Twinkl Review - English Resources

I was recently contacted by the people at Twinkl to review some of their Australian resources. They kindly offered me a free subscription so I can look at all of their resources, and offer my own opinions about them.

I will start off by saying that I don't love worksheets. I do use them, but not everyday, and I prefer hands-on activities. So, I was very glad when I started looking through Twinkl's resources and saw lots of resources that are not just 'busy work' worksheets. They have displays, which are colourful and eye catching, packs of cut-and-paste resources for sequencing and sorting, and games/activities to print and continue to reuse.

The resources I'm going to share are some of their English resources designed for grades 3 and 4.
 

Home Reading

If you're looking for a new Reading Log, this one looks great! I particularly liked the column where students can list their emotions about their reading - this helps with reflecting on their reading, and can help a teacher to understand how reading homework is going at home.

Narrative Writing

Two resources caught my eye for Narrative. The Narrative Writing Prompt Flashcards and the Narrative Writing Student Checklist. 

I loved that the prompt flashcards have photos on the cards along with the text to give more inspiration and support for coming up with interesting narratives. I can definitely see my students using these appealing cards to help with their writing ideas.

I'm always looking for ways for students to be self-reflective and to review their own writing before showing it to me, and using this checklist would support that. I like that I could hand them out before, during or after my students' complete their narrative writing and they could be using them to make sure their narrative writing is high quality. It prompts them to think about the important elements of narrative writing. I did think it was interesting that one item on the list is "My story has a believable but interesting problem". I'm not worried about believable problems, I'm more interested in their creativity and how they solve the problem in the story.

Procedural Writing

I was disappointed that there weren't any grade 3/4 procedural writing resources because that's our next writing focus. The procedural writing resources that were available would be more suited to the younger grades. The only resource that will probably be useful is the Features of Instructions and Procedures Poster, but only as a reference.

Speaking and Listening

My school has been focusing on oral language and the Speaking and Listening curriculum for the last 6 months, so I was curious to see what resources were available on Twinkl for these areas.

They have created an easy to use Speaking and Listening Observational Rubric for different year levels, and I printed the grade 3 rubric to look at. I like that it refers to the Content Descriptions for the Australian Curriculum, however I'm in Victoria and we're using the new Victorian Curriculum so the codes are slightly different. But, as a simple checklist to assess how students are going with this curriculum area it would be very useful.

The Oral Presentation Rubric for Year 3 would have been so useful for me last term!! Our students had to plan and present a presentation about their favourite book, and if I'd had his rubric it would have made assessing so easy. I like that it lists different elements to assess, as well as a star grading scale, and it has the Australian Curriculum links on the bottom.

Literacy Group Activity

The last resource is one that I'll include in my reading groups next term. We have been looking at ways to improve students' vocabulary, and I think the Word Challenge Worksheet would be great for that. I'm going to print and laminate them, so students can complete the task (define the word, identify synonyms, and put the word in a sentence) and then rub it off to be reused.

Overall

Overall, I find Twinkl's website to be tricky to navigate, and not all of their categories have resources in them for the Australian Curriculum section which can be frustrating. Search terms can often bring up a huge number of resources which can be hard to filter down. But, the quality of the resources is high, they sheets are content-focused and clean-looking so that students are concentrating on the learning and not on overly distracting flourishes on the page.

Next month I'll review some maths resources by Twinkl.

Thanks again to Twinkl for this opportunity.

Reading Groups and Maths Groups set-up

I'm always excited to share things that are happening in my classroom. That's one reason I love Instagram. I recently shared the PowerPoint slide that I use for showing students their Reading and Maths groups, so I thought I'd share a bit more about how I've set them up.

Right at the beginning of this year I wrote a blog post over on the Australian Teachers Collaborative Blog about how I planned to run my Reading Groups. I was inspired by lots of blogs, and other teachers, and I had ideas that I was excited about. Unfortunately, it just didn't work out the way I'd planned. And that's ok! So much about teaching is trying new things, reflecting on them, and making changes. That is exactly what I did.
 

 

I started the year trying to give my students more choice, found that it didn't suit my students in the way I had envisioned it, so I dropped Reading Groups altogether. During term 2 I did whole group reading activities, not a lot of differentiating, and mainly comprehension work based on texts about our Inquiry topic. This didn't work either, and I found that my student achievement data didn't change the way it could/should. So...

I went 'back to basics'. In Australia, about 10 years ago, there was a huge push towards the 'Early Years Literacy Block'. It was highly structured, based on a group system for reading, and writing would always follow straight after, for a total literacy block of 120min. I had run my literacy block this way in the past, but didn't do it this year. During the winter holidays I re-read the training material for this framework, and decided I'd try it again. And so far, I love it!!!
 

 

A week in reading for me now includes:

• 15-20min every day of Independent Reading. Students self-select books from a huge range that I've collected over the years and store in The Book Corner. They have to have 4 'levelled texts', and 3 of something else (magazines, non-fiction books, early readers, picture books, chapter books, etc) which they store in the rainbow drawers next to the bookshelf.
• 2 lessons a week of comprehension-based, whole group tasks, focused on big ideas like inferring, visualisation and understanding character/setting. 
• 1 lesson that starts with Independent Reading but is then taken up with spelling pre- and post-testing and setting weekly homework.
• 2 Reading Groups lessons. 

