 3, Week 4, Week 8, Week 9, Week 10
Shared Reading, Phonics and Poetry
This term for reading we used fairytales which were from the national library so they also included a CD as well as the story so that we both read the story and listened to the song too. This was a great connection for the students and they enjoyed having the singing aspect. We have continued to work on having two groups for phonics so that we can better cater for the needs of the students but we also did it so that we were working on the same poem that we would have for our poem of the week. We didn’t always get to the activity for the poem but we always did a lot of work on them throughout the week.
Health/PE/Fitness/Zone/Behaviour/Mindfulness
These areas were one place that we really missed out on due to the lockdown as we didn’t get to do much of either food and nutrition or for our small balls unit due to when the lockdown occurred. We also had a fire safety issue arrive in the class and therefore needed to start this unit when we came back from the lockdown in order to ensure the students understood how important fire safety is. We have continued to improve our fitness and have been getting out there for more and more time which is great.
Plan and small ball assessment
Te Reo
This was another areas affected by the lockdown as they weren’t for the most part being exposed to Māori in their homes during this time so it meant when they came back we basically had to start again and repeat the lessons that we had done at the beginning of the term. So for this reason the assessment doesn’t look that great as we didn’t get the long stretch of time we needed.
Inquiry - Science and Drama
Our science this term definitely went a lot better than our drama. We focused on simple concepts for science and this meant that they were able to develop an understanding quite well. We will continue working on this next term and integrate our technology into this unit to get more out of both areas. For drama we have only really just gotten started and we need to do a lot more in this area to work for the students to build a stronger understanding of drama skills.
