Can't believe it is the end of half term. Why do half terms for teachers involve catching up on dentist appointments, spring cleaning, the inevitable planning? Normal life catches up on us, all my sills are dusted, all my ceiling corners are de-webbed! I have a new list as long as my arm for things to do in school in this next short half term! Red nose day, World Book Day, World Education Games days, class residential trip, assessments, reports, parents' evening, class assembly (which obviously I've decided to do in the church and invite parishioners to!). It's all part of our busy lives at school and the children have at least this much to do, many have half a dozen sporting fixtures as well!
Sometimes I just have to force myself to sit and think and enjoy the busyness of my life. I am lucky, I have great kids, I teach great kids and I work with some great people. I have the dream job. Is there anything better than being a teacher? I think not.
Sunday 24 February 2013
Tuesday 12 February 2013
Graffiti maths
We have had some brilliant work today in Maths. As we are getting closer and closer to May my thoughts turn to how children interpret questions. I decided this week would be a good time to revisit the RUCSAC mnemonic for remembering the processes for working out what a problem is asking.
RUCSAC stands for : Read, Understand, Choose (operation), Solve, Answer and Check.
We were observed today and I decided to take a risk and try something new I'd read about on a blog by a teacher on twitter known as @ohlottie. She had tried a version of graffitti maths, read about it on her blog here:
http://clairelotriet.com/blog/2012/12/15/graffiti-maths/
We used paper on our tables too and worked through money word problems from past test papers. Children were differentiated in four groups and worked at levels 3-6, the idea that they would move up into higher level questions. They loved the freedom to scrawl their working out and even attempted new (for them) methods.
It was a great lesson and got an outstanding which was an added bonus! Have a look at some of our work.
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