Report Time Again

To save time, I recommend the report writer from Ray's Learning. It's quick to download, easy to use and saves hours of mucking around with copy and paste.

http://www.rayslearning.com/report.htm

An Apple Poem

Smooth and round I choose my fruit,
fresh and clean I sniff it
and rub it on my shirt,
just like my dad used to do.
I crunch into the tough skin,
I´m glad that it's quite thin,
and munch my apple-based lunch,
the flesh tastes sweet,
until I meet,
a bitter pip
which I push out onto my lip
and spit,
onto the floor,
right NEXT to the bin.

Sal Thomas

Paul Klee Inspired Abstract Portraits

The idea was taken from the Art Projects for Kids Website. This is a simple whiteboard presentation for a short art project on abstract portraits. I used it near the end of our pastels unit and contrasted this work with the still life work we had done previously.

Find it here.

Guiding Reading Organisation Wheel

This is how I manage my Guided Reading Sessions. The Children are grouped in 5 ability groups. The reading wheel shows the children what they need to do each day.

Motivating Readers

How to motivate those lazy readers? I have never come up with a truly satisfactory answer to this question. I remember a fair amount of gawping at pictures, skimming lines and seeing how long I could hold my book upside down when I was at school. Who knows how much reading is done at home! So below I have outlined the strategy which I will implement in my class next week.

Children carefully choose an appropriate book from the library on Monday. On the following Monday names are drawn from a hat. Each chosen child must answer 5 questions on their book of choice. If 4 out of 5 are answered correctly a prize can be given and the whole reading group is awarded.

We will see how this works.

Additional ideas:
Put children into differentiated teams. Pick one member from each team to answer questions each week.
Pick children at the beginning of the week to present book reviews the following week.

Possible problems:
Finding suitable questions in a short enough time from longer books.
Ensuring questions are unguessable but appropriate for ability.

Measures of success:
Talk to parents of key children.
Give children a questionnaire.

Multi-publisher Book Band Overview KS1

This is an overview of the KS1 Book bands and some of the more common reading schemes from the major publishers.

I have included the Oxford Reading Tree, various Usborne Schemes, Collins Big Cat and Pearson Schools and Colleges New Reader 360.

The list also links NC Levels and Ages. All of these are approximate and to be used with care.

NC Level	Age	Book Bands	Oxford Reading Tree	Usborne Very First Readers	Usborne First Reading	Collins Big Cat	New Reader 360
Working Towards NC 1						0 – Lilac (Wordless)
	4-5	1 – Pink	Stage 1	Very First Reading 1-4/		1 – Pink	1
			Stage 1+
		2 – Red	Stage 2	Very First Reading 5-7/	First Reading  Level One	2 – Red
NC Level 1C		3 – Yellow	Stage 3	Very First Reading 8-9/ Phonics Readers		3 – Yellow	2
NC Level 1C – 1B	5-6	4 - Blue	Stage 4	Very First Reading 10-13	First Reading  Level Two	4 - Blue	3
NC Level 1B		5 - Green	Stage 5	Very First Reading 14-15	First Reading  Level Three	5 - Green
							4
NC Level 1A		6 - Orange	Stage 6		First Reading  Level Four	6 - Orange
							5
NC Level 1A – 2C	6-7	7 - Turquoise	Stage 7		First Reading  Level Five	7 - Turquoise
2C		8 - Purple	Stage 8			8 - Purple	6
2B/2A		9 - Gold	Stage 9		Young Reading Series One	9 - Gold
2A	7-8	10 - White	Stage 10		Young Reading Series Two	10 - White	7
3C		11 - Lime	Stage 11			11 – Lime