End of Term 3

2 days to go, a mountain of To Do's but it doesn't feel too overwhelming. Knowing that I can spend time on everything over the hols really helps.
Have lots of data collection from my own class to do and analysing it. Even though there's only the one term left I'm hoping that there will still be lots of learning and progress happening.
Now I'm thinking about reports and that gets the blood pressure rising! That's before even thinking about looking at everyone elses.
Want to spend some time preparing maths for observation next term.
Found the ALiM on NZ Maths interesting especially for our slow learners that struggle to each expected levels. Will share with team in a minute.
Have loved the work on Poetry we've been doing in class and have been pleasantly surprised by the quality and quantity of writing from many children.
Thrilled to have found new website with appropriate poems to share- Miss Marg. She has a nice range of classroom posters to use as well.

Google Docs PD

This continues to be a big learning curve and the dots are starting to join together. So moving from teacherwrite to Google Docs for Middle Team will happen- when I have the time - probably the holidays.

Andrea is giving us the PD we need. It is unrealistic to expect anybody to be using Google docs without having the necessary PD. I'm sure this is another stress on teachers this year.
As much as we need to be working on PD curriculum based, this really an everyday priority for us all.

Maths PLD

Collectively as a team I think we all felt more comfortable with Dinah this time. There is no doubt that we all hold her in high regard and see her as a guru!
The team is very supportive of one another and I felt as if we really shined over the 2 days of modelling and observations. GO TEAM!!
Very reflective and goal driven practice is what I am seeing.
Personally, I have a long way to go...

Written Language/Maths Planning

Over the last few weeks we have looked at Written Language as a team. We shared ideas for Work on Writing during Daily Five . Various ideas as to the purpose of this part of Daily Five. My thoughts are that it is all about writing mileage. Write more, more practice makes a better writer.
We will be levelling pieces of writing together so that we have a shared understanding of what each level looks like. It's important that we have the same standard expectations across the team, and then school-wide obviously.

Last week the Team planned the Maths Time unit together. We all assumed responsibilities - planning units, resources, manipulatives, on-line activities, tutorials etc. As a team everyone expressed how good it was to spend time on this together. We could all have gob=ne away and done the same thing 5 times over. This was a good use of time and skills eg. Andrea is great with on line stuff and Leeann with manipulatives.