Connect 4 with Multiples

Earlier this year, we came across a blog post by Joe Schwartz entitled, 'I Like This Game Because You Have to Think Hard.'

In his blog post, he gave students a blank 100/120 grid for them to fill in trying to get 4 in a row. We saw the benefits of this activity, but currently working in Upper Key Stage Two, our pupils are pretty proficient with numbers between 0 and 100. So, we adapted the idea to make it about times table facts. 

1. Give the children a blank 12 x 12 grid of squares between two.

2. Ensure each child has a different coloured pen/pencil.

3. Children fill in facts on the grid, taking it in turns and trying to get four in a row horizontally or vertically. 

4. Depending on competence, children could have a times table grid on hand to enable them to check each others facts.

Enjoy!

'How To' Diagrams and Dual Coding

As we've previously written, we are trying to implement some of what we learned when reading about Dual Coding. 

Here are some of the posters/guides we've made and used in our Year Six classroom as visual guides for our children to use to support/scaffold their learning.

Days in Months of the Year (editable copy)

Long Division (editable copy)

Mixed Number & Improper Fraction Conversions (editable copy)

Co-ordinates (editable copy)

Ascending/Descending (pdf copy)

They've worked for us. They may be useful to you. See links for editable copies. 

Pupil Stationery Toolkits

At the start of this school year, there was much discussion on social media and forums about methods of providing pupils with their own individual resources (for COVID19 reasons). 

A little later than we hoped to publish this post (we've been a little busy!), but we hope it's useful to someone...

So, here's what we do at our school, how long we've been doing it and why.

Back in 2017, we visited Woodside Primary Academy. As part of our visit, we picked up a number of best practice ideas. One of which was introducing Toolkits. There are a number of reasons we took these on:

- making children accountable for looking after the stationary the school has paid for

- giving them somewhere to store the equipment

- if they move in the classroom or go to work elsewhere, they just pick up the Toolkit and off they go

- we use everything in there quite regularly.

So, what's in there?

- whiteboard & whiteboard pen

- handwriting pen, green biro & HB pencil

- ruler, protractor and scissors

- sky, grass, mud letters and punctuation

- times table grid / 150 'square'

- A B C D voting card

- red, orange, green discs

- spelling cards for high frequency words

- sentence and vocabulary booklet

- grammar knowledge organiser

And, as you may be able to see, each Toolkit and each item in it is numbered according to the child's register number. When found, lost items can be returned to pupils. 

Me, Me, Me

There are wide and ranging ways to 'get to know your new class'. This year, 2020, we wanted to find out about how the children had been since March, were feeling now, what home is like and added in a couple of 'silly' questions too. 

If it's useful, download a copy here.

The Five Uses of a Comma & Dual Coding

 Well, hello again! Our first post since February - it's been an interesting time (COVID19)!

Over August, we've been doing some reading.

Most recently, we have read 'Dual Coding With Teachers' and have used some of what we learned from that reading to adapt a resource we made earlier in 2020.

At a PiXL Event towards the end of 2019, we came across the revelation that 'commas have five uses in written English'.

So, combining both the information from PiXL and Oliver Caviglioli, we created this:

We're going to give it a go in our Year Six classrooms this coming year. We hope it'll improve the accuracy with which our children use commas when writing. 

Firstly, they need to know the 'five uses' and then link them to the images.

Next, we hope the codes can then be used to jog memories and used as teaching points.

We would be the last to claim to be English specialists, so if you have any feedback on our understanding of this element of English, please let us know.

An up-to-date copy of this resource, if it is changed, will always be here. (Typo corrected).

Children Write the Knowledge Organiser

So, you're likely familiar with knowledge organisers and have written your own or downloaded some from online. 

Recently, we've undertaken a Canada study with our Year Six pupils that culminates in the writing of travel brochures. At the start of the work, we were looking for ways to make the children familiar with different parts of the country. In our Year Six, we have four classes; so each class took on the job of researching a different city and producing a knowledge organiser about it that the other classes could then use throughout the term. We linked the sections of the knowledge organiser to end of year geography knowledge expectations. 

In the past year, the good chaps at 'Mr A, Mr C and Mr D Present!' have given us access to their site*. (We'll have another post about them coming soon...) We used knowledge organisers off their site as the basis for this work. 

Firstly, their 'North America' knowledge organiser provided an example text:

Next, on the site there are editable knowledge organisers, so we downloaded one and edited it slightly:

And, the outcome for the city of St.John's, NL came out like this:

At the end, we have knowledge organisers about four Canadian cities, researched and produced by the children themselves. They can now be used by all the children to aid their work.

Studying a new topic? Get the class or classes in your year group to research and present their findings, as a knowledge organiser, for the children all to use at a later date...

*Our access to the 'Mr A, Mr C and Mr D Present PRIMARY SCHOOL · KS2 EDUCATION WEBSITE' was provided free of charge by Mr A, Mr C and Mr D Present. This was not with the purpose or expectation of this blog post being written. This is, as always, the view and opinion of two full-time class teachers/school leaders about something we use in the classroom. 

Calendar for Child's Stickers

Not one for the teachers this time. This one's for the parents...

So, my eldest started Reception in September 2019. Since, she's brought home various stickers (due to her hard work, obviously). We've been looking for somewhere to keep them.

Here's what we've done:

Going forward, I have purchased a 2020 calendar and put it in my daughter's room. If she comes home with a sticker, we'll add it to that date on the calendar. Come 2021, we can reflect on her year... Hopefully, a calendar full of stickers!