Plastic Wallet Organisation

I like being organised, I like lessons to run smoothly and that's just the way I am. I've always placed resources for the day in the middle of the table, so that when they're needed, the children can easily access them. However, I've often got frustrated when children make a mess (shocker) of these piles while looking for the sheet I want them to use. A solution came my way when I saw what was happening in another classroom (thank you Mrs. M.)...

1. A coloured plastic wallet per subject (for me; English, maths and other).

2. Enough plastic wallets for one per table.

3. At the start of the day, fill the relevant wallet with the relevant resources.

4. Place on the table.

5. At the appropriate time, ask the children to take the contents out of the relevant wallet.

6. They can even be used at the end of the lesson if anything needs collecting!

Simple, effective, tidy and efficient. 

What? No Date?

A few years ago, I can't remember where it came from (happy to reference if there is a source), we were asked to stop writing the date on the board each day.

Why?

Encourage children to 'know the date each day'.

Improve their independence.

Improve their spelling of days and months. 

Result?

Children use TV, newspapers, tables etc. to find out the date (like adults do).

Children are still able to date work and know what day /date it is.

Rather than just simply copying from the board, those who find spelling of days and months more challenging need to think more about, and remember, these words.

In addition, I save about 30 seconds per day, over 190 days. That's 80 minutes back per year! 80 minutes!

The Backwards Video Task

Last year, we wrote about 'Television - Beaming Ideas into your Livingroom!' We'll, the TV watching has come up trumps once again... 

While watching Taskmaster on Dave, I saw the following task being carried out by the contestants (audio not appropriate for a primary school classroom):

The concept is brilliant. Film something, that is impressive when watched in reverse. Below is the video we came up with...

As part of our start of year; group work, English teaching and getting to know equipment activities we gave the children in Year Five this same task. They worked in groups, thought about and planned their video before then going through the technological steps to complete the task.

An example of the planning sheet is below and some of the finished examples can be viewed here.

 

For our implementation of it, we used iPad devices to film, iMovie app to edit and Reverser - Backwards Video Maker with Reverse Cam app to reverse the video. If we find other ways of reversing videos, we'll update this post.

@PrimaryIdeas that's brilliant! Really glad to have helped in some way...

— Alex Horne (@AlexHorne) September 7, 2015