The Book Corner

I have four reading groups, based on ability, and each day they complete 2 activities, so that after the two lessons they've completed all four activities. The activities are: oral language, word work, handwriting, and reciprocal reading. My students have started remembering what their pair of activities will be for each day, it's making transitions easier, it's making my individual assessment easier, and having familiar activities means students know the expectations.

Handwriting, Pop for Blends, Oral Language Storycards, Reciprocal reading

While students are working on their activities I pull students from any group who have the same learning goal for reading (eg. reading with expression, sounding out words, using punctuation correctly, etc.).
 

This is how I display my students' individual learning goals.

For Maths Groups I have an almost identical set-up.

I have four maths groups, based on ability, and these are groups that were organised based on an addition pre-test. The four activities they do are: iPods (maths app), a maths game, task cards and teacher group. The only difference between the Reading Groups and Maths Groups is that I have a 'built in' teacher group in maths, whereas I don't have one in Reading. This is because my maths groups are based on the skill they're up to which is the focus for the teacher groups, whereas in reading they are grouped by reading level not skill.

Preparing some of the Maths Groups activities

My school requires teachers to teach 2 days of Number/Place Value content every week (this is my Maths Group time), and 2-3 days of a maths topic from another area of the curriculum. For example, last week we learned about symmetry on the other days, next week we're learning about transformations.

The set-up for my resources and materials is simple, too. I bought tubs from Kmart (the coloured ones are from the kitchen section, and the grey ones are from the storage section). Maths tasks are in blue tubs, and reading are in red(ish) tubs. I haven't made the labels for the maths tubs yet, but the reading tubs have a label bulldog-clipped to them that matches the name of the activity on the planning table above. My students know where to find the tubs, where and how to put them back, and to keep our materials neat and tidy.

 

I like the regularity and familiarity my students now have with these group set-ups. I like that it is easy to plan for. I like that they are practising core skills quickly and regularly, which is supporting their skills in other areas. For my class this really works!

I'd love to know how you run groups in your room. It constantly amazes me how many incredible ideas teachers come up with for running groups. We are a creative bunch!!

Book Week 2016 - Australian Teachers Blog

I've just blogged over on the Australian Teachers Collaborative Blog. I wrote about ideas and activities for Book Week 2016. Go and check it out!

Reading groups plan - Australian Teachers Blog

I'm blogging over at the Australian Teachers Blog! I've just posted about my plan for reading groups for this year.

 

 

Sight word stations

We've been working on reading and spelling sight words and three-letter words (CVC words). Six stations: Pop for Sight Words, play dough, magnetic letters, letters hidden in coloured rice tubs, CVC word game by @lozzybeck called Shark!, and shaving cream writing. Lots of fun!! And lots of practise!

Here are the Sight word stations in action!

Making words with play dough. They also had to read the word out to their group to show that they knew what it was. 

Writing words in shaving cream. They also had to read the word out to their group to show that they knew what it was. I like using plates with the shaving cream (rather than directly on the table) because it makes cleaning up easier.

Writing in shaving cream is messy, but it's so much fun!!!

Photo snippets from Reading lessons

I have been a terrible blogger lately! But I've been a very regular Instagrammer, so I thought I'd share some of the photos from our Reading lessons that I've been putting on Instagram.

I bought these fantastic little lights on Amazon a couple of weeks ago. We've been enjoying using them as pointers during guided reading sessions.

Pop for Letters is one of my students' favourite games. Early in the year they just identify the letter name. Then they begin to identify the letter sound. After that they identify a word that begins with that sound, or end with that sound. Now they have to provide the name, the sound and a word!

These are some reading groups activities. Top left is making high frequency words using playdough. Top right was the guided reading group I was working with. Bottom left is an awesome game called Shark! (my kids love the shark attack cards). Bottom right is Pop for Letters.

In the last couple of weeks I've had to change reading groups to make five groups because the range of reading is expanding. Now we do two activities, as well as silent reading. The top two are the books that I read with my guided reading groups. Bottom left is Pop for Rhyming Words (love!). Bottom middle is playing Memory/Concentration with high frequency word cards. Bottom right is matching CVC words with the matching pictures.

When we were focussing on rhyming words I would write a nursery rhyme or tongue twister up on the board each morning. We'd read it, identify the rhyming words, and then brainstorm more words that rhymed.

We'd been focussing on these letter combinations for a while, so it was time to check what they could do. Each child had a card and had to look at the picture, say the word, and then identify the letter combination in the word. This was a whole group activity so there was lots of 'helpers' for those who needed it. I used cards from two different photo cards boxes: Learning Resources Alphabet Photo Cards and Learning Resources Kindergarten Vocabulary Photo Cards.

