Geography - webquests

I've just found a website with links to various webquests. These may come in useful when I am thinking about independent research tasks for next year (more on that later!). The website includes information on how webquests link to the TASC wheel (Thinking Actively in a Social Context).

It includes a webquest about countries, in which pupils take on the role of a tour guide and research necessary background information. It is designed for KS3, but could be adapted for upper KS2. It includes links for finding out about Brazil, Greece and Australia.

There is also one about weather, comparing forecasts with recording the actual weather.

Languages and Espresso video clips

I'm going to try to teach my class a few words in the language of each country we travel to. I'm starting next week with France, then Germany I think. Enchanted Learning has resources for French, Chinese, Dutch, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Swedish. There's also lots of general geography and map stuff. Espresso provides videos and other resources on French, German and Spanish. There are also free resources on Schools Links for French, German and Spanish. This school website includes video footage of their children saying basic words in their language.

I'm also going to use lots of pictures and videos to give children an idea of what it is like in the countries we study. Espresso's geography passport section covers Scotland, Sudan, India, Australia, Madagascar and Chile. The geography news section includes videos about Icons of England, Find out about Germany, Changing China, Changing India, Arctic Explorers, The Queen in Australia, Drought in Kenya, Australian drought and Floods in Indonesia.

Tourist Information and Travel Agent role play

On Thursday night, I used this site to contact a few tourist information boards, saying in the comments section that I was a teacher working on a geography project with my class. This morning (only two days later!) I received information from Sri Lanka and Korea. They've sent me loads of useful stuff, including maps and cultural information booklets. There's also a directory of tourist boards here, which sometimes has links to order brochures.

I've also spent this morning going round travel agents to collect brochures. I'm trying to find space in my classroom to set up a travel agent role play area, inspired by ideas from Trinity Educational (including a free download of ideas, photos and a booking form template for children to use) and Role Play Online.

I'm going to try to use this in maths, for example:

• data handling - weather graphs and statistics
• time - timetables, flight departure times, itineraries
• calculations - travel, hotel and attraction prices
• measures - weight and size allowances for luggage

I'll also use it in literacy, for example designing adverts, brochures and tourist information. And obviously it will link in with geography!

Geography - our trip round the world

To link with our topic on weather this term, I've given each child a passport / travel journal booklet to collect information about different countries. Initially, I'm going to model how I want these to be filled in and I will choose the countries we visit on our virtual tour of the world. Later on, the children will be choosing their own countries and independently researching those.

I've started a class blog to record our comments and links to useful websites. I've written the first posts, but future posts will hopefully be written by the children (and approved by me before being published!).

I've also been using images of the current country as the background for my desktop on the IWB. The easiest way I've found is to search Google images and select medium or large pictures. When you find the picture you want, right-click and choose 'Set as Background'. You could also use your own digital photos. This has started a few interesting discussions and enabled the class to see photos of a wide range of locations.

Maths interactive display - time

Over the last week, my display shelf has been used for resources related to our maths topic - time. At various points during the week, it contained:

• teaching clocks


• sand timers


• stopwatches


• tockers


• books about the invention of the clock


• sheets with blank clock faces


• clock face stamps and templates

It was great to see children using the resources independently during maths lessons, for example deciding that one of the clocks would help them to find the difference between two times. Groups of children also explored the timers and tockers during morning work when they come into the classroom in the morning. I also used 'snap' cards for children to match up analogue and digital times. This was particularly useful with my lower attainers, to practise basic skills.

I am going to try a similar approach with fractions resources next week. Hopefully the resources will support children during maths lessons, stimulate discussion between children and promote the exploration of ideas.

Make believe...?

I'm not sure my class really 'get it' when I've tried role play with them. One of the other teachers reported back to me a comment that one of the boys in my class made. She'd asked him what they were doing that afternoon. He'd replied, "We made passports. We're going on a trip round the world. Well, Miss K thinks we are, anyway."

In the autumn term, I tried using email. I created an account under the name of Professor Bubble. We were studying gases in science, and I sent the class an email from him saying that he didn't think gases existed. The idea was that we would do the experiments I'd planned and then email him, proving him wrong. But my class saw through it immediately, insisting that the email was from me.

This doesn't put me off though, despite knowing that my class think I'm slightly mad. They're quite willing to humour me, but they make it fairly obvious that's what they're doing and that they don't belive me for a moment!

Success Criteria

One of the things I need to improve in my teaching is my use of success criteria. So I'm going to start a list of useful resources!

• Classworks marking ladders
• Bristol LEA - literacy success criteria
• Juliateacher's marking stickers
• AfL resources
• extracts from Shirley Clarke book
• Cumbria grid - using success criteria in maths

VCOP display

Here is a photo of my literacy display last term (click on the photo for a larger version). The VCOP part and the text types on the left hand side are more or less permanent, though I will sometimes add different connectives or examples of vocabulary. The small section on the right is changed every time we start a new text type. During our Cinderella work, I put up summaries of the stories we had read. The children used this when they were comparing the stories. When working on a non-fiction text type, I put up features, examples and success criteria for that text type. Usually during narrative units I will have the basic narrative structure plus other elements relevant to the stories we are reading.

The files for the VCOP headings and connective cards are on TES resources - follow the links to the right. In the vocabulary section I included four posters defining types of words and giving examples. The punctuation characters are from Trinity Education. The pyramids that I have used for punctuation and sentence openers are available from many websites, including Primary Ideas.

Cinderella project

One really successful series of lessons this term has been the literacy work on Cinderella. I started by telling them the fairy tale of Cinderella, using objects to represent key events (as shown in the picture, plus an invitation which seems to have got lost before I could take a photo of the display!). They created a story board to help them remember the plot and practised telling the story to a partner. I then told them or read them The Blue Fish, Cinderlad and the Glass Hill, Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters and Yeh-Shen. After each story, they filled in a grid with the key characters and events, to help them to compare and contrast the stories. We also made pumpkin glyphs with different parts of the carriage representing different aspects of the stories. They created a story map for The Blue Fish and filled in a worksheet comparing the two sisters in Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters. I also briefly told them the stories of The Talking Eggs and Fair, Brown and Trembling.

We unpicked what was similar about all the stories and what were the essential parts of a Cinderella story. They used that knowledge to plan their own version. Some of them were very inventive - nerds who had lost their maths book, a motorbike race and singing competitions. They then wrote the stories in their books. Over the last three days of term, they used the laptops to type up the stories and painted illustrations for their books. In small groups, I helped the children to stitch the pages of their book together. On the final day, they stuck their text and illustrations into the book and shared their books with the Year 3 classes.

Almost all the children created a book that they were very proud of. Apart from one afternoon when they got a bit restless, they were motivated and focused on the task and the classroom had a very calm, productive atmosphere.

I think the success of the project came from the quality texts that were used, the visual activities that helped them to understand the stories and the time given to produce an extended piece of work with a real audience.

I've added my planning and the story outline posters I created (see literacy display above) to the TES resource bank - links on right. Hopefully there will also be a display outside my classroom of some of the work the children produced throughout the unit - I'll put up a photo when it's done!

If you download any of my resources from TES, please leave a brief rating - I'd really appreciate the feedback. Thanks!

Welcome!

I've decided to start a blog to help me to reflect on what I'm doing in the classroom and hopefully to share some resources that I've found useful.