Tag: primary
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#10 Nature Journals
Keeping a nature journal is a fantastic way to learn about the natural world. It encourages children to ‘slow down’, stop and look at things more closely. Nature journals are a creative and fun way to engage children in a combination of art, science and writing – and it doesn’t require many resources at all.…
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How I do it: Let’s Write for Pleasure!
I, like many others, have been a huge advocate of Reading for Pleasure for many years now, but Writing for Pleasure seems to have slipped the net. We depend on it as the largest indicator of success and progress in learning, yet it doesn’t quite receive the same limelight that reading does. Writing in primary…
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Writing Rivers
I originally saw Jon Biddle‘s excellent Reading Rivers report on the Open University’s Reading for Pleasure website. It stems from an idea originally explored by Pamela Burnard (2002) whereby the ‘river’ was used as a reflective tool to represent key musical experiences. It was then further explored by Gabrielle Cliff-Hodges (2010) with secondary readers and…
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Happy New (school) Year!
The start of a new year always brings a raft of changes and challenges. As teachers, we are constantly reflecting on our own practice but, at times, it’s important to remember not to be too self-critical. Obviously, reflecting on what you would improve is a worthwhile pursuit, but it’s also important to focus on what…
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Encourage creativity, set writing free
‘A love of writing can unlock children’s imaginations, aspirations and academic potential. Yet half of school children tell us they don’t enjoy writing because they struggle with spelling, punctuation, and knowing what to write.’ Jonathan Douglas, Director of the National Literacy Trust Half of children in the UK don’t enjoy writing. Half. I’ve often asked…
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The Day War Came
The Day War Came by Nicola Davies, illustrated by Rebecca Cobb Published by Walker Book, £10 (£1 from each copy sold donated to Help Refugees) Recommended Key Stages: 1 or 2 Year Group: 3+ In 2016, our own government refused to allow 3,000 unaccompanied child refugees to enter the UK. Around the same time, Nicola…
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20 Tools for Teaching Vocab.
If you’ve read my posts about building vocabulary and spelling in a reading rich curriculum, you’ll know that I am keen on instilling a love of reading, an interest in the etymology of words and an inquisitive nature about word origins and meanings. I believe the teaching of spelling and vocabulary should be through fun,…
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Harnessing the Power of Working Walls
When I started out in teaching, it was easy to confuse pinterest-perfect classrooms with those that actually had an impact on learning. As well as being vibrant and welcoming, the classroom environment can also be a valuable learning tool, a way of engaging and supporting children. With careful thought and planning, an effective classroom environment is…
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Getting to grips with Grammar
I became a teacher shortly after my 30th birthday. I had not stepped foot in a primary school for almost 20 years and, to be honest, the grammatical terminology required to teach Year 5 English came as quite a shock. I had done well in my SATs, GCSEs and A-Levels, I’d gone on to achieve…
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Writing for Pleasure Conference
On Friday 13th July, I attended the UKLA’s first ever Writing for Pleasure Conference, hosted at Canterbury Christ Church University. As a huge advocate of writing for and with pleasure, I wanted to find out more about what this might look like in the classroom. The conference featured an introductory talk from Tracy Parvin (UK Literacy Association President),…
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Teachers’ Reading for Pleasure ‘Book Clubs’
To teach reading and writing effectively and enthusiastically, we must be keen readers and writers ourselves. With this in mind, I was looking for opportunities to develop myself as a reader and, through twitter, I stumbled upon the Open University and UKLA Teachers’ Reading Groups. Initially, I thought it was simply a book club led…
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Planning for the Needs of More Able Pupils
Whether or not you agree with the term ‘more able’ or prefer to think of these pupils as ‘high potential’ (or whether you prefer not to label children at all – after all, don’t all children have high potential?), you will inevitably encounter many mixed ability classes in your time teaching Literacy at primary school.…
Literacy with Miss P 