I'm a very visual person when it comes to reading/looking at blog posts, so I think this is a format I will try to stick with for a little while. Let's see if I can blog more than once every two months!

Reading Groups my way

I love Reading Groups - really, I do! I love the independence it teaches students. I love the freedom it gives me to work with different children in different ways. I love the fun activities we get to do in small groups. If I could run my entire curriculum in small groups I would. But, it's only Reading Groups for now.

This year I have created my best system yet for Reading Groups. Well, I think it's the best yet. Each year I come up with a slightly different version depending on the type of class I've got, the size of my class and what I've been reading on blogs. This year I changed the system again, but I think it's here to stay.

In a nutshell: we start off with a Big Book reading focus. Then we do silent reading. Then we do a small group activity. And finally we reflect/share.

To elaborate: I have a different whole group focus each week. It might be a reading strategy (like sounding out words, or looking at the picture for clues) or it might be about comprehension (literal or inferential) and early on it was concepts about print and full stops. It changes every 1-2 weeks, depending on how much time we need to spend on the skill. When we did sounding out I didn't use a big book, I wrote four words on the board each day and we worked together to decode them, looking at letter combinations (like sh, oo, ck).

I am still using the amazing Rainbow Tub System from last year.

 

But I don't use animal names for my groups anymore, they are just the colour of their tubs, ie. Blue Group, Green Group etc. In Tub 1 are a selection of books at their reading level that stay in that tub for about 2 weeks. Every day we complete 5-10min of Silent Reading. Which isn't entirely silent, but it is quiet-ish. During this time I either meet with a whole group (often my low group who need extra support) or I work one-on-one with students for specific skills or assessment. I have one student who is well above the expected reading level so I often read with that child. After the amount of time that suits both me (depending on what I'm doing during that time) and my students concentration span for that day, we swap to Tub 2.

I have been posting photos of my Tub 2 activities on Instagram. I love Tub 2 time!! I either do Guided Reading during that time, rove around to check on the small groups, or continue with assessment. Here are some photos of the activities we have been doing during Tub 2 time.

TL: Guided Reading. TR: Puzzles. BL: Playdough mats. BR: Beading.

TL: Making small paper balls (finger strength). TR: Letter matching. BL: Lining up MAB units on MAB 100s. BR: Guided reading.

TL: Pinning pictures. TR: Guided reading. BL: Sorting fiction and non-fiction books. BR: Pop for Letters.

TL: Roll, write, read sheets. TR: Sequencing cards. BL: Teacher group focussing on letters. BR: Playdough!

TL: Matching letters on an alphabet chart. TR: Pop for Letters. BL: sequencing cards. BR: Roll, write, read.

TL: Pinning pictures. TR: Tracing. BL: Threading pasta. BR: Cutting with fancy scissors.

TL: Pegging the initial sound. TR: Sequencing cards. BL: Matching CVC words and pictures. BR: Matching lower case letters.

I choose my activities based on each group's goals. For example, my top group is working on mainly CVC and sight words now, with an occasional fine motor skill or letter sound task to mix things up. My lower groups are working mainly on fine motor skills and letters, including letter identification. I love that Reading Groups allows me to differentiate the tasks to match student goals.

 

At the end we come together and swap between a few different versions of 'share time'. Sometimes I just ask who would like to share something about their Reading Groups task. Sometimes I will get my Guided Reading group to read their book to the class. I have some cards that I occasionally use that say "Today I enjoyed..." "Today I learned..." "Today something I found hard was..." "Today something I found easy was...". Depending on how much time we have and how the kids are coping with the morning I change the closure of the lesson.

 

All of this takes us about 35-40mins. Sometimes we go over that time if the kids are all working really well, other times I'll shorten the time we spend on each part if we are running late or have something that we have to ready for.

I'd love to hear how you run Reading Groups, or Reading Instruction if you don't have groups.

Peek at my week - week beginning 16 February

I love reading what other teachers are doing in their classrooms, and I love sharing what I'm doing. Here is a peek at my week!

Here is a recap of week four of term 1:

When my students come in each morning they unpack their satchels. Their satchels are blue, velcro-closure pockets that they carry notes, take home books and their diary in. They also transport money in them. Each morning they put their money pouch in the white box, their diary in the green box and their satchel in the blue bucket - we only started this routine last week and it is taking some time!!

We made these in maths. I love combining fine motor skills with other subject areas and number formation is an area we focus on. You can get the mosaic squares from Zart Art.

These were our four Reading Groups last week. We had guided reading with me, puzzles, playdough and beading. My students are still learning how to work in groups, and fine motor tasks are really useful for practicing group work. All students understand the tasks and can do them independently while I work with my small group. This week our phonological awareness focus was rhyme.

This is the board behind where I sit for Guided Reading. I write up our focus, and go through the black words (which are high frequency words from the book we are reading) before we read.

We started Maths Groups last week too. I will be doing an hour per week of Maths Groups, where the students will work in groups of 3-4 students and will complete 5 different activities. All activities will be focussed on number/place value. It is a great opportunity to do some quick assessment and see how different students are coping with the content.