More critical thinking

We have been continuing our focus on meta-cognition in our computer lab time with Grade 3's.  Last week we reviewed the kind of thinkers we learned about in the Critical Thinking for Children videos.  We then had an introduction to the game of chess. The majority of our children have never played chess so this was a great opportunity to introduce the game through a free downloaded chess game for the computer.

Before playing the game I explained the pieces and their moves to the children and then told them  that chess is a great opportunity for players to practice critical thinking. They have to learn to analyze the possible outcomes of every move. The children have taken to the game and they are enjoying the stimulating activity. A lot of them play against the computer but a few have started playing against another player. The advantage of using the computer is they cannot make wrong moves. As a coach it's not easy to watch everyone's moves on a physical board when there are more than two or three games in progress.

This week I set the learners a problem solving exercise. They are given a scenario like this: You are a cave dweller / hunter gatherer and your wife has sent you out on a hunt. You go with five friends. How are you going to get your "kill" home? The animal you shoot is a buffalo. What weapons will you use? The wheel has not yet been invented and you are 5km from home. Describe carefully how you will solve the problem.

This was quite a challenge for the children as they haven't previously heard about hunter-gatherers. It took a while for them to realize they couldn't go and "buy" a knife or a rope. We searched out some images of tools and implements and discussed the size of a buffalo compared to a domesticated cow of today. They then opened a scaffolded document and typed their responses. The last two groups will be doing the activity tomorrow and then I look forward to reading about their strategies.

I am now looking into setting up a wiki to share ideas with teachers globally. I'd love to get some input from inspired and innovative teachers who have some creative suggestions for developing critical thinking in their students.

Learning through Links

Technology is such an amazing tool. My students at school love using the computers to "play"and learn and of course technology is my main source of professional development. I  pick up so many links through Twitter @bhallowes and through my PLN.

One of my favourite weekly chats on Twitter is #edchatsa. It's great to see more and more teachers joining the chat on Monday nights - 8:30p.m to 9:30p.m. The weekly topic is usually published here and anyone can go and vote for the topic they'd like to discuss. A summary of each weeks' discussion are published using Storify, thanks to @fibeal. 

This week was the start of our third term. I am using the next few weeks to explore how we think with the Grade 3's. I am using two child-friendly videos published on YouTube called Critical Thinking for Children. 


The children are responsive and appear to enjoy discussing thinking. of course they all want to be Fair Minded Fran. It's so important for them to understand that to become life-long learners they need to learn to think for themselves.

So my job is exciting. We're looking forward to a great term ahead and I'll try to be more consistent in my postings on this blog. My own reflection is a great learning tool for myself.

Term 2 draws to a close

It's been a wonderful term at Cotswold - busy, but lots of fun.
One of the things I have been able to do this year is give a small group of children from each Grade 1 and 2 class an opportunity to consolidate phonics skills. They open Starfall and use the material at an appropriate level. Those children who suffer from problems with concentration in the classroom get to put on earphones and focus on the programme without distraction. I have not yet worked out a method of assessing the benefit of this method but hopefully we will get there.
The major fundraising activity has been the Spelling Bee. The children had to learn their list of words and on 6 June they wrote the test. There are some great photos on our Facebook page (Cotswold Preparatory School). In their computer lessons they typed their words into a word cloud program and this gave them lots of practice at getting their spellings correct whilst enjoying a novel way of presenting them. A satisfying amount of sponsorship funds was raised.
The Spelling Bee was followed by a Father's Day soccer skills day. The dads (and some mums) came to school on Friday 15th to play games with their children. We had a boerewors and chips sale and it was a great community building day.
In the computer lab the focus has been on the Olympic Games. We are proud of how our wiki is looking. Sadly not many other countries added their information because most are now on their summer break. Our Grade 3's learnt a lot and we will be using wikis again later in the year so we have had a good introduction. The teacher is also on a steep learning curve! Click here for the link to our Global Olympic Project.
Before we started the Olympics project Grade 2V participated in a short project with Global Classroom. It was the Global Lunch Project mentioned in an earlier blog post where children from around the world shared what they bring to school for lunch.
The new CAPS curriculum largely ignores the integration of technology at the foundation phase level so I often feel quite isolated in my work. The teachers are under so much pressure with assessments and keeping up with the compulsory weekly themes that there is little time to think about the integration of technology for teaching and learning. For them, computer lessons mean they have only half of their class for one period a week and it gives them an opportunity to assess one of the many tasks with the other half of the class.
And now we are ready to enjoy our three week winter break. I'm looking forward to the challenges of the new term.

Of Olympics and Learning

Last week the children started learning about the Olympics. One forgets that last time the Olympics were on many of them were only four years old so there isn't much that they remember about that event. The fact that it took place in Beijing in a very different time zone meant that they didn't get to see much of it on TV. It's a whole new world for them. I have set up a project wiki linked to the Global Classroom. It's been exciting to see how many people have visited our site. The grade 3's are beginning to discover what the Games is all about and they've enjoyed watching videos on gymnastics so far. We've also had to gain a rudimentary understanding of time zones and international travel. I'm sure that once the Olympic Games happen they will be excited to watch the events and be quite knowledgeable about such a global event.

Word Clouds for Spelling Practice

The children are preparing for a spelling bee competition next month. The grade 3's have thirty words to learn. This week they used a new way to practice their spellings with ABCya word clouds. Here is a slide show of 3P's work. Please note the programme drops all the capital letters - it's not the children's fault.

Spelling bee word clouds

View more presentations from Brenda Hallowes.

Unfortunately some of the classes didn't get to do the word clouds because of all the public holidays. Perhaps we can try and catch up next week. Enjoy!

Global Project

Today one of our Grade 3 classes is participating in the Global Lunch Table project. This involves joining the wiki and uploading a presentation which shows what children in our school typically bring for lunch. We took some photos and used Microsoft Photo Story to build a slide show. Here is our example.

Giving our children opportunities to produce items for a global audience is a great 21st Century activity.

New challenges

I’ve had a good start to the year in the computer lab. It’s also been exciting as I have been creating a new curriculum for the integration of computers in our school. The grade threes have been working on their project on bullying, grade twos are doing activities on All about Me, computer hardware and Our School.


This year the grade ones seem to be even less sophisticated compared to previous years. The few that have access to computers at home stand out and are very competent but the majority of the children are just learning to use a mouse for the first time. I'm sure that by the end of this term they will be doing well as if they were born with a mouse in their hands.
From now until the end of the term I will not be in the computer lab. I am swopping classes with a colleague who has health issues. I will be taking a grade three class until a new teacher can be appointed for next term. My colleague will be supervising learners in the computer lab and we will be using educational games for this period. There are some great sites like starfall.com and multiplication.com which the children love. We now have a faster, uncapped internet connection which allows us to do this.
I am hoping to get my grade three class blogging. If I do I’ll post a link from this blog. Watch this space….