Merging the explicit with the imagined

 For those that have been following my journey, you will know that it started with play and a massive passion for drama (mantle of the expert in particular.) Number Agents was born out of this, a brilliantly effective way to bring maths to life in an imagined, but very authentic world.  

My book Number Agents if available through my TPT store and it explains all the ins and outs and whys of this world.  

Last year (as you will know if you have been following this journey) I encountered a class where more than half had entered school with significant developmental needs that I needed to meet, they also had challenges when it came to number, particularly around numerosity...deep understanding of quantity.

There are quite a few posts on here about my scope and sequence, so I won't bore you here.  However I was primed to make a change for my children because structured literacy had been part of my journey for a few years at this point.

While I loved teaching through agency and embraced the use of problem solving, I just didn't feel this group of children were ready to work in this way, they needed stronger foundations in number first.

I learned a lot about dyscalculia and big ideas in mathematics and out of that my scope and sequence was born.  I had been using numicon for a while and loved this too.  My scope and sequence is also available in my TPT store.  Again this will be a never ending journey and I already have a few sessions to add into the current version.  Good news...if you have purchased it already, any change I make will be available to you.

So for a bit I had to step away from my loved approach and start teaching maths in a structured and explicit manner, because I knew this was what my children needed.

This year I have continued on with this group of children and we are about a term away from finishing.

This is where the point of this post comes in.  This term I felt my children were ready to launch into an agency, but also needed to continue working through the scope and sequence.  I knew that I didn't have time to do a full blown agency and work through the scope and sequence, so I needed to come up with an abridged way of making this happen for my children.

So having the deep understanding of Agency standing me in good stead, I broke it down to the main features that needed to be included to make the magic happen.

Hopefully you can read the bones of agency that I worked from to merge the world of the imagined, with the world of the explicit and structured.

1) Hooking in - children needed to believe in this world (this is remarkably easy in a play based class)

This was as easy as a portal appearing on the wall and excited discussion about what this might mean, over a few days the portal grew and morphed a little and these changes were noticed by the children, with their imaginations taking over.  Because we had been reading about the enchanted wood, the idea of another world quickly became an overwhelming and exciting idea.

After a week the portal had a plea for help attached, this basically said the people of the worlds connected to the portal needed a team of experts to help deal with a mischief maker.  The children worked out the green light meant the portal was connected to a world, when it was red it was not connected.

The pretence is that the worlds connected to the portal change (just like the worlds at the top of the enchanted tree)

2) The idea of us being an expert team.  The children leapt in this easily and readily let the people of the portal know that we can help.

3) Building the narrative.  With the portal established, it was just left to build the narrative.  This was largely done through this thank you letter.  The people of this portal become our clients.  So established as a team of experts, with clients and problems to come, our abridged agency is established.  The beauty of this is that the portal can be used for other curriculum areas.

The children met Gaza after the first problem was delivered.  He loves pattern problems, but the beauty of this approach is Gaza is not always responsible...meaning our problems can be directly written to fit with our scope and sequence focus.

The portal opens 1-3 times a week and problems take us 15-20 minutes.

This video is an example of how a problem is posed in agency.

This term I plan to introduce a couple more characters...one that wants us to find fives in a specified group and one who wants us to come up with five ways of making an amount.  But I will play this by ear.  On the days that I am not in the class (two) my release teacher introduces other problems related to her focus, which this term was around fractions.

So the explicit world has merged beautifully with our imagined world.  I guess my point here is that the two ways of working can go together beautifully.  I believe structured, explicit teaching and teaching through play are symbiotic.  They go together and complement each other perfectly.  

So if you are wanting to launch into agency, read the book so you understand the ins, outs and whys.  If you are lacking in time or needing to run an explicit structured approach, then it is possible to run an abridged agency when children have solid foundations.

Looking forward to Term 3!