Whew what a long term. Term 1 is always the hardest for me because you are setting up routines, getting to know the kids and they are getting to know you, testing and on top of it all teaching.
I have an adorable class of kids, well I say that every year...hee hee... who are really trying hard in all curriculum areas. Writing is definitely the area where they struggle the most. The templates I set up have worked on most of the kids but not all.
This is what has helped. Having clear voice instructions inserted into each slide explaining what is required of them. A step by step plan for writing a narrative in the correct order. I also had the same format each week so the kids were not getting something new on their i-pads each week.
Each week the students wrote 1 quality piece of writing. The first day small groups would sit with me and we would go over their plan and discuss characters and settings and 1 problem or event that might occur. I helped them get this up on their plan. As the term went on i helped less and less pulling away a little each week and allowing them the time to make their own mistakes and go back and change things around.
The best thing for me was watching their confidence grow and the way they would stand up and want to share their story. I had the whole class trying to bump each other off the apple tv to show off their work. Beautiful.
So over the next week I am going to reinvent the wheel and come up with something new and exciting for them to tackle in Term 2. Once these are completed I shall post them up. Overall great term, good progress was made by most and looking forward to Term 2.
