Muffins and Mindmaps

 

"We are rarely proud when we are alone"

-Voltaire

 

http://www.searchquotes.com/Voltaire__/Pride/quotes/

Today I attended Muffins and Mindmaps where we were asked to reflect on our project so far and create a Mr Men or Little Miss charecter to represent our feelings. After thoughts about how far the children have come in such a short space of time I thought I would create Ms Proud.

 

I considered how much change had already occurred in the classroom, from reading to writing and most of all, to attitudes towards these endeavours. After speaking with the class teacher we have been working with, Duncan Reavey commented on how impressed he was with the work we had implemented so far. He mentioned the teacher was 'brimming with compliments' at how well we were doing, how professional we are and the impact we were having. This was amazing to hear, to know everything we were implementing was actually working on a day-to-day level was fantastic. Tracey Haggar, a member of staff at the University and a parent of a child in the class, also wished to inform us at how much her daughter is enjoying the project and looks forward to seeing us each week. More pride in our work has grown into now Ms SUPER Proud!!! This is just what we needed to keep us motivated and engaged as we enter the last few weeks of term, we are excited for our guests and more rewards to our hard work!

As noted by Mary Angelou “All great achievements require time.” so lets keep or fingers crossed and wait to see if we are just as proud come May...

Writing Wall Challenge Number One

The writing wall challenge has begun...

Last week we created a display in the classroom which we have called the 'Writing Wall Challenge'. The idea behind this is to set the children a writing challenge every 2 - 3 weeks.

We are hoping that a challenge will excite the children and help to inspire some of the more reluctant writers.

The first challenge was to write a 100 word 'drabble' which is a story based on a picture (shown below). The story has to be emotive and make the reader want to read more.


                              


We took inspiration from the 100 Word Challenge website which states that:

'by setting a limited word count with a focused theme and a guaranteed audience beyond the class teacher, children have far greater motivation for writing. Those who are reluctant writers feel safe with only 100 words to write, whilst those more advanced writers can really extend themselves with the word restriction'

(100 WC, 2012)

100 Word Challenge  - link to website.

We are hoping to develop the writing challenges we set the children which may include a word or sentence prompt, a mystery to solve or decoding a book in another language.

Examples of the children's drabbles