Number Agents

This photo got me thinking today: So simple, but there is real depth here.  See that little tower?  Well it is not a tower, it is a sausage toaster.  It toasts sausages really really hot.  It also make them sour.  But it is multipurpose, it can toast other things, but not so hot, and not sour.  Did I expect that explanation, absolutely not, I was limited my adult eye, that simply saw a tour. What an amazing imagination this child has, and what an incredible story it could turn into if she wanted to write it down. This got me thinking.  There is not a lot to this photo...it is not impressive, it is not beautiful, there is nothing remarkable about it.  What is remarkable is what can not be seen, it is the learning inside what appears here in the photo and it is the learning that can then come from it. This got me thinking further...many schools and teachers are so preoccupied with how things look, how amazing things look on the ...

Based on what I have heard in my many discussions with other teachers around the country that want to start a play-based classroom is that there are two my barriers to break down . 1) Management perception of play 2)Parent perception of play If you are anything like me, when you find something that you think will work for your children, you want to jump in boots and all.  Unfortunately we are not an island and there are things to be considered before we begin to make fundamental changes to the way things are done. I believe the key to real, fundamental, systematic change is time.  At our place, when we are embedding change we give ourselves three years.  A finding out year, a trying out year and an embedding year.  Fantastically this links very well to the currently popular spiral of inquiry model.  At our place it is all about trusting hunches and trusting each other....I am well aware that others are not this lucky (sadly) but I still believe fundamental...

Writing is the most asked about aspect of a play-based classroom (well in my experience anyway.) One thing I have to say about writing is that we must be prepared to trust that by using a self-directed play-based approach, we are allowing children to develop the building blocks that will form the foundations of literacy.  These will not be immediately evidenced through work samples, and we have to give children time to establish these building blocks.  We may not see the progress quickly and it may take a LOT of time, but in my experience, when the neurons connect the progress is rapid!  We have to allow ourselves to trust this process and those in management positions need to trust our beliefs and instincts. Writing does not always look the same in our class, but it does have lots of commonalities.  We teach phonics separately and use this when we are talking about writing.  We make it explicit to children that our picture is our story when we start school ...

An online discussion has got the old grey cells turning. Finland is held up as the pinnacle in education and from everything I have seen and read, rightly so.  They respect teachers and respect the children...what a powerful place to start. Some believe that Finland is just so different that it holds little relevance for New Zealand, I disagree.  I think that the fundamental concepts of respect, equity and fun have a lot to teach us. But let's forget about Finland for a moment, I think what we need to do is get back to teaching like New Zealand!  Finland's system has a lot to teach us and there are systematic factors that allows their system to be so effective, systematic features that unfortunately us teachers on the ground have little control over. But we needn't use this as an excuse, we may not be able to change the system, but we can change our schools, it is entirely possible to change our schools positively while still working within our current system. N...

This is not directly about Number Agents and is taken from my professional inquiry blog ----------------------- It is has been entrenched in me that as a new entrant teacher one of my main roles is to teach children to read and write.  In fact I often feel like a failure when I pass children on that are only at emergent level...don't know their alphabet or recognise words.  I worry when they can't write, I feel like I have failed them...I wonder what I could have done differently.  Yet I know how far they have come, I know that when they started that couldn't speak in a sentence, hold a pencil, draw a picture, share with others, take turns, even wipe their bottom in some cases.  So why do I continue to do this, to worry, when all research says it is needless worry. Even after all of the research I have done, after everything I know about the brain, after everything I have read this is still a battle that rages in my mind.  Within the professional discourse ...

Today the Three Headed, Colour Changing Dragon made an appearance.  That is him, hidden under that large question mark. The idea of this villain is that rather than wreaking havoc with clients, it will set challenges for us to solve.  These challenges will have a lovely strand based link and allow the agents to use visual strategies to solve.  This was his challenge today. The agents loved this new addition and this challenge worked really well.  Most chose to use popsicle sticks to represent the problem.  They had some initial difficulty when they joined the squares together mean they were sharing sides. Some chose to draw the squares on their whiteboard (ipad) This activity was really quick and felt incredibly valuable.  It will be a great link to maths eyes. Following that we did some work with the dice. The Knight Adder then paid us a visit and set us the word problem that basically translated to 5 + 4 + 3 ...

This week we have been focusing in on the talk moves a little more.  Cowgirl Calculation has been leading us in this.  Talk moves was one thing that we were introduced to during maths PLD in 2015/16 and I have to admit it is one thing that I struggle to really get going with our age and level.  So this year I am taking it really slow, I want to keep it really basic and have made our number agent talk move poster to reflect this. Cowgirl Calculation role models the clarification of ideas by saying "Thank you agent, so what I am hearing you say is.."  By her role modelling this language I hope that as they progress they will begin to use this language themselves. So far we are only focusing on two things.  We have taught children to say "I think the answer is...because..." and this week we have been focusing on getting agents to reply "I agree with .... because..." or "I disagree with....because..."  As these become embedded we will encourage a...

Another post got me thinking about what I think has been the crucial elements of a play-based classroom that has self-directed play at its heart, but also has teacher directed elements that children are also deeply engaged in. I notice going into Term 2 that our children (almost 30 of them, soon to be over this) are very able to self-direct their play.  They play with a range of people, they create, they invent, they negotiate and they are also keen and engaged during teacher directed sessions, we very rarely have behavioural issues... So why is this, why do I think we've been able to achieve a play-based class that so far ticks along in a lovely balanced way? So I should say first that I am no expert and the way I have set up my play-based class is just me following my gut...I am myself only 18 months into this journey, I am by no means an expert. 1)To begin the year children are just allowed to play...we do not take any specific teacher directed sessions, we just let them...

The first week back went really well.  What I love about play-based learning is that you get a chance to sit back, observe and really think deeply about what is going on and what else you can do.    You get to watch the dynamics and really notice how children negotiate, share and create. Our class is at 28 now....obviously as the class gets bigger you would normally notice a real change in dynamics and perhaps behaviour.  often as the class gets bigger it becomes a little more about management....as in a typical class you try to keep the structure and routine of your 'timetable' class.  Often in a typically run new entrant room you begin to hear 'I can't' you begin to see pockets of children that are really struggling to 'manage' themselves....particularly on the mat. This simply is not the case in a play -based room.  While the numbers have got bigger, really there is little change to management.  The dynamics do start to change as different perso...