Marama Biggest Reader

The Biggest Reader Article-Great article explaining how it works.

I was looking for new ideas around reading and reading at home and this is a fun way to encourage reading but is based on time they read for rather than the amount they read. It is done in learning teams and at the end of the week we tally up the teams total reading time for the week to find a winner.

Island Bay School Wellington

Key ideas from Island Bay School

• Dogs in the classroom-Yay! Great way to see students caring for animals.
• Growth mind set-this was something new and exciting to Marama this year so it was really interesting seeing it at Island Bay. They had really positive 'kids talk' ideas for each.
• An integrated curriculum- Having an inquiry focus e.g- relationships, then using the arts, Literacy and maths to make more connections with their learning.
• P.E & Health, Science, Technology and Science as the driver of inquiry and then integrate the other areas of the curriculum through this. 
• Guardian group-like our homerooms. 
• First an idea. then new learning and then understanding.
• Karen-staff member who works a lot with inquiries. For example-refugees setting up a display in the learning hub/library, plants/nature-organising plant boxes and gardens etc. Awesome to work along side with teachers when working on inquiries and passion projects. 
• Prove it-I like this idea of learning and understanding something then proving it. 

Marama Wellington Trip-Russell Street School

Russell Street School-Palmerston North


                       

WOW What a school! Russell Street School was a great place to visit. The school was very friendly and welcoming. We met with  Nick and Elly who told us more about the school.

The visit was really insightful to see how other schools run different programmes. It was great to talk more about reading and see what they do. This year for reading I made a survey for the Marama students to fill in so I could learn more about them as a reader and so they could choose what books they wanted to read. At Russell Street school they got the students to choose 3 books they wanted to read and went from there. They also had a class blog where the teachers set up a goal for each day with a video to prompt them. This was really awesome in the way that as teachers we talk about little things throughout the day that may need working on and having a goal like this is a great and manageable way to do this. The students also have their own twitter accounts which means they can tweet their reflection for their goals just before lunch.

Other ideas:
*Book Bash
*Reading survey
*Reading workshops
*Workshop presentations
*Chook pen
*Goal of the day
*Team blog
*Art Fairies
*Buddy classes