My article published in the TESS, about my work on the Read, Write, Count campaign and the effect of building up engagement with books and stories.
Monthly Archives: November 2016
Read, Write, Count – Launch Event & Family Learning
Continuing my work with the Scottish Book Trust I was offered the chance for our school to be the first in Scotland to receive their Read, Write, Count bags and to be a pilot school designing innovative approaches to launching the scheme.
I led the P2 and P3 teams to run a 3 week project leading up to the gifting of the bags and organised a gifting party for 175 children and their families!
To keep the Read, Write, Count scheme alive in our school I am now running monthly Read, Write, Count family learning sessions for children in P1, P2 and P3 and their parents to support reading, writing and counting together.
My blog and videos about about the event is on the SBT website here and more information about my Family Learning Sessions can be found here .
Scottish Learning Festival – Picture Books Across the Curriculum
I was asked by Emma Lamont from the Scottish Book Trust to give a seminar at the Scottish Learning Festival about the projects I had designed and led to promote the use of picture books to engage your whole school community.
I gave a presentation about the Chae Strathie Puppet Project and about my work on the launch of the Read, Write, Count campaign.
Puppets! A way to scaffold engagement with narrative.
I was asked by the Scottish Book Trust to be an Authors Live Teacher Champion and lead a project to promote the use of the BBC/SBT Authors Live broadcasts in classrooms.
I designed and led an interdisciplinary project involving all 3 of our P2 classes using puppets and puppet making to support engagement with the work of Scottish children’s author Chae Strathie.
My case study about the project is showcased on the Scottish Book Trust website.
Making space for mistakes.
A second growth mindset article published in the TESS, this time with a numeracy focus.
Collette Collects – a number bonds story book…
I wrote a book! And then a wrote a blog post on Pedagoo.org about it!
Read all about it at http://bit.ly/ColGoo
Learning about learning.
An article about teachers as learners and growth mindset. Published in the TESS.
Pippi Longstocking
In Autumn 2015 we ran an ‘Around the World’ IDL project in P2 with each class taking on a particular country. My class studied Sweden and I used the books of Astrid Lindgren as a focus for this period. To add another dimension to the learning I joined an e-twinning project celebrating the 70th anniversary of Pippi Longstocking.
Music for Sweet Harmony
My piece in the TESS about how I use music in my classroom.
Should schools be voting for politics?
I gave a short presentation at the 2015 GTCS National Probationer Event about a project I had designed for my P2 class based on a fantastic book called ‘Cakes in Space’ by Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre. The book provided a basis for a whole term of work combining technologies, art and design, dance, drama, literacy and maths.
The TESS picked up on the fact that the project had coincided with the Scottish Independence Referendum and that we had held an interplanetary referendum to decide whether, if we were moving to another planet (like the characters in the book), we would take the rule book with us from Earth or make up our own rule book when we got there.
