To begin with, the first image is of my class on the night of the primary production. As I call them ‘My Bumblebees’, they were dressed for their role in the production The Jungle Book. They were really excited and shared their experience and feelings with the class during their circle time, the next day, which was a sort of reflection for the preps.
The focus for the reading, this term was books written by Pamela Allen. I had read three Pamela Allen books to them and a follow-up lesson with activities allowing the students to reflect on their understanding of the book ‘Who Sank the Boat’? the students comprehended with the activities and demonstrated their understanding really well.Â
Reflecting on my prior and current literacy experiences, most of them have been really good. I have taken lessons on making inferences, holiday recounts, procedural texts, narrative writing, literal comprehension, and handwriting. I enjoyed teaching the reading inference lesson, as I could see the students engaged and comprehending to the lesson requirements. Similarly, the prep students had to write about their grandparents (for the writing lesson), and I was mesmerised by the beautiful ideas the students came up with (the second image above).Â
Something that bothered me or I would say I was not comfortable doing was using a book to teach the grade three students about pronouns. The school used the grammar books but they were limited in context and contained numerous closed-ended questions. Thus, narrowing down the scope of language and the conventions. The sole motive was to finish the number of pages in the textbook and there was no opportunity for assessment.
But overall, I have had a positive teaching and learning experience, especially in terms of the literacy strand and feel confident in teaching both literacy and numeracy.
