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All ready for the first week of agency proper

I'm really happy how the last few weeks have gone.  Children are super excited to be in agency and thanks to seesaw I think their parents probably have more of an idea of what they have been talking about :)  

So my planning for the first week is done (I only teach three days a week, so that is why there are only three days)  

I have no idea how it will go yet, each class is different and this year will be the first year I have used the professor in the form of a puppet.  Usually I go into role as the professor and will be interested to see if the buy in is better or not.  The professor comes in to teach 'required' knowledge or strategy and until I get a gauge on where they are at a little more, I will just work on the basics, which I believe along with a good foundation of number sense are incredibly important.  


I will also be using Cowgirl Calculation for the first time to explore the agent talk moves.  I always find this one of the hardest things to incorporate into problem solving and am hoping this puppet will help me with this.



I will be using Agent Eyes right from the beginning this year, which is something I discovered towards the end of maths PLD.   I am hoping that over time they will get better at exploring visual problems.  I also think this will really help to make strand based links.  I also have a sneak suspicion that I may start to see these things appear through play.


My first weeks planning is here.  This should work as a view only document as it is an open link.

The image I am using this week is here.  This is an editable link and I am happy for you to add any thoughts your agency also has...it will be interesting to see what they say.  My hope is that we can start making agency connections throughout NZ and our agents can then start linking up with one another....wow think of the authentic writing and oral language contexts in that!

My class this year is based on much more significant amount of time spent in student led play.  We spend the majority of our day in student led play and when we finally finish swimming we will have even more time!  

I am not an expert at play-based learning and would never ever presume to be so.  I have a lot to learn.  I know that Number Agents is not student led play in any shape or form.  However I do believe it fits well in MY programme, and can exist beautifully into programmes like mine.  Number Agents is a playful approach.  It harnesses imagination and creativity and feels like a natural extension of their play.  In fact they take so much of Number Agents back into their genuine child-led play that it is sometimes hard to separate it.  It is almost like in my class they become symbiotic.  

Through my student-led play I have noticed children have become a lot more visual and a lot more perceptive.  This should really help Number Agency.


And so we have our Top Secret Files Ready in our Confidential File Box....







We have our map of NZ with the villains ready to be discovered...


I don't know who is more excited...me or the children....ha ha I think we might be equally excited. 

 Perhaps I am naive to believe it is me leading this...I think it is them leading me down a very very exciting track!  You know what..I love that!


Number Agents is our name,
Solving problems is our game,
If you hear a villain near,
Call us quick and we'll be there!

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