Extending from and inviting in play, literacy and mathematics (along with all the other stuff)

In my facebook group, I recently asked if people had burning questions they would like me to answer.  I thought I would write a very short series of blog posts addressing these, thinking they might be useful for others too.

The first question I wanted to touch on was this one:

"How you extend from your whole class sessions into learning through play in other parts of the day in different open ended provocations with the suggestion or invitation to incorporate certain maths lessons currently being worked on."

I posted a couple of sample days in my group, but thought they may also be interesting within this post to give concept to what our days look like.

For those wanting to know more about our days and how they are structured. Firstly every day can be quite different. I have a list of things I want to achieve in the week and work from there.

I start by plotting out the day in terms of must do, want to do and any tier two extra individuals I want to work with. I aim to see my tier two children (literacy) at least three times a week, more if possible. Through the day I make notes and tick things off, anything not done gets carried over.

Here’s how today went:

We started with a photo taken from our play last week. This is two pronged, to expand on their interests and build knowledge a vocabulary. It’s also a good link to learning about what a question is and ultimately will link back to our writing.

We then went to play.

After this we came together to visit again with our noticing slideshow, today recreating the patterns, talking about what was happening and learning how this can be represented in abstract form.

Play - then snack - part of a chapter from our class story. (Amelia Jane)

Part one of our literacy - whole class

Play - one check in, one tier two

Part two of our literacy - whole class

Play - morning tea

Part three of our literacy

Video on reptiles

Play - another tier two

Lunch playing

Lunch eating - rest of our chapter

Play - catch up with my more independent group, practicing how they keep a record of the books they’ve read

Tidy up

Library bus

Syntax - colourful semantics - who and do, nouns and verbs

Number blocks

Home

Another glimpse into the ‘flow’ of our day.

Before the day started I nabbed a couple of children for literacy goal check ins. (we run these individually to ensure children are being met where they are at and so we can keep track of any needs that pop up.)

We started our day with part one of our literacy, phonemic, phonics, word reading. We then moved straight into our handwriting, repeated exactly from yesterday and already a big improvement.

We then moved to play for half an hour, I mingled and then caught up with a two tier child and a check in.

Snack time just before ten, read another chapter of Amelia Jane and then moved into part two of literacy. Spelling words and writing a sentence. Remembering what a sentence needs to have. Practicing our fluency poem, learning to perform it line by line and working on prosody. This poem is then woven throughout our day and will be used a little like talk for writing approach. This will run over several weeks.

Play for another half hour and I caught up with another tier two child then a check in and a mingle.

Morning tea.

We came back in to work on our noticing patterns to ten based on our slideshow. Again focused on whole to part, the meaning of equals and adding one.

Twenty minute play then part three of our literacy, reading sentences then doing our paper text comprehension. Focus on prosody as well. Children move if to practice the sentences and illustrate them. As children finish they find a ‘just right for me’ decodable and practice.

Lunch playing. Had to shoo them out eventually because they didn’t want to stop reading.

Eat and read a chapter from Amelia.

Play or read, tidy, swim at 2.00pm

2.30 circle discussion about skinks to link in with our focus yesterday. Some lovely vocab discussion. A child has brought a dead skink to school, so we all had a close look. He shared some excellent facts.

Pack up - home

another busy day, but some lovely weaving, I had wanted to do more SEL learning but didn’t get there today.

An example of a day, the initial plan in blue with my scribbles added on throughout the day.

Basically there are core components of our day around math and literacy that remain the same. I only teach three days a week, so it is important I make the most of my time here. Other than that, our days are pretty fluid. I do not have a timetable, and our day flows through the things that I need to get done and the things I'd like to get done. As with any school, there are days where we have so many alternative things on, things are simply shelved for the next.

If you are familiar with my class and the way we do things, our whole class sessions max out at 15 minutes. We call them bite sized, and quite frankly time spent is often contingent on the mood of the class. Our whole class sessions for scope and sequence (maths) are often divided into even smaller amounts over the day, it just depends on the day really. The way I encourage them to 'think' about mathematics in their self-directed play is through reflection (based on a previous lesson with images in our journal, or photos of play that involved maths the previous days.) Children are naturally curious and if they see another child exploring a concept, they are more likely to join in, or spark something of their own. This can be invited, simply by leaving the equipment out, an image up on screen or through a declarative statement at the end of the session "I wonder if..." "What else can we find out..."

Inspiring math play from our problem solving is even easier. Because the portal worlds are something that children feel intrigued by, connected to and quite responsible for, they will leap into this play following a session. One taking on my role, others getting out the whiteboards and equipment, while others stand in as the characters, using the puppets. The problems they create usually revisit the one that we had solved that day. Again leaving some equipment out, invites further exploration. I also find children love big bits of paper, big bits of paper seem to inspire a load of connected play.

Literacy is even easier to inspire. I find children quite naturally seek out what we would say is 'literacy' as they develop and experience success in class based situations. The more success they experience, the more they grow and develop, the more they will seek out these tasks. When it is developmentally within their range of abilities to independently seek out activities they will. I find as the year goes on, we have a lot of letter writing to the portal, a lot of self instigated stories, lots of sign making for puppet shows and cafe menus, lots of instructions and cards. Simply taking photos of their play and sharing it as part of our learning journal is enough to inspire more of this play during their self-initiated time.

Of course, talk is always part of a classroom based on a play pedagogy, as is the development of fine and gross motor skills, all important building blocks of literacy.

I find the best thing to invite is declarative statements, not questions, or demands, but curious wonderings.

Discussions that take the form of reflection, knowledge building, picture books (anything really that is focussed) is enough to inspire play. A short discussion about professions, such as scientists, vets etc will often see a flurry of play related to this context. Sometimes it deepens, sometimes it is a flash in the pan. Again taking photos and using them for reflection, will inspire more play.

Simply provide the environment, the bits and pieces for props and children will do the rest really. Don't get stuck in the cycle of putting out beautiful provocations only to be frustrated when children use them for completely different things than intended. If planning a specific invitation, a picture book, a puppet and some paper can inspire a lot. I find the equipment in our class that inspires the most open ended play is old keyboards. They become just about anything in a class that uses play as a pedagogy.