Sign Language Week (in review)

Our Sign Language guru was incredible and for a number of the poppets - 'inspiring'!

They were so attentive and responsive.
Was surprised to see SH visibly out of her comfort zone - she got used it to with about ten mins to go though :)

Cathy Gutshlag was our guru's name. She rocked!
It was in insight to see how much they participated and learnt in one hour long session.
They want her to come back!

Nile Class has a habit of making me proud when it really counts. They were polite and engaged.

More of these interactions please!

We learnt to introduce ourselves with a sign for my and name and then fingerspelling our names.
We learnt some animals and some colours and the importance of faces in sign - the sign for like and don't like are the same but the facial expression makes the difference. They all seemed to crisp this concept with little effort.

I have been incorporating sign into the week whenever I can - even if it meant introducing myself as a smelly fish!
(Drew taught us a new song about jellyfish which, quite co-incidentally) involved signs and exaggerated body movements!
Loved the silent hands sign language applause for Jason at assembly when he got a Special People's Award!

Assessment Moderation

Today I attended a cluster for moderation.
The session was at St Jo's and I got to sit in one of my previous students desks (it was quite lovely for me!).
The gathering was for my colleagues teaching the same level as me so we could, as a group, try to gain some consistency between our various schools in assessing writing.

It was fun! We all provided samples for the group to score based on the current asTTle marking guide.

Interestingly for our first meeting we were mostly all very close in our marking with the non-majority scoring the mark below or above the majority.

A great result!

I must say I do like the new marking rubric - I think it is practical, has diverse application and provides a more accurate rating of students work.
it is also not to hard to adapt for student consumption.

On a side note - it is stressful for us to attend these things during school time as it means we are all out of our class because we are such a small staff!

Sign Language Week!

This week is NZSL Week!

We have a special guest in class on Tuesday morning, first thing.
Our sign language guru!

I have sprung it on the class rather suddenly, even though I have organised this a long time ago.
I did tell them on Friday, but they sometimes need a few tellings!

I put up a display over the weekend and prompted them to learn to finger spell their names.
One of them found my NZSL book which is old now (! from when I did the course at university!) and has blackened white photos (LOTS) which show a large number and variety of signs.

I have told them she is likely profoundly deaf.
D and Q think they know who it will be - someone they saw at Birchwood. They mentioned high heels and seemed less than positive - but mostly that is just their protective reaction to anything new.

I am looking forward to being a confident role model in this new and unknown (to them) situation!

Places for Mihi!

Useful places name resource  - I am thinking for mihi.

It includes pronunciation and translation.
Need to get this on the blog so students can use it for their mini this term.

The Treaty

Underlying our work this term on developing our learning environment and expectations is the concept of a classroom treaty.
I have attempted to educate about our NZ Treaty in subtle ways as well as direct teaching.

We have the treaty up on the wall (a facsimile) and our classroom treaty relates to this and will be compared to it.

On the list of activities are a few readings and a station activity.

EDIT: We had an excellent impromptu discussion about Wairau that led into discussion about The Treaty and language interpretation and unfairness.

Inanimate Alice

Have had a brief look at this resource which looks to be exciting - especially to engage reluctant readers.

I think only the first "chapters" are freely available. Then resources start costing.

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